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it had been in the works for a couple weeks, and apparently yesterday was the day that everyone could make it.  so it was a birthing class reunion.

all your favorite characters were there, and this time, with offspring.  naturally, i was afraid that the capt would just sit and cry the whole time. so we gave him a very long nap before the trip over to the instructor’s house. actually when we were letting him sleep we watched a show on the discovery channel on pumpkin chucking, or punkin chucking. fascinating stuff. turns out that this shit happens right over the bay bridge (well sorta) in deleware–and it’s happening next week. we’re seriously thinking of going. it looks pretty fun, people stand in a field,while other people line up these overly complex  machines to throw pumpkins 3/4rds of a mile. brilliant! anyone interested in caravaning over?

so anyway we loaded up all the gear and headed over to the instructor’s house. we were the second to arrive behind the pikesvilles. you’ll recall that they actually had their baby a bit early, so i figured he’d be all developed and stuff, you know walking and talking and shit. well, that was not the case, and imagine our surprise that the captain, who is a month or so younger, is actually heavier than the young pikesville. and then the questions started (from both us and them). "how much does he sleep?" ‘does he sit quietly" all that sorta stuff. just about then the captain decided to have a low level meltdown. so natty went on duty walking him around and trying to get him to quiet down. i then found, after the questions, i didn’t have much to say to the pikesvilles, so things got a bit awkward, thankfully the instructor’s husband came downstairs with their 1 year old, so he took up some of the awkward silence.  meanwhile the young pikesville was sitting, quietly taking it all in.

the christians then arrived, their baby is only 10 weeks or so old, so tiny tiny. the first thing i noticed was the baby’s nose, and the second thing was that she was not wearing any socks. the nose thing, well i guess that’s par for the course-she has her father’s nose, ok no biggie, but i’m actually concerned about the socks thing. my immediate thought was, "good god, it’s 50 degrees out (which it wasn’t) get some socks on that kid–it’s gonna freeze to death, these people are terrible parents!"

now this is upsetting to me on several levels. (time for an ordered list)

1. ok i guess i’m not comfortable with my new found dadesque powers of perception. i swear, i was like a spidey sense…dingding ding something’s wrong here…i.. oh no SOCKS!
2. how fun is the rest of my life gonna be if the first thing i notice about shit is if feet are sufficiently covered?
3. who am i to judge other people’s parenting…i mean isn’t my butterball the one that is screaming all the time.

so the instructor had a ‘tea time’ theme going, and she made some incredible tea related foods and such, it was really good. i’ve never been to an official high tea, well maybe i have, we were in england when i was seven, i don’t remember much for some reason, beyond stonehenege and a few castles. what was interesting to me were the questions about the tea theme from the peanut gallery. it’s like they were challenging the instructor on her choices for tea foods and shit. it was particularly bizarre b/c everyone admitted that they had never been to a tea before. i guess my point is, if you haven’t done something, either enjoy it, or shut up about it or something, but it’s weird to say "oh i’ve never had this thing before….is this really authentic?"

so then the R’s showed up and everything got down bidness. So i’ll spare you the details, but it seems that we had one of the easier birthings out of the bunch. the r’s were in labor for 3 days or something, the christians had a nightmare story which included near accidents on the way to the birthing center, puking after every contraction, baby being born with arm next to head (tearing mrs. c) baby not breathing for 45 seconds after birth, and mrs c bleeding and giving mr c the "what ever happens it’s god’s plan/i’m gonna die" speech. henry’s little poison episode doesn’t sound so stressful to me now.

so it was great to hear that other people’s kids don’t really cry all that much. oh sure none of them sleep through the night, but it sounds like people are not having to deal with the major meltdowns that the captain likes to lay on us. it’s hard to not start thinking like you’re doing something wrong in the parenting department when your kid is the only one that one calm down and just chill out lie everyone else’s. oh well. at least this opens a whole new world of worry and anxiety for me, i had been running out of traditional things to get all worked up about in the wee hours of the morning. now i can worry about how my kid will be the one with the bucket on his head ramming things like in the parenthood movie.

so i was excited for the reunion to see if there’d be any really awkward social moments. there was one, where the christians asked the pikesvilles if they had a bris. i know the PC alarms went off all over the place when that came up, sadly i had the boy and he was crying so i didn’t catch the true awkward spirit of the moment.

so i’ve been plugging away with the new would be super camera, and i’m starting to get somewhere with the settings and shit so i’m not gonna send it back i don’t think. the movie mode on it is pretty slick, though i’ve been trying to capture the capt’s new noises and shit and in the process have taped myself talking to him in a very high pitched baby talk voice that i didn’t know i had. it’s very very very upsetting. this might explain why he’s a spaz. i dunno i will have to destroy all evidence of this, that i can assure you.

oh well, lame post, but at least i got it done on monday.

happy halloween everyone.