this morning we pile into the car to go to seb’s orthodontist appointment. it’s super sunny but cold. i have to scrape frost from all the windows of the van before i get to pile in. as we’re driving i say,

well oren, the day you were born it was snowy and icy and freezing cold. i don’t think there has been so snowy a birthday for you since then.

and oren said, because he’s younger and remembers better than me,

remember on my fourth birthday there was snow? there was a bunch, and it came up to here on me.

he gestures to his waist.

whatever, i think, there was no snow.

there was snow that year? that was the year you were in the hospital. i don’t think there was snow that year,

i say.

yes there was and it was this high.

oren gestures to his waist again.

when i got home from the hospital we played in it.

oh yeah, there was snow that year, i think…

oh yeah, there was snow that year. i think we have a picture of you playing in it.

oren has a really good memory, maybe because of that head injury all those years ago (well, three. and i wonder if there will ever be a time when we quit referring to that year, that benchmark year). he asks,

what time was i born?

i reply,

you were born at 9:10 in the morning.

he asks,

did i just pop out?

i think for a minute, a flashback of the pushing and screaming mayhem that was his birth that started at 8:50 am (after a few hours of labor, of course) and lasted 20 minutes, the longest 20 minutes of my entire life (sorry those of you who had to push for like 3 hours or something).

yeah, you pretty much just popped out.

Posted on December 12th, 2012