The Anarchist Comes (clumsily, tenaciously, loudly) Into the World: an epic tragicomedy

Our little miracle.

As I type this, I am holding the Anarchist on my lap.  She is scrawling her name all over everything with a highlighter she has stolen from the Bureaucrat's supply and demanding--loudly--that I stop what I am doing and type her name repeatedly all over the blog/or start playing Petville on Facebook.  She is becoming increasingly whiny.  I am considering tossing  her out the (first story) window.  "To the curb!" as we say in our (ever so loving) family. 

Of course, I would never do such a thing.  The Bureaucrat would have a fit if I removed the window screens.  And of course, the neighbors might start to wonder.  Also, the Anarchist is our little miracle.  And you don't toss miracles out of windows...even gently.

In about a week, we celebrate the miracle that is the birth of the Anarchist.  While every birth is, without question, a miracle, the Anarchist's birth is a different kind of miracle because it's the kind of miracle that looked, for a very long time, like it was going to be the opposite of a miracle.  It's the kind of miracle you struggle towards, doubt the possibility of, resign yourself to the lack of, and simultaneously have enough faith to behave as if it might just happen.  This miracle involved 6 am abdominal poking/prodding, sleeping pill-induced hallucinations, hospital jello cups, excessive watching of What Not to Wear on tiny hospital television screens, feeding tubes and spinal taps.  It was a strange miracle, not glowing and awesome and all-in-an-instant miraculous, but difficult, uncomfortable, drawn out and crammed with as much doubt as hope.  And it smelled like hospital.

Even now when I wash my hands at a doctor's office and smell the distinctive hospital soap, I'm hit with vivid flashbacks and get a little misty-eyed.  It looks like this: semi-normal looking mother of two helps children wash hands in pediatrician's office bathroom, lifts hands to face, breathes deeply, commences weeping. Alright, having written that, I'm starting to realize how crazy that must come off to a casual bystander.  I have to remember to stop sniffing my hands.

If any of this seems cryptic to you, it's probably because I haven't actually explained that the Anarchist was a preemie.  She was born three months early, after I had spent three months in the hospital holding very, very still and attempting to maintain a perfectly static and neutral emotional state so as not to agitate her tiny, fetal self.  If I had realized how resilient that tiny, fetal personality was, I might have allowed myself to get up and use the bathroom more frequently.  She probably could have withstood the turbulence.

Her tiny, fetal self.

Anyway, in honor of the Anarchist's super-miraculous, super-dramatic entry into the world four years ago Saturday, I am going to inundate you with her story.  Oh yes, friends, this is just the first installment in an epic miniseries celebrating my Anarchist.  Don't worry, no one will force you to read it.  But I feel the need to document it for posterity, so that when she grows up to be a famous geneticist/ballerina/rock star/race car driver/anarchist, it's already set down for her biographers.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to go sniff some hospital soap.  I need inspiration for Part II.