Oops.

When I got home yesterday afternoon the house was about 85 degrees. Why? Because I left the frigging burner on ALL DAY. I really hope my dad doesn't read this because we are living in a house that he owns and he would be so pissed to hear that I nearly burned the place down. This would not have been the first fire I started. When I was 10 I started my dad's other house on fire and then at 16 I started my mom's house on fire. Thank god I ended up with a fire fighter. Are you kidding me?! Just to be clear, I did not start a fire yesterday but I could tell by the heat in the house that it was close and so all night long and into the morning I have been thanking the universe for this get out of jail free card. I don't even want to think about what could have happened. My head is clearly not screwed on correctly. Dad, if you're reading this, there are now strategically placed post-its around the house reminding me not to burn the house down. Cheers.

Bread and Cheese

For as long as I can remember I have talked incredible amounts of shit about women who "accidentally" get pregnant. I thought on several occasions, actually more times than I can count, "Okay, some teenagers might not know where babies come from so they have an excuse (I guess) but by the time you're in your mid to late twenties and certainly by the time you're in your thirties it can't be too big of a surprise that unprotected sex causes a baby." Yes, I was that person and for being a bleeding heart liberal I am pretty darn traditional when it comes to baby making. I promised myself up and down, for exactly 32 years that I would never put the carriage before the marriage. Well, I am that thirty something woman who accidentally got pregnant. I found out on December 19, 2010 in my boyfriend's parent's bathroom. They had met me once. It was kind of awkward. I kept looking at the pee stick. First I laughed, then I cried for about four days. And yes, I was SHOCKED. And yes, I know where babies come from.

As soon as I found out I was pregnant I wanted the baby more than I could fathom. I didn't understand why but from a place that I didn't know existed I loved this being inside me more than I had loved anything before. When I told Aaron he hugged me instantly and said out loud three times, "It's going to be great!" I was relieved that he didn't put me on a plane back to New Mexico, pee stick in hand.

My pregnancy did not go as planned. I had envisioned lots of prenatal yoga, a cute belly to compliment by toned legs and arms, and that glow that people so often lie about. I was sick for 15 weeks and the only thing that assuaged my nausea was bread and cheese. I'm serious, I wasn't just using pregnancy as an excuse to eat a bread only diet. If I had it my way I would have had a martini only diet but I settled for bread. I think I enjoyed a two week window during my second trimester where I wasn't sick, bloated or exhausted. I vaguely recall going to the gym once or twice during that time. It didn't take long though before my body fully rejected the experience and my blood pressure shot up, my feet took on Hobit like characteristics, my vision went haywire and I was in out of the doc's office every other day. Don't get me wrong, I am absolutely an over-utilizer of the health care system, hey, I have insurance and I'm paying out the wazoo so I'm going to the doctor whenever I damn well please. So, all the attention I recieved during my ridiculous pregnancy was a slight comfort. Still, pregnancy remains my top three worst experiences of my life. Sorry, no hearts and stars here. It fucking sucked.

I mention all this because Ellis is soon to be one and I'm feeling a little nostalgic. I honestly can not believe we made it to this point. There were so many times when I was sure I would die or Aaron would kill me or we would both die in a freak diaper changing accident. We ended up doing a bang up job. Turns out love and instinct really do save the day.

Sisters

My sister-in-law is in town, or my sister-not-law as Aaron and I have yet to wed, more on that later. I always wanted a sister, except when friends have tried to borrow clothes, then I've been really happy that I don't have sisters and that none of my brothers are cross dressers. Get your own clothes. These are mine and I don't want someone thinking you had taste good enough to buy something that is actually mine. I know, I'm horrible at sharing and I'm 33 so that probably won't change.

At any rate, when it comes to sister-not-laws, I hit the goldmine. This is shocking for two reasons: 1. I have been a heinous capital B capital I capital TCH to many of my brother's girlfriends. I thought for sure I had some bad karma coming my way, and 2. As much as I love women and support women and want us all to be happy and do well and stick together and take over the world, I have not had the best nor easiest experience with women as a whole. I can count on one hand the women I trust completely. We women folk are hard on each other and by far my most painful heartaches have come from a girlfriend's betrayal. We cut the deepest.
So, imagine my surprise when I met his sisters, who by the way, make me feel comfortable just by walking in the room as they, like me, are 6 foot and blond (this is apparently not rare in the Midwest). They're beautiful, smart, terribly witty, and they roam this planet with an unwavering moral compass that is woefully askew in so many of the women I have met in my life. Like I said, goldmine. This week I am getting drunk on sisterly love.

