August 06, 2003

blake

today kristen agreed that if i would go to the grocery store, she would clean the apartment. hello. talk about a win-win situation. i came back an hour later and the place was nearly spotless. (an impressive feat considering we just bought and assembled two oscillating fans and an entertainment center in the living room, and the boxes and styrofoam were abounding.) she is alarmingly fast at picking up. this works out very well because as she hates CLEANING like with the cleaning sprays and stuff, i hate picking up. what a combo. so tomorrow i must clean. swiffer the floors cuz wayne's shedding is completely out of control this summer, and his hair's everywhere! and the bathroom. the kitchen's not in bad shape. we clean that pretty often. wayne keeps knocking my mechanical toothbrush off the sink onto the floor amidst the plungers and toilet brush. UGH. talk about gross. it's like, how much hot water is REALLY gonna make you feel better about putting that in your mouth? i don't know about that.

reading proofrok's diary made me think of my sister's babies. well, they're not babies anymore. they're about 5 and 1/2 years old now, about to start kindergarten. wow. chase was the smallest of the triplets, at exactly 2 pounds, and they were the most worried about him. i remember washing my hands all the way up to my arms in their hospital-strength soap so i could go into the preemies ward. to see those tiny creatures in incubators and to see my sister's and my brother in law's faces was not fun. knowing they would be going home, leaving their children at the hospital to grow, to get stronger, to breathe on their own, i could see that in their eyes. the preemie ward is not like the regular maternity ward, where they have all the beds lined up with the babies' names labeled, people admiring them, smiling at them through the window. the preemie ward is more about worry and fear than celebration, and that is not fair. about 10 days after the triplets were born my mom took me to el fenix for dinner and told me that blake, the oldest baby, the strongest baby, had gotten an infection. he had died that day. i will never know how my sister felt that day, or how she feels every day, still thinking about him and missing him, feeling a hole in her heart. he was like a little doll. i'll never forget the way he looked in his tiny coffin. that's something one should never have to see. i'll always miss knowing him, seeing him grow up with his brother and sisters, protecting them. and all i can hope and pray is that there is a heaven, and that's where he is. and he's an angel.

blueavenue at 4:09 a.m.

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