Happy NaPoWriMo to you, Mother Goose

Spring has sprung up around Mother Goose when she wasn’t looking! And with spring comes a certain stirring in the heart of a goose. No, it is not the “Call of the Wild” for the cause of procreation — Mother Goose has done enough procreating in the past 26 years to keep the family genetics ongoing for several generations to come!

Indeed, what I feel is NaPoWriMo springing up within my feathery bosom.

Mother Goose is nose-diving into the crystal clear pond of National Poetry Writing Month here on WordPress and I believe that I’ll go down deeper than any goose may have gone before. I will most assuredly find uncharted waters as I share my poetry with all of my most devoted and sincerely faithful followers.

Today is the first day.

Shall we begin?

Home is where Mom makes lunch.

a story of love
inside my heart
the sound of dishes clatter

you hold my hand
I kiss your cheek
my babies pitter patter

I cook your lunch
you sniff your tears
oh baby, what’s the matter?

don’t like my soup
please pick me up
Mommy be Mad Hatter

we laugh and lunch
whirl kitchen dance
soupy spinning splatter

The Birth of a Goose

Some people may think that Mother Goose hatched out of an egg. Well, today is the birthday of Mother Goose, and I will tell you the true story of how it happened so long, long ago…

It was the coldest winter on record, December of 1958, in Hackensack, Minnesota. At night, the temperatures were dropping down to -30 degrees F. Knowing that the car might not start when it was time to go to the hospital and knowing that I could arrive at any time, my dad would bring his car battery into the house at night so that it wouldn’t freeze up. They had been expecting me to be delivered around Thanksgiving time, but two weeks had gone by before I decided it was time for my grand appearance.

Baby, it's cold outside.

Dad hooked up the car battery, and helped Mom into the car. It was a forty-eight mile trip from Hackensack to the hospital in Brainerd. The roads were ice-covered and slippery, and they had to drive slowly. I’m guessing that Mom may have been a little impatient with Dad on that long drive…but eventually they arrived at the maternity ward.

Greetings from St. Joseph's Hospital in Brainerd, Minnesota

Mom got checked into her room, and it was not a pretty hotel room like they have today in the mother – baby centers of our modern hospitals. It had metal beds and no soothing music, no pretty pictures on the wall. Of course, there was no sound proofing between rooms, so whilst my mother was going through her thirty-something hours of labor, she also had to endure the screams and howls and threats and yodels and cursing of other women going through their own labor ordeals. She had no contact with Dad (which maybe was a good thing…), no breathing exercises to help her work through the waves of pain, no soft-spoken midwife at her side. Just Nurse Ratchet and a bevy of nurses popping in every hour or so to check her progress.

"Are you ready to deliver that baby yet?"

Of course, in 1958 fathers were not welcomed into the labor and delivery rooms — imagine all those chain-smoking expectant dads sitting around waiting for the good news about what kind of a baby their wives had delivered. Imagine my dad’s surprise when the doctor came out, shook his hand and congratulated him on the birth of his baby goose.

Standard operating procedure in those days involved an extended stay at the hospital for both the new mother and the new baby. So Mom and I were guests at the hospital for seven days, and then Dad came and got us.

I’m sure that I was a handful of joy — just a pure bundle of fun for Mom and Dad. I was their first baby. Of course, I was colicky. Of course, I had diaper rash all over my body. Of course, I wasn’t breast-fed because that was considered “savage, if not downright animalistic” so Mom had to be making her own formula daily. And after I was a couple weeks old, she added pablum to my diet because I was such a hungry goose.

In fact at tender age of six weeks, I’ve been told that I looked like a six-month old child. Perhaps the formula and pablum were mixed a little too richly? Perhaps geese grow more quickly than regular people? Perhaps it was my generous feather and down covering which made me appear quite round and plump?

Mother Goose would like to thank Mom and Dad for making me, for delivering me into this world, for feeding me and changing all my cloth diapers and for raising me to believe that fairy tales and nursery rhymes do come true.

Happy Birthday to me! and a day of blessings to you!

Little Wife Delivers Twins!

I had such a nice chat on the phone yesterday with my dear friend, Little Wife. She was very busy cleaning house but happy to sit down for a bit and visit with me. “Little Wife,” I said. “Your house is neat as a pin! Why are you cleaning?”