The Accident

There is so much more to Aaron than what happened on December 11, 2011, but to know Aaron now you need to know about the accident.

In the early morning hours of December 11, 2011, Aaron was hit by a car. The person who hit him slowed down, rolled down her window and asked, "Is he breathing?" When the witness, who by all accounts saved Aaron's life said, "Yes," the driver sped away. I don't waste time thinking about the person who hit him. I imagine her as a mother, kids at home, a lot to lose. She didn't mean to hurt him. He had a collapsed lung, and he had hit his head, he was unconscious and his body was systematically shutting down. When the ambulance arrived, he had begun to die. His stay was short at our local hospital. They knew quickly that he needed to go to Albuquerque. There was some doubt that he would survive the flight.

The phone rang around 2 am. It was Aaron. I answered, slightly annoyed that he wasn't home yet. Ellis was asleep next to me. She was 3 months old. "Hello?" "Miss Forbes?" My heart sunk. This isn't Aaron I thought. Shit. Shit. No. My voice was shaking, "Yeah?" "This is Under-Sheriff Romero. Aaron has been in an accident." All the air left my lungs. I gasped for something, no oxygen came. "No. Um. No. What? No. This isn't happening. We just had a baby." "Yes Ma'am. I'm sorry. Aaron was just flown to UNM Hospital in Albuquerque." I knew what that meant. If they send you to Albuquerque you're in bad shape. "What?" I responded, my entire body was shaking so violently I woke Ellis. She cried. She was startled. I held her and attempted to steady my voice "What? No. Is he okay? What happened? Is he okay?" "Um, Ma'am, I am not a medical professional but you need to get to Albuquerque as soon as possible. It's not good."

The drive from Taos to Albuquerque is about two and a half hours. We drove fast. I sat in the back next to Ellis' car seat. I watched her sleep and I prayed. I prayed and I begged. I cried and I sat up straight and told myself, "Ok, ok. I'm OK. It's going to be OK." Then I cried and I begged. I stared at Ellis and I thought, "How will I tell her about her dad. What can I possibly say that will make her understand how good of a man he is." I talked to Aaron's mom, dad and sister. We cried together. Somewhere near Santa Fe something shifted and I sat up and I announced, "I think he's going to be ok." Soon after, I got a call from his uncle. He was with Aaron. He was holding his hand. At the very least, if Aaron left us, he was not alone.

A million questions bombarded my mind. Will he live? Will he walk? Will he know who I am? Will he be able to wipe his own ass? Will he be able to fight fire? Will he be brain dead? Will he be angry and impulsive and a drunk like so many traumatic brain injury survivors? Will he remember Ellis? Will he be Aaron? Uncle Paul wrote me a text, "He squeezed my hand and wiggled his toes." He was coming to, he was not brain dead and he was not a paraplegic.

When we got to the hospital I prepared myself for the worst. Maybe he would be missing half his face. I didn't care. His room was all glass. He had many doctors and nurses tending to him. He was seizing. His heart rate would spike and then drop. Spike, drop. He was in restraints. He was fighting. This was good. He's fighting. I went to him. I held his hand. He was bloody and swollen. I said his name. He squeezed my hand. My knees collapsed.

Aaron was on full life support for four days. When he came to he asked for a pen and paper. He scribbled, "I'm sorry." Then he proceeded to tell us about the house he was building, the fish he caught, and the big buck that got away. It didn't make much sense but he could talk and swallow and ask for more Gatorade.

He moved to a lower level of care and then eventually to a neurological rehab. He was away from us for a couple months and when he came home he was still in a lot of pain, he couldn't do much, and he was clearly not himself yet. Every week though, he made pronounced improvements. Sometimes I catch myself forgetting that the accident ever happened but then some days the accident dances so close to me its hard to catch my breath.

There is a lot more to say about what happened in those months. A lot of grace fell upon our family and I have been forever changed by the tragedy of it as well as the miraculousness. There was life before "the accident" and now there is this life.

Hollow-O-Made

I can't focus my thoughts. Ellis has a fever, Aaron is freshly home from a fire, my annual report is due for work on Friday and today I was tasked with laying off three employees. I've never laid anyone off before. Never looked at someone and said, "Sorry, the economy is in the shitter and you're the collateral damage. Hope you got some savings." As it turns out I'm not a good ax woman. I cry maybe just a little bit more than the person I'm laying off.

