Friday, January 16, 2009

Just in case

January 16, 1988

I was awake at 1 in the morning. By 3, I had curled my hair and had a full face of makeup. Getting ready took longer than usual because my contractions were only a few minutes apart. I came to realize later how unnecessary 3 shades of eyeshadow and big hair were for giving birth. But, it was the 80's and I cared about things like smoky eyes and the power of Aqua Net hairspray then.

I had been cold all week, my husband of just over two months got up every couple hours to start our 1979 T-bird so that would start when we needed it. We were both nineteen and about to embark on the adventure of raising a child. Not just any child, we "knew" we were having a little girl - don't ask me how, no medical person had ever suggested the baby was a girl. We knew in the way 19 year-olds know things. We'd chosen a girls name. We discussed that if on the remote, off chance, we were wrong we'd call him Justin Case. "Just in case" it's a boy.

We were parents before noon.

Welcome to the world Justin Case.

Three days later when we filled out the legal forms, we put a "y" on the end of his name. Our "just in case" became Justin Casey.

I call him Sweet Pea most of the time though.

And today he is 21. His dad and I will buy him his first legal drink. A full-fledged adult.

My sweet baby, my favorite tow-headed boy, my frustrating pre-teen, my pasty white legged wrestler, my homebody teenager, my goofy buddy, my science lecturer, my goodness it's been fun to see him grow up.

Happy Birthday Sweet Pea!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Awwww! how nice.

Anonymous said...

What a great post Mary.

Did you go to Daves last night then?

SDS

Merry Mary said...

Hi, I'm glad to see your comment. This blog thing is kind of fun.

We went to Ushers for his first (and so far only) legal beer last night. It was cute, he asked what they had on tap and they gave him a whole list of beers and he got flustered and just picked something, he hadn't heard of it before, it had a German name. He had no idea what he was going to get. It was a light beer. They compared it to Blue Moon, and it was served with an orange slice. They carded him and realized it was his birthday When they brought his beer out, they said that it was on them, as it's not every day someone turns 21!