I do believe I need a little res-SPITE

Last night Guy and I toured the birth center at the hospital where Little Bird will be born. It was very un-momentous, but highly entertaining.

I'm not sure who I thought would be giving the tour, but I didn't think it would be Alvin, the volunteer. Alvin was a nice older man who reminded us of Papa. He said "okay" inbetween every third word, and he mumbled as he walked backwards but was clear and loud when we stopped.

On every floor of the birth center there was a respite nursery. A place where Mom can send the baby if she needs a break or a respite.

Every time we passed one, Alvin would point it out and call it the res-spite room, with the accent over the spite, with a long I sound.

Then, at the end of the tour, he couldn't understand why we didn't have any questions for him. I didn't have the heart to tell him that I couldn't ask questions of a man who mispronounced that word over and over and over again.

Guy and I got tickled over Alvin and his "okay's" and "res-SPITE's," but we couldn't help but get tickled at the father-to-be in the teamster's jacket that asked something about food every time we stopped. Where was the cafeteria? How much was the food? What did they serve? Can he order into the room? What could his wife eat? Was it any good, because, you know, school cafeterias serve crap.

We were so done with him by the second stop.

The evening started with a video. Technically, the evening started with waiting 20 minutes for a video. As we waited, we flipped through a book of "articles" which were really just advertisements. In the section highlighting decor for nurseries and children's rooms, we came across a little boy's room that was painted like stables and decorated with horses. The subtitle across the top of the page talked about making his dreams come true.

Guy snorted and started mumbling about how they could do that now, but when that kid grew up there would nothing but disappointment because he had been given it all, blah, blah, blah. He stopped that mumbling when I pointed to these words in the story, "inoperable brain tumor."

Oh.

He didn't know.

And then we laughed inappropriately until I had to dig tissue out of my purse to dry my eyes and his. What is it about inappropriate laughter that just causes you to keep laughing harder and harder?

I'm so glad that we waited to take this tour though. In my second trimester, I was pretty uptight and worried about finding the perfect environment to bring Little Bird into this world. Now, I know that the perfect environment is the one where we are.

Right there with his parents.