the underwear drawer

liberated

Joe came back to bed after Cal's 2am diaper change and said, "Well, I have good news and bad news."


MICHELLE
(Sitting up)
Uh-oh. What's the bad news?

JOE
I can't find it.

MICHELLE
Can't find...can't find what?

JOE
That's the good news.

MICHELLE
That being?

JOE
It fell off.

MICHELLE
His stump?

JOE
It finally fell off. But I don't know where it is.

MICHELLE
Oh. Oh! Yay! Well, whatever, I'm sure we'll find it in the morning.

JOE
Yeah.

MICHELLE
Either that, or the dog will eat it.


Every single day this week, we've been saying that Cal's umbilical cord stump would probably fall off that day or the next. And every day, the cord would deny us, tenaciously hanging on, that shriveled little piece of Wharton's jelly and connective whatnot. Once we hit the two week mark, I even started to get a little nervous that it hadn't fallen off yet, thinking maybe Cal had chronic granulomatous disease or some such thing, because WHY WASN'T IT FALLING OFF? And also, I am crazy.

So now it looks like Cal has a nice little innie. It will probably have to settle over the course of a couple of days, but it's definitely concave, not an outtie or a "swirlie" like his dad (that being a level or very shallow umbilicus with a twirling pinwheel of skin at the base). I'm sure he'll use his innie for good, not evil. Maybe he'll tuck things in there for safekeeping.

I did find the cord this morning, by the way. It was on the floor, at the foot of our bed. At first I thought it was a dead roach or a fly or something, but on closer inspection, nope, just a shriveled umbilical cord stump. Nothing to see here, people, please disperse. I showed Joe the nubbin, and then without much fanfare, chucked it in the trash. No, we didn't save it for the scrapbook. We're crazy, but not that crazy.

Currently watching: "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou." Well, we tried to watch it last night, at least. I love the look of Wes Anderson's movies--every scene is like a diorama or a museum exhibit, so perfectly blocked and posed. Unfortunately, we both fell asleep halfway though the movie, though this may have had less to do with the movie than with the fact that it was 11:00pm and the new bedtime in this house is 9:30pm.