Family mathematics

I know what I was doing fifteen years ago. I was having my firstborn. It took forever even in the context of first births. I had a birth pool in the labour ward. I was in the pool and the father watched telly. Rajiv Gandhi had been murdered. MTV played that annoying song with a chorus that went "duh-duh-DEE-duh-duh-dada, duh-duh-DEE-duh-duh-dada". I was too exhausted to ask for the telly to be turned off. My son was finally born and he was heavier and warmer all over than I could have imagined. He had fluid on the lung and had to go into the special care baby unit when his breathing had not cleared up after a couple of hours. I ate something, spoke with my mum on the phone, and refused to go to bed in the ward. I spent the night asleep in a chair next to his incubator.

Fifteen years before that, I was eight years old myself. It was a Tuesday. I have checked. That means I was probably at school, counting the last four school days left before summer holidays and the annual move to the cottage on the island, my childhood paradise.

Today, I'll take birthday boy and his brother for a drive-thru McDonald's birthday lunch. Before school finishes, I'll bake him some chocolate chip cookies, he loves them. In the evening we'll go to Pizza Hut and possibly MI3. (You may note a trend of eating junk food as a celebratory thing.)

Fifteen years from now, I shall be congratulating my son on his big three-o. I will be, um, fifteen years older than I am now.

Life is a funny thing.

© 2006 Anna MR