In the Beginning There was a Really Big Belly Under a Christmas Tree

This is the story of my birth as I've always told it and I fully expect that my mom will read this and immediately be scandalized by my bastardization of the details in a story that is rightfully much more hers than mine. As a bonus I'm also going to throw in the story of my brother's birth because it's related and because it might further annoy my mom which will teach her for learning about the internet. (Private to AngryMom in CA: At least your daughter shares her blog with you, most moms aren't that lucky! Let her slide on the embellishments, after all she's been stuck in an entire year of writer's block, she needs this!).

I was born on January 5th 1978 (mark your calendars! shop post Christmas sales for presents!) which was about 2 weeks later than I was supposed to be born thus affording my mom and dad the luxury of taking a hilarious picture of her huge belly under the Christmas tree with a big bow wrapped around it -- to this day I'm sure my mom finds much irony in the thought that I would be a great gift and not just a never ending source of lost sleep and so much eye rolling (like all babies I'd like to thank Mother Nature for those awesome post pregnancy hormones that made me lovable despite not being very lovable -- I'm not sure who I should thank for giving mom the strength not to try literally slapping me out of my funk every day of my life from age 13 through 17).

I actually know very little of what happened between me playing the part of Christmas package and being born. I assume at some point on the 4th or 5th of January there was a rushed ride to the hospital and hours of screaming and you know, blood and doctors and such but mom was never one to regale me with "Do you know how much pain I went through to bring your sorry ass into the world?" I was born in the hospital where my mom worked as an ER nurse (and now works as the Nursing Supervisor) so the birth was well attended and mom claims much of it was broadcast over the nurses' walkie talkie system. This seems insanely cruel -- can you imagine all of your coworkers listening in on you giving birth to your first kid? Strangely mom never mentions killing whoever made this happen (I assume not talking about the murder is all part of the mass cover-up -- good job mom.).

And then, you know -- here I was (the sun came out from behind the clouds, the heavens smiled, the birds sang, national holiday, etc). But the real hilarious bit of this story starts when we get out of the hospital. I'm not sure how long my new family was actually home before my mom had to be returned the the hospital because there was a lot of blood not staying in her body where it belonged, but it wasn't long -- maybe a day or so. So back to the hospital where mom is admitted to the ICU (that's right folks, the hilarious part of the story is when my mom gets put into intensive care! good times!) and so they're wheeling her away and dad's standing there all "Hey, dudes, you forgot the baby! HAHA!" and the dudes (in this case doctors) are all, "No, it's cool the baby is FINE, take her on home!" And then dad is all "But! DUDES! Please god take the baby back! What the hell am I supposed to do with her when I don't have the magic milk producing body parts!?!?" And then I think his head explodes and he gets put in ICU too. No, just kidding, he goes home and calls my aunt all "Doctors are such bitches, please come help me before I kill your niece."

Let me pause here to say that my dad is super amazing and I'd hate for this story to make him sound incompetent but that's kind of what makes it a good story and my dad is hopefully so awesome that he doesn't mind being the butt of this particular joke. But just in case he's a little miffed I offer this proof of his awesomeness as a counterbalance: Because my mom worked nights growing up my dad was Mr. Mom every morning and he kicked major ass at everything from packing lunches to making a full breakfast (seriously people we had eggs and fruit and bacon or banana pancakes or french toast EVERY MORNING, dude was not fucking around). He was slightly less awesome at doing my hair as evidenced by my 3rd grade school picture where I appear to be rocking some sort of half crimped/half bed head combo do but I've mostly stopped blaming him for my "nerd table" lunch status that lasted through to high school (after all it wasn't him who forced me to join the math team, that was ALL ME). And also: I'm fine, he took me home as a newborn without my mom and totally didn't kill me so GOOD JOB DAD.

Now back to the story. Mom gets better, I learn to walk, everyone is happy.

