All Things Anne

Mom, Elle Jane, and I were out all day again. This time though, we went to Dad’s doctor’s appointment in the morning, and shopping, and a few other things.
Dad’s appointment was at 10 am, so they wanted us in at 9:30, but Dad didn’t actually get into the doctor’s (we were in the waiting room) until 11 or so. Mom went with him, and Elle Jane after a while did too (she cried so loud Mom came out and got her). I was left in the waiting room with Elle Jane’s carrier, Mom’s purse, a bunch of blankets, and my book.

After a bit, two old ladies came in (I learned later they were sisters). Shortly, two other old ladies, also sisters, came in (one was named Velma). Then two other old ladies (the one in the red outfit was also named Velma). They obviously knew each other, the three sets of ladies, and were talking amongst themselves. I was at the other end of the waiting room, reading magazines. Then an older fellow, younger than the other ladies but older than my parents, came in. He had a hat on that looked like a durag on his head, backwards, except it wasn’t exactly like a durag, it had a little brim. He looked like a biker; he also wore a leather vest and an earring. As he passed me he looked in the baby carrier which was piled with blankets.
“How old’s your baby?”
“She’s eight weeks,” I said. Now, I’m not one to talk to strangers, usually. In fact, I’m kind of afraid of strangers. But I’m not going to ignore them!
He went and sat in his seat.
“Actually, she’s not in there, she’s in the other room with my mom,” I said. “It just looks like she’s in there!”
“Aww, grandparents are nice, aren’t they?”
He hadn’t said anything untrue, so I agreed! Only…he thought that was affirmation that Elle Jane was MY baby!
“What’s wrong with the baby?” he asked.
“Nothing. It’s my Dad who’s in there,” I said.
“Oh, ok.”
He asked what was wrong with Dad (if I didn’t mind him asking), and I told him it was his ligaments and stuff, and he was a pretty young guy for this to be happening; he asked how old, I told him.
Somehow the topic of kids came up, and I said I was the oldest of twelve.
“Twelve!” he said. I love people’s reactions!
“Yes; seven girls, five boys.”
“Wow!” He said something about my poor mother and I said “She isn’t poor, she likes us all!”
He laughed. “Yeah, depends upon how you are raised! My dad had rules, he had rules. When someone came in his house, they had to obey the rules, no matter who they were.
“Yeah.”
“There were seven boys in my family, and one girl.” When he was talking later, though, I wasn’t sure if he had seven brothers or if there were seven boys total!
“Neat!” I said.
“Yeah, us boys fought a lot, knock-down drag-out fights.”
I laughed. “My brothers fight sometimes too, but only in fun, they never hurt each other very bad. Sometimes they have a touch-war, saying ‘you touched me harder than I touched you! I’m going to poke you!’” He thought that was pretty funny.
“Well, my Dad said if we were going to fight, we’d just fight. Mom always told him to stay out of it.”
“My Mom always says ‘Don’t break anything!’”
He laughed again. “Yeah, that was another rule–we had to fight outside! My sister could get away with murder.”
“She should have had a sister!” I said.
“Then it would be double murder!” one of the first ladies said (she brought in her sister, I’ll call her the younger sister and the one she brought, the older sister).
“Murder?” her sister asked. “What are you talking about over there?!?” the older sister asked.
“Well, you know me, I just get bits and pieces of a conversation!” the younger sister said, and everybody laughed.

Shortly after that, the biker dude left into the office. The younger sister said, “So, how old is your baby?”
“Eight weeks; she’s actually my youngest sister.”
“Oh!”
“There you go supposing, again!” the older sister said, and everybody laughed. “You could create a whole story of untrue things by jumping to conclusions!”
“Well, I kind of do the same thing, I listen. If we’re at Costco having lunch or something, I’ll tell Mom, ‘Mom! That lady over there has ten kids.’ ‘How do you know?’ Mom’ll say. ‘I heard her say so!’” I said.
“Do you have ten kids?” the younger sister asked.
“Nope. Twelve.”
“Oh! Twelve! Where are you…where do you fall?” the younger sister asked.
“I’m the oldest.”
“Oh!” Everybody was laughing so hard and I was laughing so hard I could hardly speak. “And how old are you?”
“Twenty,” I said.
“There you go supposing again!” the older sister teased.
“How many are boys, and how many are girls?” the lady with the red-outfitted Velma asked.
“Seven girls, five boys.”
Everybody was suitably impressed.
I think it was about then that the older sister was called in (the other Velma and her sister had left by now), and as she was leaving, I pulled two CD’s out of Mom’s purse. Don’t think I was totally calm during all this, I was SO nervous. I just don’t talk to strangers! I decided I like talking to old ladies though, nice old ladies! Because I was nervous I kind of stumbled over my words, so this is the nicer version! “Our family has a CD, we have a family band and we play kind of…contemporary Christian music, if you’d like one…?” I showed them.
“Take one for me,” the older sister said so I handed one to the younger sister.
The lady with the red-outfitted Velma said somebody she new just put out a CD as well, I said that was neat, and asked Velma if she wanted a CD. She said no, she listens to more softer things. I asked the lady with her if she wanted it, and she said yeah. “It’s neat you have something to kind of hold your family together,” she said.
“We do, we have one thing in common–God,” I said.
The red-outfitted Velma got teary-eyed. “Isn’t it nice how we’re all here in this waiting room and all of us have mentioned something about God? Isn’t that neat?”
We all agreed!

After a while, the older sister came back out.
“You forgot your coat!” the younger sister said.
“I didn’t, I’m going back. I haven’t seen the doctor yet!”
“Oh, she’s sure taking a long time, isn’t she!” the younger sister said.
“It’s because of my dad,” I said.
“You’re the one!” the younger sister said.
“Yep. His appointment was for 10, they wanted him in at 9:30, and he went in at almost 11.”
“Wow!” the younger sister said. As the older sister was sitting (it was a process), the younger sister said “Did you forget to go to the bathroom?” (The older sister was saying how she needed to use the bathroom earlier.)
“No,” the older sister said, continuing the process of sitting.
“Well, hurry up and go then, before you sit down!” the younger sister said.
“I did go! You said ‘did you forget’ and I said no I didn’t! They had a bathroom in there and I went.”
I was laughing so hard, quietly.
“Look at her!” one of the ladies said, pointing to me.
“It’s like talking to my Mom!” I said, and they all laughed too.
“Watch out, she might adopt you as her grandkid!” somebody said.

A few other things were talked about, nothing very funny…then Mom and Dad FINALLY came out.
“There they are,” I said.
“We know all about you!” the younger sister said.
“Oh yeah?” Dad said.
“Yeah, we know you have twelve kids and you were the one holding everybody else up in there with the doctor!”
“Oh you’re waiting?” Dad asked.
“Yeah.”
Dad did some paperwork or something, then we waited while the secretary printed something, then we left and I told Mom all about it. “YOu’ll have to blog on it!” she said. “That’s just too good not to blog on!”
“I was planning on it!”

We had lunch at Costco, then went to the new Hobby Lobby and spent a few hours in there. Elle Jane was being upset, but she quieted down when I gave her my finger (she spits out plugs), for a while. Then we went to Office Depot where I got my book bound (just the pages to be held together so Dad and Mom can read it…so they can edit it…so I can publish it). We ran into Target quick too, then out, then home. We got home at 4pm! But it was a very fun day!