Kids
Just got some email with baby pictures from Natalie today. Little Marty's a cutie, I must admit, although Nat assures me that the pictures don't convey his tendency to get loudly hungry at two in the morning, or the toxic waste that later lands in his diapers. I'm tempted to write back and say, remember, he's not making it out of anything that doesn't come out of you, but I'm not sure she'd appreciate it. Or maybe she would; she adores the little guy, just amazed at how worthwhile the whole last year acually turned out being.

Apparently, I'm supposed to distribute these pictures. Nat still feels a little awkward talking to my mom, or at least feels that way more than I do. So, after work, I'll go to one of those photo places where you can get prints from a CD and run some off. Speaking of which, I'd better start using the office computer's CD burner now.

I'm also supposed to get them to Carter. He is, after all, the baby's biological father, I guess. I wonder what he feels his obligations to the little guy are. After all, he never did anything to get Natalie pregnant, although that might not matter to him. I remember toward the beginning of the year, when I was dating "Carter-prime", so to speak, he was initially kind of miffed at how fastidious I was about the birth control. Apparently some other girlfriend had quoted the statistics about black guys who grow up in the inner city being deadbeat dads to him the last time he'd felt annoyed that she wasn't totally swept away by his charm but instead able to make a point of things like condoms. Well, that's not me, I just really don't want to be a mother right now.

Still, the guy did grow up in foster homes, with the sort of assumption of absent fathers. As grateful as the new Carter probably is, is he going to dive in and by Marty's dad? Not just father, which he's sort of stuck with, but dad? That's a taller order. Did he feel some sort of biological connection with Nat and her unborn child when he was out there? Will he look at these pictures and just have his heart melt? If you're not used to seeing a certain nose in a mirror, will seeing it on a baby be a big deal?

Speaking of kids... It's easy to forget, since there was a thirty-year-old in Sam's body for the past year, but she's still a kid who ran away from home. And, okay, she's been through a lot. But, geez, you'd think Maureen and I were sending her to her room without her supper when we said smoking in the apartment was right out. Yeah, it's cold outside, but it's not like the body had the same cravings for nicotine - aside from the time Carter spent held prisoner, she'd worked at getting the body healthy, including kicking what was left of that habit when she escaped (oh, the pronoun-related headaches). But, what's the change that impressed Sam the most in the year she'd missed? Old enough to buy smokes.

Hey, what I said about not wanting to be a mother holds, but I'm still territorial about my air.

-Martina
- posted 5:02 PM - - (archive use only)