Educating Mikayla

Just a note: this entry is really long, but by golly is it going to be entertaining.

Before I get into the good stuff (and yes,it is good), I should probably begin with some big stuff. My lovely wife of four years is pregnant! She is about 4 months along and, thanks to the blessing of medicine, Beth is able to get up each morning and be the great woman that she is. She'd be great without the medicine, but she'd be puking everywhere. Anyways, no need to talk about that fun stuff. There is so much more!

We have now been to the doctor three times. The second time the doctor was in a rush and needed to get to surgery. He checked Beth out but didn't hear a heart beat. He wasn't concerned since we had seen and heard the heart beating on our first visit. On the third visit, however,the doctor needed to hear the heart. He searched around for a bit with his microphone but didn't immediately hear anything. Finally the doctor found a healthy heartbeat, much lower in Beth that he expected. His reaction: "That baby's in yo' butt!" His bedside manner is impeccable.

So tonight I was going to the grocery store and Mikayla was going to join me. When I walked in our bedroom, where Beth was reading a book and Mikayla was playing on the bed, our cute little girl called out, "Hey, I have a baby in my butt." Apparently her selective hearing selected to hear Dr. Rashard's enlightening comment last week.

I should have known that this was the beginning of a fun-filled hour with Mikayla. We left for the store and as we pulled in I was blocked by four cop cars. There were no cops in the cars - they had gotten out and were all walking in the other direction. My curiosity got the best of me and I circled around the parking lot to see what the cops were up to. I pulled into a parking spot a few rows away from the cops and had a wonderfully unobstructed view. Mikayla and I had the privilege of watching a man get tasered and handcuffed outside of our local Chinese restaurant. Whatever you do, don't tell the people at China Bell that they got your order wrong...

So after talking with Mikayla for while about justice and corporal punishment we decided to get some groceries. We had a merry old time bagging fruit and talking with Jose, our Ecuadorian Wal-Mart employee friend. Mikayla learned that olives are called aceitunas in Spanish and that strawberries are fresas. As we walked along the meat section, about to break out into song and frolic in our merriment, a very large man came walking from the other direction. As he passed I looked over to offer a friendly "Hi", but could not get it out before this guy looked over and said, "And then they killed the man!" I continued walking, perhaps a bit faster than I was walking before that warming salutation, and tried to make it look like I spotted something very far away that I needed. I continued full speed ahead in silence towards the hotdogs, wondering how I was going to explain to Mikayla that sometimes adults poop their pants and that's okay.

So about this time we were ready to run out, er, check out. We added on to an already long line and found ourselves behind a family with a cute little kid sitting in the cart. Mikayla was facinated with the youngster but was to timid to say anything. I prompted her to say something, but to no avail. The baby's brother came over and I told Mikayla, "Look. That's that little girl's brother." The dad turned, walked over to me and said, "That's his brother." Oops. Not much to say except, "Sorry. Please don't beat me..."

So we sat in line and I played games with Mikayla while we waited and waited and waited. I asked her whose hand was bigger, mine or hers. I pointed to mine and told her that mine was bigger. Then I pointed to hers and said that it was smaller. She proceeded to point to to my stomach and say, "That's bigger." Had the line not been so long I would have gone over and picked up a few Slim Fast bars before we left. I've never felt so beautiful.

To finish it all off, we we're finally in the car driving home and Mikayla was sitting quietly in the back seat. I called Beth to say we were coming home when I heard a sweet little voice from behind whisper, "Mommy has a baby in her butt." We came full circle in one short hour. Can't wait for tomorrow...

Randy