Well, the cat’s out of the bag. 

A couple of weeks ago I made a plan to celebrate Liam’s birthday this weekend, a little early. I asked my parents if they would watch the girls tonight (Frances’s first overnight!) so Liam and I could stay the night in Philadelphia. I made a dinner reservation at a happening restaurant and managed to keep things a surprise. 

Well almost. Up until two days ago, when Liam told me that he might have to do a last minute meet and greet for work in Philadelphia tomorrow. When he saw the horrified look on my face he said, “Or not. I could try to find someone else to do it.”

Ultimately, he could find no one else to go in his place. And so, I felt compelled to disclose the details of the weekend. Now here we are, in the City of Brotherly Love, celebrating the start of another season of birthdays, the impending arrival of a new baby, and a night away without our little loves. Feeling blessed. Hopefully the little munchkins are sound asleep by now and dreaming peacefully.





• The hospital bag is mostly packed, so I don’t have to worry anymore about the baby coming early and the possibility that there will be no pictures or video of him just after his birth because his mother was foolishly unprepared.
• Except for a few lingering colds, everyone here seems to be on the mend health-wise. Which means it is just a matter of time before the next major illness strikes.
• Liam and I signed up today for a minimum three-month discount subscription to several local participating gyms. It makes no difference that I’m planning on choosing now as the time to begin an exercise routine that I’m eight-plus months pregnant, right? Seems like as good a time as any, really, A couple of swim sessions couldn’t hurt to help get me in shape for the upcoming labor, right? Right? We are totally nuts here at this house. Turns out our first attempt to use the passes failed. We wanted to go to a family swim today, but everything closed down early. So, what did we do instead? We celebrated by going out to dinner for chicken wings, of course.
• This past week the youngest slept two back-to-back nights through the night, waking at 5:00 a.m. This allowed me on both occasions to get seven, uninterrupted hours of sleep for the first time in nearly two years. One would think I would have felt rested for days and days as a result of all the extra dozing. But no, I still feel exhausted. All. The. Time.
• And lastly, we still have no definitive name chosen for the baby. Several we both like, but no showstoppers. Praying for some divine intervention here. Or to discover a new, never before heard or seen baby name that is sure to knock everyone’s socks off, including our own. Or, we could just go with Fitzliam. Time will tell.

…I was twenty-one years old, a senior in college. He was nineteen, a sophomore in college in New York.

This time when he came to visit his cousin, Kerry, still my roommate, he drove out with a friend and his friend’s father.

I’m ashamed to say I have basically no recollection of Liam’s being on campus that weekend. However, I do remember fondly some of the memories he has of the time.

He remembers walking from our off-campus apartment early Saturday morning of the football game to a tailgate party. He says for most of the walk I drug along beside me a six-foot-long stick, speaking loudly as I did so, while every now and then inserting the stick into the street and tempting drivers to run parts of it over. Sad to say, this sounds about right according to my memory.

He also recalls that our group of friends had in our possession that day, a small, purple and pink hand-knitted, voodoo type doll, which we passed off to each other from time to time. He found this to be a bit odd, I think.

The doll’s name was Lucy, and she belonged to my friend, Brigid, who I think had acquired her in Ireland from a loony nun in some kind of monastery. The details on this are not clear.

What is clear, however, is that Lucy was our mascot. We brought her creepy self with us wherever we went and she featured in many of our photo ops. I wonder where she is today. Lucy would love some selfie action, I think.

How Liam could have thought we were anything but absurd, wildly immature, and totally silly is beyond me.

I wonder, if someone would have asked him then, tagging along in the street behind some half-witted, hungover, co-ed, wielding a long stick, if he could imagine marrying that girl, what he would have said. How about: You’ve got to be kidding, right?

A few friends with some cheap beers, and a dive-photo-bombing Lucy doll in the background.