the kids
2003-06-13 ~ 1:14 a.m.

i am trying to get the rest of the annie lennox cd for amy...

my niece. the youngest one.

she is a character. already.

she likes annie lennox. i will never forget that.

it might be bad to have favorites in the manner of children...but she is mine.

i waited on her for a while.

alan and sharon took their time procreating. they had been married for at least four or five years before sharon got pregnant. my dad knew before anyone else. they came over for dinner one night and when they left he told my mom and i that sharon was pregnant. she was.

i was out drinking the night sharon went in to labor. i think i remember going by the hospital only to find out it would be a while.

it was carolyn who called me the next morning at some ungodly hour to tell me to come to the hospital. she was crying.

i got to the hospital and most everyone was there. most everyone already knew...but she wasn't out with the other babies where you could see her.

with reason. the shock of seeing amy for the first time was certainly present. it can't be denied.

it was nothing they had seen or found before the delivery. in the sonogram she was all curled up and quite clearly sucking her thumb...and yet upon emerging into the world she never sucked her thumb.

she was born with a triple-cleft. mouth, nose and pallette. it looked as if, from the bridge of her nose down, she had been malled. her nose wasn't completely formed and was growing to her cheek. the more common cleft in her lip split wide the length of her mouth to reveal that her gums had the same split under what should have been the roof of her mouth.

it was sad and shocking...but damn, what a hell of a child. an easy smile, an easier laugh, and a brain that goes like her dad's.

she had her first round of surgery as a baby. it was probably the most involved. they repositioned her nose and lips and started to bring together her gums. she was bottle fed with the very cool tilted nipples to force it down her throat instead of up her nose. i called her "the juicer" for short. they installed a temporary soft pallette in the roof of her mouth and every time she ate little kid things (like popsicles and bananas) it would be pushed upward and you would get juice. i am a cruel aunt, but it was very cute.

between the ages of two and five she looked like a different child. now she is all of ten. and she is no longer a juicer, much to my dismay.

when she was five, almost six, her mother went to houston for a weekend and decided to stay. sharon went home to get amy and her stuff. she filed for divorce from my brother and remarried some guy i have never met in austin. the next time i saw amy after that was when ashley and i went to potter city. we were sitting on the couch in my mom's store and i was asking amy about her new school and friends and stuff. then i asked her how she was doing. "my parents just got divorced, how do you think i am doing?" what a spirit.

christmas that year with ashley and her at wal-mart and her unlikely declaration of love for annie leennox even if she is gay. oh, what is an aunt to do?

i promised her when shannon and i were at home that i would go and see her.

i ought to do that. i remember good times with my aunt debbie.

by my other brother, i have one nephew and another niece...

trey is sixteen and is too cool (and obnoxious) to hang out with. brittni, at thirteen?, is too much of a girl for me to know what to say...though she is the one who sends me letters.

wow...and you got all of that just because letterman had annie lennox on.

later.

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