It’s hard to believe how quickly 7 years has passed. Thor turns 7 tomorrow, and I don’t know where the time has gone.
I love hearing how people were born. Birth stories are like the start of legends. You have to have the story of Achilles’ birth to understand his heel. You need to know how Malcolm was born to understand MacBeth’s fall. And certainly, your own birth gets the story of your life off to its start.
Thor was born on a gorgeous, hot, clear August Thursday. The sky was as blue as a Texas sky can get, peppered with fluffy, white clouds. I remember that, because it was all I could see out the slits in the window blinds. My room window faced the front of the hospital, so if we had opened the blinds, his birth could have been performance art.
In between the discomfort of my drug-numbed contractions (I had been induced) and my mother’s insistence upon sitting right up in my face. with her elbows on my IV line, I was pretty happy. My baby was on his way. Millions of women had done this before me. I had a great doctor and was being cared for by wonderful nurses. One way or the other, that kid was coming out, and my job was to get him out the old fashioned way.
The climax of Thor’s birth story happened around 3:40 in the afternoon. With his approach imminent, one of the nurses said she could feel the fontenelles in his head. I said, “I think a great name for a band would be Big Giant Head and the Fontenelles.” And I started to giggle. Because that is funny, y’all. And then I started to laugh because the nurses laughed. And then one nursed stopped laughing and yelped. She told me, “Stop laughing! You’re pushing him out!”
See, the doctor hadn’t made it into the room yet.
Well, that was funny to me, too, and I laughed more.
In my memory, there was some ruckus, then the doctor came in, just had time to get into place and I laughed some more, and out he popped with everyone in the place happy, smiling, and most everyone laughing. What a great way to be born!
I do tell this story every year. I probably always will.
This kid has kept me laughing every day since he was born. He is a wonder to me. He is smart, and sincere, and he is compassionate, and he genuinely cares about other people. He makes friends easily. He has a fantastic sense of humor, a keen sense of timing, and really builds amazing Lego starships. He loves to read and learn. He loves to play. He loves to come sit in my lap and let me hug him. I like everything about him.
thor
The Outside Lane 