It got me to thinking that I should have been a hip hop lyric composer because I can think of a lot of other cartoon references that could be used to express a sort of…double meaning, if you will. Here are a few I came up with off the top of my head using the same lyric pattern. I’m thinking a Grammy is coming my way…

*You can call me a Care Bear cuz I’ll help you out of a tight spot.

*You can call me Curious George cuz I’m gonna get lost in your department store.

*You can call me Wolverine cuz I’m gonno go crazy and slash everyone to death. (Maybe not quite as catchy…)

*You can call me Mr. Rocky cuz I’m gonna make your Bull Winkle

So, because he won’t get going I’ve decided to set him on the right course myself. So here goes my life plan for The Babe.

Age 3. Reading. Not just anything mind you. I mean reading real, full length novels like “The Stranger” and “Heart of Darkness”. Every month I will require him to type up a four page, single spaced analytic review of what he read, complete with plot structure critique and character id evaluation. If he can’t do at least this, then he will be no child of mine.

Age 6. Music composition. Mozart pooped a symphony at age four. Our child will have written a full length musical to the story of…oh…lets say Homer’s Odyssey by the age of 6. Not challenging, enough you say? He’ll do it while aboard a classic sailing vessel bound for Valparaiso. If he can’t learn to sail while writing a hit musical, then it will be no allowance for him.

Age 10. Physics. Yep. He’s going to blow the lid off of perpetual motion. His discoveries will be evaluated by Stephen Hawking and the corpse of Carl Sagan. They will love his work. He will be asked to join them at their MENSA retreat in Yosemite. He won’t be allowed to go. Who lets a 10 year old travel by himself…really?

The rest of his life will be spent designing race car suspension axels off the coast of burma. Why? Because it builds character. He will marry at the age of 26 to  a Columbian nuclear physicist who like to dance for the Russian Ballet in her spare time and knows all the words the every Beatles song, because we don’t want our son marrying some nerd…now do we?

That’s about it. So c’mon boy. Get started. At 2.5 months you are sorely behind in your life’s pursuits. Slap on that cumber bun and get in the car. The Met Opera is waiting.

So, because he won’t get going I’ve decided to set him on the right course myself. So here goes my life plan for The Babe.

Age 3. Reading. Not just anything mind you. I mean reading real, full length novels like “The Stranger” and “Heart of Darkness”. Every month I will require him to type up a four page, single spaced analytic review of what he read, complete with plot structure critique and character id evaluation. If he can’t do at least this, then he will be no child of mine.

Age 6. Music composition. Mozart pooped a symphony at age four. Our child will have written a full length musical to the story of…oh…lets say Homer’s Odyssey by the age of 6. Not challenging, enough you say? He’ll do it while aboard a classic sailing vessel bound for Valparaiso. If he can’t learn to sail while writing a hit musical, then it will be no allowance for him.

Age 10. Physics. Yep. He’s going to blow the lid off of perpetual motion. His discoveries will be evaluated by Stephen Hawking and the corpse of Carl Sagan. They will love his work. He will be asked to join them at their MENSA retreat in Yosemite. He won’t be allowed to go. Who lets a 10 year old travel by himself…really?

The rest of his life will be spent designing race car suspension axels off the coast of burma. Why? Because it builds character. He will marry at the age of 26 to  a Columbian nuclear physicist who like to dance for the Russian Ballet in her spare time and knows all the words the every Beatles song, because we don’t want our son marrying some nerd…now do we?

That’s about it. So c’mon boy. Get started. At 2.5 months you are sorely behind in your life’s pursuits. Slap on that cumber bun and get in the car. The Met Opera is waiting.

“Eye of the Tiger!”.

“I love you! Indi ate my toast so I put her in the bathroom,”

“We has new bunny!”

“Is this going to be a 20 minute battlecon poop?”

“Good luck little pin cushion!”

“Can you get bill and teds?”

