Those Changes
Monday, April 23, 2007, continued
Sometimes it took awhile to process life-changing events. The arrival of baby Octavian was similar to the day OLeif and Collette had been married. Collette had not been able to fully take in everything that had actually occurred. She thought that sometimes it still hadn’t fully settled in that she was married and had been so for nearly three years. Perhaps it would be the same thing with Octavian. Change never came simply for Collette, bad change or good change.
Meanwhile, having no desire to come across as a new parent with a case of the my-baby-is-perfect-in-every-way syndrome, Collette still had to admit that Octavian was a good kid. Apparently Dr. Box agreed.
“He’s a keeper,” he told them.
Octavian was content as long as his stomach was full. No wonder he had only lost four ounces since birth and less wonder still that he was in the 90th+ percentile on weight and height. Collette recalled her own visits to the doctor when he showed her the results on her own charts every year. She had inevitably seemed to range in the 30th percentile or so on height and the 20th or below on weight. Meanwhile, Carrie had always come away from her appointments in the 90’s. But Collette had resolved to live bravely regarding her shortness, much earlier in life. And it didn’t bother her much even when Diana had been a foot taller than her for several years and when she always had to sit on the front row in choir even in her later teenage years because none of the other altos seemed to be shorter than herself.
Meanwhile, OLeif spent part of his Monday afternoon, around work, taking Octavian on a bit of a photo shoot in preparation to put together a new photo blog.
“They’ll all going to say I’m a silly new parent for doing this,” he said, touching up a black and white photo on the computer, “They’ll say, ‘OLeif, you’re obsessed.’ And I’ll say, ‘Don’t you know it.’”
In other news, it appeared that Joe, Wallace, and Curly had made official plans to fly to Hawaii sometime in July after Independence Day. Other travelers had made it half-way around the world to Scotland the previous week – Catalina and Mercy – to eat haggis, visit the crown jewels, and to pine for a boyfriend left at home.
Later that day, Rose informed Collette over IM that she had added four more toads to her collection. Collette almost felt sorry for them. However, there was no doubt that they would be fully entertained. She would not be surprised if Rose had already stuffed them all into a shower and played special music for them while passing out relaxing massages. Rose was good to her little creatures.
And Rose was still eternally thankful to Dad for Octavian’s birthday landing on a weekday. In her estimation it had become a national holiday, because Dad had let her skip Spanish at the Community College in celebration of his birth.
Come evening, the windows were still all open wide to the warmer breezes and the fans were spinning in every room. Soon, the Silverspoon’s pulled up in two cars; Denae was to spend the night again. And she had brought dessert. They all sat around in the living room over an angel food cake, whipped cream, strawberry, and pineapple concoction while the boys discussed music and Theodore rocked Octavian up and down in his arm. It was a peaceful evening.