So fast forward a couple of years and mom is rocking the bump again, my only real memory of her being pregnant with my brother is a conversation about baby names that took place in the car in which I refused to even discuss the possibility needing to consider boy names. I also seem to remember having strong feelings about naming my baby sister Michelle. So April 9th rolls around and again with the hospital and the pain and the breathing exercises. Only this time it sucks even more because my baby brother was born breach (As an older sister this was a god send -- oh the years of "born butt first like a real butt head!" jokes! HILARIOUS) and things really did not go well. Basically my mom died. She lost a ton of blood, she flat lined and while the doctors worked on bringing her back to life (note: successfully, thanks dudes!) she went on a little ride through the dark tunnel to meet with none other than Jesus Christ.

Mom and JC are up on a hill you know, chillin' when he brings up the awkward elephant in the room (er... the field...the heaven?). "So, Kay, umm you have a couple of kids back there in the world who kind of need a mom, you can't let Horst raise them alone, he can't handle it." That's right folks -- JESUS didn't believe in my dad's single parenting skills. And my mom is basically all, "no J-dawg, it's groovy, Horst has this shit! I'm gonna just chill here, lay back on a cloud, take some harp lessons, you know, angel stuff." Luckily our lord and savior is having none of it and basically pushes my mom back down the long dark tunnel and into her body. So big thanks to Jesus for giving me my mom back, I totally forgive you for misjudging my dad's parenting skills. And mom? I'm not even angry about you wanting to dessert me for heaven, I'm sure it would have totally beat changing Kurt's diapers and teaching my stubborn ass to tie my shoes.

Something Here Will Eventually Have to Explode

If you've ever had the pleasure of riding in a car with me as a passenger then you know that I am perhaps the most annoying person on the planet. I spend most trips sling-shotting between forcing all occupants to *enjoy this song right now* and trying not to pee my pants while quickly reviewing all of the life events that I'll be missing out on after I die in the car crash that is about to happen. While traveling in a car (much like while doing anything) I am incapable of shutting off the background noise of my brain and all spare neurons are so devoted to freaking out about their impending death that I cannot help but occasionally (every 40 seconds or so) grip the door handle, sharply inhale and slam my foot down on the floor in mock brake slamming (the fact that I am alive to write this post proves that all of these are effective ways of tricking the Grim Reaper). Because as a New Yorker with no car of my own I very much do not want my friends with wheels (Hi Joe!) to take away my access to Target I try to hide my certainty that the driver is steering the car and its occupants into the afterlife. This is very difficult because no matter what Disney says I'm all but certain that cars want to kill me.

For the record none of this is my fault (turns out this statement is true about all of my flaws). Growing up my mother was an ER nurse with very little fore site when it came to scaring her children for life. She would come home from a hard day of life saving/bring home the bacon and while frying it up in a pan describe holding some poor schmuck's brain in her hands. This displacement of gray matter was almost always the result of the combination of icy roads, stupidity, fast speeds and God's sick sense of humor. Somehow this resulted in a son who purchases cars for the sole purpose of crashing them into things and a daughter (me!) who cannot get into a vehicle without wondering who will show up at her funeral. This means that in addition to worrying about my livelihood I have no choice but to also put in some heavy worrying time trying to avert my brother's certain death (see: here).

This past weekend I was in a car with a number of coworkers (aka people who I would like to convince that I am sane) and had to work extra hard to hide my fear of the driver slamming the vehicle into another car or the guardrail or that Duncan Donuts up ahead (though in this last case my ejection from the vehicle might be cushioned by piles of fluffy french crullers which would be pretty awesome). This was made extra difficult by the fact that the driver was busy DJ-ing and getting us lost. At one point he suggested that someone jump out at the next light and get the directions that he left "somewhere in the trunk." Because everyone else in the car was apparently not concerned about our eminent doom I was left with no choice but to blurt out, "Oh my god I'd prefer that no one DIE on this trip, pull over like a normal person." I may be insane but at least I'm alive.

Thank God I live in New York City where one can limit her car exposure to once a week otherwise even if I somehow managed to avoid death in a fiery wreck the ulcer from worrying about such things would certainly have done me in by now.