If you want an invitation and you don't think you'll get one, you should let me know.

Last night was kind of hectic, but really cool. We went and saw Russell's first grade play, "The Nanny Goats Gruff." Russell spent the first 5 minutes of things searching the audience for me and Mike. I was kind of off to the side, where he might not have been able to see because my butt was hurting on the hard metal folding chairs (oh, the joys of sciatica), but watching him barely able to sing while he hunted for us, broke my heart, so I shuffled into a seat next to Mike. He finally spotted us and I think my son might be part piglet because the little ham went nuts.

First, he started overdoing the gestures a little and smiling big as life to both of us. Mike and I were busting up because he was so damned cute. Then Mike was snapping some pictures of him and he hammed it up for the camera and then looked at Mike with a thumbs up as if to say,"Hey, was that good, Dad?" and the entire place busted up, while Mike nodded at him, grinning from ear to ear. I about fell off my chair giggling so hard. I was damned glad I peed before the play.

Afterwards they had some kind of dessert buffet thing, but we had blown off an hour of childbirth classes to go to this thing, so we grabbed him a couple of cookies and bolted out the door to drop him off with Pauline and head to the remainder of class. We'd prearranged this with Bear, telling him he could pick something fun to do in lieu of the dessert buffet socialization hour, so he's in a quandry as to what he might like to do, i.e., the zoo, Chinese food (ironically enough his favorite thing is sweet and sour pork -- the ham theme continues) or some other *special* thing.

We went to the childbirth class and watched a couple of videos. The first one was just too doctor involved for my tastes. The girl had an epidural and then the doctor as a matter of course, gave her an episiotomy. I was pissed at that. The next birth we saw was totally natural -- no pain killer and no episiotomy or ripping. I'm hoping I can do it like the second one. I don't know how the pain thing will be, but I'm willing to make a valiant attempt. I've had some labor, but I didn't get much past contractions one on top of the other.