Famous J Takes Detroit

It came up in a comment thread on the facebook, so I thought I’d write about it here:

In anticipation of our first date, I made the lovely and talented Sherry three (count ‘em!) CD’s. She said she was into British music but wasn’t quite able to dig too deeply into it.

So with some assistance of my younger brother, I put together a collection of notably British music from the previous 30 years, right up to what was then the present day. I tried to balance out stuff everyone would have heard with stuff hardly anyone has heard, favoring the more mainstream.

I’d say compressing 30 years of UK music into 3 CD’s worth of music was certainly the most ambitious thing I ever attempted and overall it turned out quite well. Sherry is partial to #2, although I think I prefer #1.

1977-1986
Wire – Strange
The Buzzcocks – Ever Fallen in Love?
Gang of Four – Ether
Gary Numan – Cars
The Police – Message in a Bottle
Joy Division – Transmission
The Jam – That’s Entertainment
The Clash – Rock the Casbah
The Human League – (Keep Feeling) Fascination
The Beat – Save it for Later
The Smiths – Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now
Frankie Goes to Hollywood – Relax
Dead or Alive – You Spin Me ‘Round (Like a Record)
New Order – Bizarre Love Triangle
The Cure – Close to Me

1987-1996
M/A/R/R/S – Pump up the Volume
Happy Mondays – 24 Hour Party People (Jon Carter Mix)
Cocteau Twins – Carolyn’s Fingers
Pop Will Eat Itself – Sick Little Girl
The Stone Roses – Fools Gold
Ride – Seagull
The Sundays – Here’s Where the Story Ends
The Charlatans – The Only One
Blur – Girls and Boys
Portishead – Sour Times
Oasis – Supersonic
The Chemical Brothers – Chemical Beats
Lush – Ladykillers
Spice Girls – Say You’ll Be There
Suede – Beautiful Ones

1997-2006
Ocean Colour Scene – Hundred Mile City
Bluetones – If…
Manic Street Preachers – If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next
Robbie Williams – Millenium
Tom Jones – Motherless Child (ft. Portishead)
Mansun – Repair Man
Super Furry Animals – Ysbeidiau Heulog
Kylie Minogue – Can’t Get You Out of My Head
Franz Ferdinand – Darts of Pleasure (Demo)
The Streets – Has It Come to This?
The Libertines – Vertigo
Belle & Sebastian – Step into My Office Baby
The Go! Team – Junior Kickstart
Goldie Lookin’ Chain – Half Man, Half Machine
Girls Aloud – Biology
Supergrass – St. Petersburg
Depeche Mode – A Pain that I’m Used To (Jacques Lu Cont Remix)

Occasionally, when someone wins a second or third championship, like the Chicago Bulls did in the 90’s, an interviewer will ask a player if it ever gets old. And the answer is that it doesn’t get old; it’s always a complete thrill. It’s always something special.

I think I now know what they’re talking about. Even though Sam is baby #3, being there for the baby to make its grand entrance upon the world state makes me feel like I’m the world champion of life.

My problem, from the standpoint of writing a birth story, is that, while it was absolutely a thrill having the little man come into the world, there wasn’t really too terribly much to report. Unlike Gus’s story, there was no car chase or near miss on an impending anal probing.

Every birth is its own special thing, but if there’s such a thing as a routine, textbook birth, Sam’s might be it.

Here’s how it went down:

Actually, let’s back up a couple of days. Sherry was already overdue by about a week. She had been feeling odd all day and the baby wasn’t moving much. We conferred with her midwife and given the aforementioned car chase we had with Gus – complete with 70’s style music and squealing tires as the car takes a corner – we all agreed to take her to the hospital and get checked out.

The hospital is about a mile from here, but we have two other boys to worry about. It was after 10 and they were completely passed out, so we called the person we’d lined up to babysit, and headed over with the bag, in case we needed it.

As it happened, Sherry was dehydrated, which was giving the baby a highly elevated pulse rate. So they gave her a bag of IV fluid and she started feeling normal. Or as normal as you can get if you’re pregnant and a week overdue.

So, a few days later, Charlie was having problems sleeping, and had for most of the last week. I suspect he knew something was up. He wanted to sleep in our bed and this usually involves him turning himself 90 degrees and then kicking me and/or Sherry in the head all night. Since Sherry was plenty uncomfortable enough already, she decided to go to sleep on the couch.

Sherry was in my room before my alarm went off, digging through the dresser. As I stirred, she said, “I don’t think you’ll have to go to work today. I’m in labor. And this time I’m sure of it.”

Labor had started around 2 in the morning apparently. So we got Charlie and Gus ready to spend the day with the babysitter, a process that has all the logistical complexity of a moon landing. We dropped them off and returned to the hospital.

If there’s one upside from the false alarm a few days ago, we were already in the system and knew exactly where to go. So our exposure to bureaucracy was mercifully brief. And after a brief check to determine that yes, Sherry was in labor, we were led to the new, fancy birthing room in the far corner of the maternity ward.

The room was awesome. It looked about 20% like a hospital room and 80% like a hotel. It had an actual bed. Like a real bed, not a hospital bed. It had a beautiful window that looked out upon the roof of the parking garage and east Detroit beyond it. Well, one of the nicer parts of east Detroit.

Shortly after we got situated, Mary, the midwife showed up. Despite being younger than me, she gave off an air of command and competence. And fortunately for everyone, she had a sense of humor. I say “fortunately”, because childbirth is a tense situation and tension causes my irony level to go to 11.

It also makes me hungry. So as Sherry and Mary took a walk, and after I ascertained that she wasn’t going to have the baby in the next 20 minutes, I headed off to grab bland, unappetizing lunch from the hospital cafeteria. Sherry wasn’t hungry for some reason.