When I was younger my favorite movie was Big Business, you know, Lily Tomlin, Bette Midler. I liked Bette Midler's character, the non-hick version of her. The one everyone was terrified of. As a child I would walk around the house in my plastic high heals with a stack of construction paper practicing her lines, "The most fiscally prudent action at this point is to take an aggressive posture and divest ourselves of Hollow-o-Made..." I know, my parents were concerned too. I liked the power suits, the excessive use of elevators, the limos that drove them from high rise to high rise. Maybe on some unconscious level I admired the power. I was just a kid.

I know layoffs are a reality right now. These layoffs though, are too close to home. These are my friends losing their jobs and they're in their 50's and 60's. No retirement. Not a lot of savings. It's not right and it's not okay but it's big business. My heart is heavy tonight.

Squish

The path outside of our house is so laden with gravel every time I push Ellis in her stroller I feel like I'm competing in the stroller X-games. It doesn't help that Ellis is, as a stranger at the park described her yesterday, "a tank." Who knew 10 months of breast milk and some fruit puree could produce such substantial thighs. I like to count the sections of her appendages by the way. It's a source of pride for me.

The primary reasons for walking Ellis in her stroller are to get her to sleep, which works five out of ten times, to get my ass to fit in my jeans again, so far I'm squeezing into my fat jeans, and to walk our two hounds, Nina and Jaco. Our HOA does not allow dogs to be without a leash and unfortunately my flagrant non-compliance does not allow for them to be on a leash so every walk we takes provides for a rather substantial adrenaline rush. Our HOA manager is sneaky. I could take him if I had to but he is at least 75 so I figure a fistfight is out of the question. He drives a golf-cart and smokes like brush fire. My heart races like a crack-addict every time I hear the squish of the gravel around the corner. "Is it Frank?" I think nervously. Or worse yet, is it a small child on their bike who my dogs will scare the cheerios out of. Or worst still, is it that angry lesbian lady who was bit by a dog in 1975 and who has clearly not recovered emotionally from the incident. She, by the way, stages quite the scene when we do cross paths. Luckily I have become adept at recognizing her particular form of gravel squishing. She runs, which pretty much distinguishes her from the golf cart and every other neighbor who runs only if something is chasing them.

In Northern New Mexico, there is something known as the "Mi Jito" complex, wherein, your Mi Jito, aka, your baby/child/grandchild, or in my case dogs, can do no wrong. They'll bark at you, they'll chase you and should the stars align, they'll also poop in your yard. It's not personal and in my opinion its what dogs do, and mine in particular do it quite well.

Freak

I don't actually have a lot of respect for therapists who rely heavily on a person's diagnosis. I attended a meeting on Friday with a bunch of therapists and one of them referred to one of their client's as "my borderline." Gross. I gave her a dirty look, don't worry. I don't think any of us can be boiled down to some code in a book. It can be a helpful tool for us mental health practitioners but if it's all you see in a person, it's time to take a break. That being said, I completely and whole heartily participate in self-diagnosis. Whatever ethical qualms I might reserve for diagnosing other people, I completely disregard for myself. I am my diagnosis of the day. Today: I am OCD. I contemplated putting half of our belongings on the street with a big "free" sign. I refrained. I did loan one of our couches to my brother, which transformed our living room space and appeased my inner serial killer long enough to cook a half-ass dinner for myself and Ellis. Scratch that, Ellis ate string cheese and an apricot. I ate shrimp with cocktail sauce. And I lied about "cooking." Nothing we ate actually required heat. Anyway, I suppose its good that I have a little OCD going on, as I do have a crawling infant (Ellis) who, like the bazillion children before her, feels more comfortable if she can put everything in her mouth. If I'm going to be totally honest, the OCD thing isn't particular to today. I have to admit that having a child has turned me into somewhat of a neat freak. Or to be more specific, a freak. I'm obsessed with organizing. I buy a lot of bins. I contemplated buying a microscope so I could assess our germ population. I disinfect the house a lot. I spray things with Lysol, which side note, I didn't even know Lysol existed. It is very handy for people with my condition. Alright, let it be known that if someone who really had OCD came into my house they would probably request a hazmat suit, but by my usual standards this place has never been so clean. Sometimes I wonder if I will always maintain a certain level of chaos in my environment. Sort of like how people who really want to lose weight always manage to sabotage themselves so they keep those last 10 pounds. Those last 10 pounds that have become a friend, an antagonistic friend, but a friend nonetheless. And sort of like those people who keep dating the same asshole or assholette because the idea of a functional relationship seems so unbearably bland. If I could just accept that I have no clue what I'm doing when it comes to organizing my shit into bins I could move on, let my angst go and just be like all those other moms who have accepted that their immaculate apartments of their 20's are a thing of the past. It's the diaper decade now honey. Own it.