Cetacean

[porphyry]

I went to the doctor today (a whole month gone already!) and everything seems to be going well in spite of my forty-three-year old egg; the best part, though, is that now, at sixteen weeks, I feel so much better than I did a few weeks ago. After my appointment, I called Malkhos.

"Well," I said, "The critter's still alive," sparing him the details of fundal height and so on.

"I didn't think it would be otherwise," he replied, sagely as ever.

"Next time, I get to find out the gender," I said. "So our arguments about what to name this child can begin in earnest."

"Oh, I have that all figured out," he said, sounding almost smug, but I let it pass.

Even Madeline is taking the whole thing much better than before; I was pretty sure her generally cheerful disposition would win out in the end. Once I talked to her about it, it seemed that her greatest fear was that I wouldn't love her anymore--as if I could ever ever do that!--or that I would love her less, somehow, but I suppose that's a normal fear for a four-year-old.

When I got back today, I told her next time I would find out what I was having. "What would you like me to have, Madeline?" I asked her.

She jumped up and down happily. "A dolphin!" she replied. She's always wanted a pet dolphin.

Comments

[benicek.livejournal.com]

Yes, yes! I want a dolphin too! I'm hazy on the science, but maybe if you start eating a LOT of fish.....

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

Could be. I'll let you know how it turns out although Malkhos is much more fond of fish than I. He'll even eat those horrid tinned fish which make me sick to my stomach whether I'm pregnant or not.

[benicek.livejournal.com]

I eat so many rollmop herring that Eva says I am going to become one.

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

You know, I think it might be herring that Malkhos eats, too, but I can't say for sure. I've never gotten close enough to him when he eats it to find out. The cats continually harrass him when he eats his tinned fish, however.

[benicek.livejournal.com]

Herring are wonderful animals to eat.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rollmops

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

Oh, God. I was "ewww"-ing over the picture in the link, so what does Malkhos do but pull two tins of herring and a tin of eels--eels!--from his desk. Probably the eels will sicken and then kill him. Yuck!

[benicek.livejournal.com]

Eels are lovely and healthy! Why is fish so terrifying to white northern Europeans? I can't figure it out. Yet we happily consume fatal quantities of fat, sugar and alcohol.

[leopold-paula-b.livejournal.com]

I had some anguille persilée (parsleyed eel) once upon a holiday in France. Seriously YUMMY!!!

[leopold-paula-b.livejournal.com]

Make that two Ls: persillée

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

Oh, God. I have to go vomit. :)

[benicek.livejournal.com]

Exactly. You are the Voice of Reason.

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

Well, eels are so... slimy. Eel-y. Probably incredibly salty and gooey. Malkhos is now pressing me to eat some right now, so I must run away.

[vonjunzt.livejournal.com]

I like my fish with large quantities of Mercury and other heavy metals. It's part of my Paracelsian diet.

Actually given the importance of cod in our history, it's a bit surprising fish isn't more important in Euroamerican cuisine.

[benicek.livejournal.com]

Okay, okay, APART from the mercury.

[filialucis]

Hee! That is so adorable!

[stefanie-bean.livejournal.com]

Awwww.

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

Well, Madeline plotted out the whole scheme: first, the dolphin can go in the bathtub when it's a baby, then over to Grammy's into the wading pool, and when it grows up, we can take it to Splash City (our local community pool, which Madeline would move into if she could).

"But Splash City is closed until next summer, Madeline," I told her. The last day was Labor Day. "The pool has been drained for the year, I'm sure."

"You and me can go there, get the hose, and fill it up!" she said, as if any idiot would know that.

[vonjunzt.livejournal.com]

Looks like Mithridates VI Ponto II is the child's name, whether boy or girl. I heartily concur.

I've been reading Herodotus lately, and had forgotten how often people did things like give birth to lions in the ancient world. Perhaps having a dolphin isn't so far-fetched.

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

I tried to explain to Andrew and Madeline that humans and dolphins actually are in the same family according to biological classification (at least, I think it's "family"--I forget freshman biology). They seemed baffled by this, but I said we actually have a lot in common with dolphins: live births, milk-fed young, oxygen-breathing, and so on. They didn't seem to understand.

I don't think I can manage a lion, however.