Toulouse and Tonic

My son, Meyer, is engaged.

I happily accept all of your congratulations and mazel tovs.

I also freely admit that he is only a few months old, just met his fiance and drooled in her general direction for the first time this weekend, and is quite some time away from being able, physically even, to say “I do.”

But those are minor details.

Meyer’s fiance is named Ellen.

He was born on January 31.

She is a Leap Day baby.

Meyer was born 3 months premature, and I’m convinced he came early just because he wanted to be older, not younger, than his intended.

It probably goes without saying that Ellen is the daughter of one of my very best friends.

Someone who’s like family to me.

So what’s so wrong with me wanting to make that family title official?

Granted, I’m not considering any say Meyer might want to have in the matter of his future life partner.

And although I was the kind of independent, stubborn child who would’ve gone postal over the mere suggestion that my parents would choose what cereal I would eat in the morning, much less my future husband, I’ve rethought the idea of arranged marriage as an adult.

And I think it’s just peachy.

In fact, Ellen’s mother and I talked rehearsal dinners (I’m thinking luau) and possible destination weddings (I suggested Hawaii; she thought budget-friendly Cancun) this past weekend.

We also began to take all the cutesy photos of them together that will elicit the most passionate oohs and aahs during their rehearsal dinner slide show.

In fact, we put them naked in a baby bathtub together Saturday night for absolutely no other reason except to take their picture together for said slide show.

The whole event will be simply fabulous.

I just hope Meyer’s not one of those kids that’s all into FREE WILL and crap like that.

After all, mother knows best.

And what’s best for him is to know that his own family and his wife’s family will love each other and get along swimmingly.

In fact, unlike most husbands, he won’t even need to worry about dividing up his holidays. We’ll just do them together as one big happy family.

After meeting delightful baby Ellen for the first time, I’m really not worried that Meyer will choose to mess up my lovely arrangements for him.

There’s no way he’ll be able to resist falling in love with that face.

And once his mom and I get the wedding plans finalized, which should be within the year, we can get right to work picking out names for their children.

After all, I didn’t get to use any of those baby girl names I’ve picked out over the years.

Yep. I’ve got my eye on someone for Asher too.

I reject your modern times. Bahahahahahaha!

baby Meyer

I’m doing a lot of weird things lately I never pictured myself doing.

One of those things is spending time in the NICU visiting my newborn baby, mostly sitting beside his incubator staring at him and sticking my hand in to cradle his head. It feels pretty strange to have a baby, then go home without him. And not be able to hold him. And have to drive to a hospital to see him.

And then there’s the constant pumping of the breast milk, which is really confusing to my boobs since they can’t seem to locate the baby they’re making milk for.

The other weird thing I thought I’d never do again is, ahem, go to Chuck E. Cheese.

Which I did Saturday.

For some reason, I find it embarrassing to even admit it.

Apart from their less-than-mediocre pizza, deafening noise level, embarrassingly pitiful “stage show”, and the constant spread of rhinovirus to every available surface by grimy little hands, I guess it’s not so bad.

But sometimes, as a mom, you find yourself doing a lot of things you never thought you’d do.

Like getting excited about going to a new playground.

Freezing your butt off at a Christmas parade just to see a dime-store Santa ride by on a float after enduring 2 hours of baton twirlers and giant cartoon character balloons. With no alcohol.

Spending 3 hours at an inflatables place just to occupy your kid.

Or knowing what an inflatables place is.

And yes, going to Chuck E. Cheese.

Gabe and I find ourselves embracing a new philosophy after my stay in the hospital and our new son’s premature birth.

Whereas we used to do a lot of things separately on weekend days, just to give each other a kid-break, now we want to do things as a family. We want to be together.

Crazy things happen. You have no control over them. They swoop in from who-knows-where and mercilessly smack you on the back of the head.

You can’t do anything but haul your dizzy self up and keep on walking.

But sometimes you change directions a little.

We can’t have our whole family together right now, except for those few moments when we take Asher into the NICU to visit Meyer. They’re brief, brief moments. Because 4-year-olds are not particularly welcome in the NICU.

But we grab them when we can.

Weird stuff happens. Some of it big, some of it little.

You find yourself in places you don’t want to be.

Like hospitals.

And Chuck E. Cheese.

My advice for surviving both places is neither deep nor philosophical.

Don’t eat the pizza.

They both have terrible pizza.