grandma

"Is this normal?" - this is the question put to me every 5 seconds by the new parents whether it was the baby's lower lip quivering while it cried, or as his face turned beet red when it cried, or whether it was the black poo on his diaper. Among other questions I had to field from them are...

"Why is he crying?"
"Why isn't he crying?"

And my years and years of parenting experience comes in really handy at this time and I finally feel really appreciated by my daughter. For once I have done something right in her eyes.

Sunday morning I got a call from my son-in-law. It was a call I had been preparing for - for a couple of weeks now.

"We're on the way to the hospital."

"Wow! Great! So pick me up on your way there." I'm a five minute walk from their house.

"We're nearly at the hospital." son-in-law explained.

I hung up the phone. "Damn" I complained to Hubby. "Why didn't they stop by to pick me up?"

I figured they must have been rushing badly and this wasn't a false alarm. Turns out the happy couple's car had a flat tire on the way (that's for NOT picking up the mother :-) ) and had to ambulance it to the hospital. I got there an hour later and acted as her labor coach, who also wasn't around at that early hour. Labor coaching wasn't bad. In fact, I think I was a kick-ass labor coach. We figured out good positions for my daughter during her labor and helped her throughout her ordeal so she didn't need an epidural, and she told me to "shut up" only twice. A couple of hours later, this adorable little baby boy was born into this world.

Relatives from overseas called up to give congratulations and my daughter hadn't a clue who they all were.

Her hubby's relatives all showed up that evening. I took all their flowers and put them in plastic canisters I saw on the countertop. The room began to stink of pee after a while, until we realized that those plastic canisters were not really for flowers after all. Oops.

My brother showed up the next day with his wife, sharing with us their birth and labor stories.

"This kid has it easy now. Too bad he's gonna have to grow up in THIS country." brother chuckled.

My daughter's roommate was a Palestinian mother which we figured out as soon as we heard them speak Arabic. My kids laughed at me knowing I was going to make a special effort to introduce the two new mothers to each other. I think in many cases like this, the "roommates" pretend the other doesn't exist and no effort is made to speak to one another. Sad. But of course, you know me. I offered her roomie chocolates, food, etc. and it turns out she is a nurse in another hospital. I pondered over the fact that these two little boys will be growing up so differently. And wished that perhaps one day, their lives will be more or less the same - for the better of course.