“Oh my gosh,” said she. “The boys are coming home today!” So that explains everything, doesn’t it? I’m sure you know the story of Little Wife in the delivery room almost twenty-one years ago. Wait! I guess I never told you that amazing tale, did I? Well, please forgive me, and please make yourself comfortable — Mother Goose will tell you a wonderful story now.

Little Wife and her husband, Freddie Schnitzel, were happily married and had enjoyed three fantastic years as blessed parents of a happily precocious and compliant, sweet little girl. Her name was Lulu. Being a mother came easily to Little Wife, and she was overjoyed to discover that soon she would be having another baby! Pregnancy was also easy for Little Wife — she experienced very little morning sickness and even had extra energy for traveling up north with Lulu to visit the family. (She even went bear hunting with her dad, but that’s a story for another day…)

Every month, Little Wife would visit Dr. Baloo who listened to her ever-expanding tummy for the very special sound of the baby’s heartbeat. Little Wife was glowing with anticipation of the baby’s arrival, but at each visit with Dr. Baloo, she would ask the good doctor, “You hear just one heartbeat, right, Dr. Baloo?” And he said, “Yes, Little Wife, just one heartbeat.” Smiling, Little Wife would carefully climb down from the examining table and head for home to continue reading “East of Eden” — it was a compelling read, but she just couldn’t quite figure out why. Little Wife also spent extra time with little Lulu because she knew that it would be a very big adjustment for her to have a new baby in their quiet home. They went for long walks and had long talks — it was a special time for them both.

After months and weeks of expectation, the day grew nearer for Little Wife to have her baby. She was visiting Dr. Baloo for what would be one of her final exams. (teehee teehee… final exams sounds like a huge test, doesn’t it?) “Well, Little Wife,” announced Dr. Baloo with a flourish. “It looks like you’ll be having an eleven pound baby!”

“Omigosh!” exclaimed my friend. “What in the world? I’m not THAT big! I’m a rather diminutive woman with a normal-sized pregnant tummy. How can this be?” But she smiled and climbed down carefully from the examining table. “I better get home and finish making all those Christmas presents for my family and friends. And maybe I should buy some bigger baby jammies for the little tater tot.”

Well, sure enough, that night Little Wife’s water broke while she was finishing all those Christmas presents, and Freddie drove her to the hospital. Lulu went to stay overnight with her favorite Auntie and Uncle. It was a long labor, but finally Little Wife pushed one last mighty push, and delivered a smallish baby boy. Tears of joy and hugs all around the delivery room as the nurses took the little fellow and wiped him off and weighed him.

As distracted as she was, Little Wife still had to deliver the baby’s placenta. Dr. Baloo was surprised at the delay of this final phase of an otherwise uneventful pregnancy and delivery, so he took a little peek to see what was holding up the show….

“There’s another baby!” Dr. Baloo shouted. He had spotted a tiny little foot within the mysterious womb of Little Wife.

Pandemonium and amazing chaos reigned in that hospital delivery room for the next hour. Freddie Schnitzel nearly dropped the tiny baby boy he had been holding so carefully as he rushed to the side of Little Wife’s bed. At this point, Little Wife didn’t know what to think. She was not having any contractions at all — her labor was done! But how did another baby get in there? That was the question on everyone’s mind!

Breach babies are a bit of a complication, but especially SURPRISE breach babies. The medical staff decided that with such a last minute surprise at hand, they couldn’t turn the baby around for a headfirst arrival into the world. Suddenly an anesthesiologist appeared at the bedside of Little Wife as well as an surgically trained obstetrician. With much gentleness and kindness, they informed Little Wife that she would be delivering the baby via Caeserian section, and everything would be just fine.

“Goodnight.”

And when she woke up, Little Wife was the mother of identical twin baby boys. “Well, my goodness,” cried Little Wife through her tears of joy as they placed the tiny little babies in her arms for the very first time. “Omigosh, look at them! How sweet and tiny they are! How much do they weigh?”

“Well,” said the neonatal nurse. “Baby number one weighs five and a half pounds. And baby number two weighs five and a half pounds also. It seems that your doctor DID guess the weight right at your last check-up. He just didn’t know how many babies you were carrying.”