“Dear twitter-@ the pizza place with Dan. It rockzords.”

“Remember; C’s get degrees!”

“Walmart is shitacular.”

“Many sorrys about your bathroom…I couldn’t find a plunger anywhere”

“Pray 4 very stressed wife”

“Drinking orange goo at hospital. yum.”

“I can haz fries?”

“Old Navy has leedle bear suit on sale for 15. can I pleeeze?”

“Why is everyone standing outside?”

“Go tit.” (typo i think…)

“The birds the birds!”

“All clothes are back on?”

“Any word from the city weinies?”

“I’m just resting on the couch listening to NASCAR.”

“Really? There’s pizza? Damn, I should have come.”

“Circumsiscm sux. I think I’m going to die.”

Upon unveiling tinseled wrap, I felt like a school boy (you find something that rhymes with joy…)

OS X was your…os…and adjusting I had to do

to learn to use your shortcuts, and how to access youtube (does not rhyme)

Your keyboard is all little, it took my a few days

to figure out the letters, and all about your…ways…

Sometimes the cursor moves around when I don’t tell it to

but I’ve just got to learn not to hit the wrong buttons…something Scooby Doo

It really is the best thing, for a new mom just like me

I don’t have to get out of bed in morning to check my email glee.

Would I recommend a Dell Mini 9 to my friends and foe alike?

Of course I would! I think its swell…just like my buddy…uh..Mike…

At 6am on November 27th Dan and I showed up at the hospital ready for the day but having no idea what to expect. We had a scheduled induction because Little Guy was already 6 days late. When I got to the hospital, our assigned nurse Vicki (who was fabulous, by the way) checked me out and said I was probably already in early labor because I was dilated to a 3. She started me on Pitocin at around 7 am and we settled in for a long day.

I sent Dan out to get some food shortly thereafter because, even though I couldn’t eat all day, there was no reason we both had to starve. While he was gone, our OB/GYN Dr. Saunders came in and told me he wanted to break my water to get things moving. I wasn’t sure what “get things moving” meant but I liked the sound of it.

About ten minutes after he broke my water things did get moving indeed. My contractions started coming on strong about every 2 and a half minutes. It was intensely painful, like nothing I had prepared for. Dan was still out grabbing some breakfast and I called him with a message something to the affect “So….much…pain…you…back…now…please…bllurrrhghghg”. He rushed back and held my hand as I gripped the side of the hospital bed and squeezed out tears while the contractions became stronger and more painful.

After about an hour Vicki came back in and checked my progress. She told me I was at a 4 and then said the 5 most beautiful words in the English language; “Let’s get you and epidural”. Oh sweet release.

The anesthesiologist came in shortly and got to work. It was a surprisingly fast and pain-free procedure. I think not being able to see what was going on helped me not be too squeamish about the whole thing. And the fact that he gave me the shot right in the middle of a contraction definitely took my mind off what he was doing.

After about 30 seconds the epidural began to take affect. Dan and Vicki took turns telling me when I was having contractions and asking me if I could feel them. It was wonderful. I felt nothing. Experiencing one hour of strong  contractions was enough to let me know that I am not the “natural gal” type. Bring on the drugs.

The rest of the day passed with surprising ease and relaxation. I progressed right on cue, dilating a centimeter every two hours. Dan and I hung out, watched “Cars” and had a good time talking and laughing together. Dan’s parents came in around 2 and we had a lovely time visiting with them. It was not at all what I’d expected. Even knowing I was getting an epidural I pictured labor as a more intensive and less relaxed process. I even took a nap at one point.

Around 3 Vicki checked me again and I was at a 9. She said it wouldn’t be much longer until I could start pushing. About that time I noticed the epidural medication was slowing down a bit on my right side. I pushed the re-dose button and didn’t think much of it. I could handle a little cramping after what I’d felt that morning.

