Contrariness

In one way or another, I have been contrary all my life.

I was supposed to be a big healthy baby, but I decided that for the only time in my life I would be underweight, and came out small, wrinkled, ugly, and unhappy about everything the world had to offer. That was the last time I was skinny.

I should have been laid up by asthma, in need of constant nebulizer treatments and completely flattened by my entire family including the dogs, the mice in the attic, and the spiders in the corners smoking like industrial chimneys before scrubbers were invented - and they knew it made my asthma worse, so what does that say about a) addiction and b) how valued I felt as a child??...but instead, I spent a few days here and there breathing through a damp paper towel (it helped, really...I still do that when I can't breathe, and it helps. Don't ask me why, I have no idea.)(And when I later discovered that a certain smokey comestible not currently available (lawfully) on the open market helped, too, well...ahem...)looking like death on the sofa, but otherwise I got on with life. I was used to having less oxygen than everyone else, so when the asthma mostly cleared up...wow.

I am allergic to everything, so I should keep a clean home with no pets and have a restricted diet. Ha, ha, and double ha!!!

I was told no man wants the fat girl, so when I didn't want to have anything to do with the male half (I had my reasons), I got "Holy crap, she's coming this way" fat. And then got married anyway, because someone was daft enough to want me. The only man I've ever dated, because he's the only man who was fool enough sweet enough to ask.

I was told I probably wouldn't be able to have kids, or that it would at the very least be extremely difficult to have them, because I was too fat and for other reasons I won't get into here. Umm...someone forgot to tell my girl parts about that, because two weeks after we decided to roll the dice and take what (ahem) came, I got preggers with the Evil Genius (sometimes known as Bird).

The medical staff at the hospital where I consented to have labor induced (dear blessed Gods above, if you're ever offered this option, DON'T DO IT!!!! Unless you are seriously overdue...like fifteen years or so...or are at Death's door...just don't do it. Whatever reason they gave you for trying this...they're lying) tried to convince me that my baby would suffer horrible birth defects if I didn't have an immediate c-section. I called bullshit and went through thirty hours of labor without medication before I let them do the section - and I only let them because they promised me a cheeseburger, the lying bastards. My son didn't have any of the defects predicted by the nurses, doctors, and janitors who felt the need to shove their arms up to their elbows in my hoo-hah to feel around for the watch the last fellow lost (or maybe they were looking for the lost passage to Atlantis, I don't know...all I know is, it seemed like everyone and their cousin was having a feel while I was a touch uncomfortable and too busy to tell them to piss off) and I didn't need any pain meds until they announced that they were gutting me like a fish and telling my future with whatever they found (congratulations, ma'am, we see spit-up, sleepless nights, a double helping of severe depression, along with your husband's sudden unemployment in your near future) so they were all kinds of wrong. If I were to have another child, I'd do it at home, in a lovely tub full of warm water with the iPod playing and maybe some cocktails (kidding!!) to keep me company.

The first pediatrician who saw my baby in my presence (they wouldn't let me see my own son for more than twelve hours, until I threatened to haul my carcass out of bed and wander the halls weeping and wailing until I found him and took him home...ass hanging out of that accursed hospital gown or not) told me I couldn't have him circumsised because he had a hypospadias (look it up, I had to) and would need corrective surgery. Well, I wasn't having him sliced 'n' diced anyway (don't get me started on how I feel about this ritualized maiming of baby penises), asshole with the cold hands who woke my sleeping little fellow by grabbing his junk and giving it a good feel, but thanks for your input. I also decided to opt out of surgery for my wee lad, despite their dire predictions...contrary critter, me.

Given my own monumental refusal to do things the easy way or the way people think I should, is it any surprise that my spawn is such a mule, sometimes?? That he refuses to do what we ask, in the way we ask him to? That I sometimes have to threaten him with maiming, death, or taking away his dinosaurs (worse than death to a five-year-old future paleontologist) in order to garner his cooperation?

Thanks, fate, for giving me a kid just like me. I'll be sure to repay the favor.