With my appetite under control, I did some walking with Sherry. Everything was going fine except that her water refused to break. So Mary asked and Sherry agreed to break it for her.

Things began to progress pretty quickly at this point and Sherry climbed into the shower/tub and Mary, the nurse*, and I took turns using the water massager on Sherry’s lower back, to help with the discomfort. I suspect “discomfort” is a bit of an understatement. After about an hour of that, Sherry said, “I think I need to push now.” Mary did a brief inspection and said, “Yeah, the baby’s coming!”

We got her out of the tub (the one step to get out of the tub was apparently a doozy for her), and let her to the bed. She crawled into the bed and began to push. And literally two minutes after she got out of the tub, there was a baby! Like I said, it was an amazing feeling seeing the new baby right in front of me. Although I figured she would have to push more than once to get the little guy out.

So after a total of about two minutes of pushing, Samuel Alexander LeBlanc arrived on the scene.

They gave us lots and lots of time with the little man. Sherry hugged and snuggled the baby, did a bit of breastfeeding, and enjoyed the feeling of new motherhood. I suspect she felt even better about it than I did.

Mary asked if I’d like to cut the umbilical cord. I replied that I would absolutely not like to do any such thing. I’m bad enough shaving myself. The last thing anyone needs is me wielding a pair of scissors around a newborn.

Then eventually, they took little Sam over to the station for the vitamin K, eyedrops, and collection of vitals: 8 lbs 5.7 oz, 20 ½ inches.

About an hour between breaking the water and delivering the baby. No complications at all. Well, none for the childbirth at least. Like Charlie, Sam had ABO incompatibility, and had to spend an extra day in the hospital with jaundice. A bummer, but far from the worst thing that could happen. And there were the two other boys, who had nobody but me to supervise them.

All in all, a splendid job was done by everyone. Most especially me.

Welcome to the world, Sam!

P.S. Sam, if you’re reading this in the future, please don’t think that because I didn’t finish writing this until weeks after you were born that I don’t love you as much as your brothers. Just that having three boys in the house has been a monumental amount of work.

P.P.S. Those of you interested in a compare and contrast between a mother’s perspective when it’s fresh on her mind and a father’s perspective a bit later, you can go here and read a much higher-quality version of this story. Just to make it interesting, I have not actually read Sherry’s version of her birth story before composing mine.

* Whose name eludes me. This is why I should write these things the day they happen, not weeks later.

Shrove Tuesday in Detroit is Pączki Day. If you’re anything like I was two days ago, you’re probably wondering what the heck a pączki is. Is that an offensive typo for a guy from Pakistan?

Actually, no. A pączek is a pastry, indigenous to Poland, filled with some kind of fruit or custard, and fried. Kinda like a softball-sized jelly donut. Only better. And way, way more filling.

So this morning, I had in mind that I’d go to the Polish bakery around the corner and pick up some pączki for the family. But the place had a bit of a line at 7 in the morning, so I just got two for myself. I intended to have one for breakfast and one with lunch, but the first one was so good, I followed it up immediately with the second one. This was a mistake.

Pączki Day Lesson #1: pączki will expand in your stomach. If you eat as quickly as I do, might want to wait a bit between pączki just to see how the first one is treating you.

As an aside, I discovered when I checked out that this bakery will sell you pączki using food stamps. I’m sure when they proposed the food stamps program, that’s exactly the use they had in mind. “Poor children are suffering from malnutrition! We need to help them! With 700 calorie balls of dough, jam, and lard!”

Anyway. I usually eat very healthy. Lots of vegetables and meats. Very little in the way of sweets. So to say I went into carb shock would be an understatement. Unfortunately I didn’t go to sleep until midnight last night, so I would have been sleepy anyway. And I had an 8 a.m. meeting, which featured one of the less interesting discussions I’ve been in the room for. My head was swimming and I was glad I didn’t have to present anything.

But my brain kind of returned to normal sometime around lunch, when I noticed someone had brought in pączki. And as a dog returneth to his vomit, so doth a fool return to his folly. His tasty, high-fat folly.

Then I heard that Sherry was wondering what all the fuss was about. So I went back to the bakery and got another four of these deep-fried pieces of magic. Sherry had one and a half, Charlie had one-half, and I ended up picking up the slack and had another two.

Pączki Day Lesson #2: pączki are like crystal meth. Doesn’t matter how much your body hates you for it, you’ll come back for more*.

So as Pączki Day winds to a close, I’m feeling ill. My tummy hurts, my brain hurts. I feel puffy and congested all over. If there’s a positive, I feel like I’m ready for Lent to begin. Lent a time for humility and contemplation of my spiritual frailty. And I feel very humble, contrite, and I literally have a visceral appreciation for my frail spirit.

I think next year, I’ll take a lesson from the 80′s hit film War Games. The only way to win at Pączki Day is not to play the game.

And hopefully sometime between now and then, I’ll learn how to pronounce “Pączki”. What’s up with the squiggle under the A, anyway?

* At least that’s the rumor on the meth. Fortunately, I can’t speak from personal experience. I’ve done some dumb things in my time and meth isn’t one of them.

I have two gripes about Presidents’ Day.  The first gripe is that it’s a reminder that nobody has any idea how to do the possessive apostrophe for plurals.  Here’s the rule, people:

If it’s a singular (i.e. one of them) you do apostraphe-s. Like this: “Toby’s meal looked delicious, so I ate the dog’s food and didn’t apologize to anyone.”
If it’s a plural (i.e. more than one of them), you do s-apostrophe. Like this: “Rover and Scraps looked fit. Apparently the dogs’ food was rich and nutritious.”