At 4:20 it was time to push. I was at a ten and baby was on his way. After about an hour he hadn’t made much progress. It was then that I realized the epidural was not nearly  as strong as at had been. I was feeling more and more the contractions that were coming on strong and frequent. Dan told me later that me mentioned this to the nurse and the she gave him a little shake of the head which he took to mean “don’t tell Robynn the epidural is running out”.

Dr. Saunders came in around 6 and told me I just wasn’t pushing hard enough. I wanted to smack him, but his pessimism motivated me to work harder. By this point I was feeling just about everything and was babbling pretty bad to anyone that would listen. I remember saying some rather nutso things like, “Please just do a c-section!” and “Use the forceps! Get him out NOW.”

Once the epidural wore off more I progressed pretty fast. At 6:45ish Dr. Saunders came in just as Little Guy was about to pop out. He told me to stop pushing, which is a hard directive to hear when you have been told for two hours that pushing is the only way to make the pain go away. After Dr. Saunders got all his baby catching stuff set up he told me to push one more time and….

There he was. The most perfect, beautiful, divine specter I had ever seen. They pulled him out, suctioned him off, and laid him on my chest. Dan was beaming. I was in heaven. This little being we’d waited for for so long was finally in my arms. I’ve never felt closer to God than at that moment when the doctor introduced me to my son. It was a moment unlike I had ever experienced.

They took the baby over to the heating table to clean him off and check his vitals. Dan followed them over and I heard him say, “Eli-his name is Eli.” We’d been waiting to name him until we saw him. I love how quickly Dan was able to know just what we should call him. After they cleaned Baby Eli off and took his APGAR scores (a healthy 9 out of 10) they brought him back over and gave him to me.

It was wonderful. I immediately forgot all the pain and work it had taken to get him here. I just wanted to get lost in that moment and hold my little baby forever. He was so perfect. So wonderful. And he was mine. And always will be.

Lighthouse Family-Aint No Sunshine.

David Gray-This Year’s Love

CC-Colorblind

Silver Chair-Ana’s Song

ELO-Mr.Blue Sky (Of course)

The Blow-True Affection

Jose Gonzalez-Heartbeats

Slowreader-Politics Music and Love

And of Course…the best song ever…

The world will never know. And so the debate between science and religion rages on.

Everyone raves and raves about tab browsing and touch sensory movement on the new and sparkly cell phones. YAWN. On my phone, I would be able not only to access the Internet, send and receive emails, and look up the latest on my buddy Kanye West, but I could actually teleport myself into whatever picture I was looking at and talk face to face with the featured celebrity and/or president. I could also employ the phone’s “Invisibility Mode” that would allow me to go undetected into the CNN news room and slap Nancy Grace across the face. Oh, your phone can’t teleport and make you invisible? LAME.

Secondly, my phone would be able to talk. Like Night Boat, or Teddy Ruxbin. And I don’t just mean talk like a stupid anamatronic  dog from the 80s that sounds like Stephen Hawking or some crap like that. I mean I could have whole conversations with my little device and it could answer back. Example:

me: “Smart Phone-who do you think will win the gold in pole vaulting at the next Olympics?”

SP: “Why, you of course oh Great Master of the Universe.”

me: “And who will win the next Nobel Prize in the fields of both Astrophysical Astronomy and World Peace?”

SP: “Again, you Master.”

That’s how I see my conversations going with my little friend the Smart Phone.

My last design involves a never ending supply of hot food. That’s right. My phone can cook. And serve. And clean up. At the push of a button Mr. Smarty Phone Pants (I think that’s what I’ll call it; MSPP) can make me a hot steak and potato dinner, serve it up on fine silver, and then dispose of the dishes in the blink of an eye. Blink Blink. It can cook fish, pasta, rice, and yes, of course, burritos.

So…I think my phone is totally going to pwn all of the other n00bs. Your phones will all look like sissy little girls trying out for the Sissy Little Girl of the Year Award when my MSPP come out. So you might as well just throw them away now.