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August 1981

I never should have looked around at the ladies in our child-birthing class and picked out the statistical three who looked to me like they would end up having their babies by C-section.

When I got my just deserts, I explained to an elderly friend that I was likely going to have to deliver by C-section because my baby was upside down. She patted my hand gently. “That's how they're supposed to be.”

So I corrected myself. “All right, then I'm having a C-section because my baby is right-side-up.”

They took an x-ray right before I delivered and put it up on the viewer so I could see. There he was, sitting upright, legs up, like he was stuck in a garbage can. I remember looking at that skeleton within a skeleton and marveling at the photographic evidence of a person inside me, a person I was about to meet. Then another nurse, who obviously was absent on the day of sensitivity training, came over to admire the view. “Would you look at the size of that head!” C-section or not, those are not comforting words to a first-time mother headed for the delivery room.

They gave me the epidural early on, and I can't say as I minded watching the remaining labor pains on the monitor to see how strong they were. Eventually the time came and they wheeled me into the operating room. The drugs had taken effect, and I was shielded from viewing the surgery, but I was still somewhat aware and interested in what was taking place in the lower half of my body. No one, however was keeping me in the loop. Not even my husband, who was caught up in the action, remembered to give me the blow-by-blow.

When our baby made his appearance, what I heard first was the laughter of everyone present everyone who could see what was going on and the pronouncement that we had a baby boy. Out only up to his waist, his first act was to piddle on the doctor. My groggy mind tried to focus.

“What's wrong with my baby? Why are they laughing at my baby?”

August 2006

Now that I have known Scott for 25 years, I find it very fitting that he came into the world to the sound of laughter.

When he was almost a year old, his father died in an accident, but he was too young to be grief-stricken, so he was still a happy baby. He gave me a reason to keep going, and he reminded me that life went on and that when someone knocked your blocks over, you picked them up and built another tower.

When he was two, he dried my tears with little itty bitty pieces of toilet paper, running back and forth, one tear at a time, until I was laughing harder than I was crying.

When he was three, he very successfully played an April Fool's joke on me. I didn't even think he knew what April Fool's Day was.

When he was six, he got mad at me and called me “an Insidious Blob of Retromutagen Ooze.” The Ninja Turtles were off-limits for a month.

When he was nine, I read his amateur comic book called Stress Release Pages in the waiting room at the dentist's office, and everyone thought I had already been given laughing gas.

When he was twelve, he drew pictures of our bishopric with their heads on Pez dispensers. I wondered if he was listening in church.

When he was fifteen, he told me which ward members reminded him of different muppet characters. Our bishop was “Sam, the Eagle” and his seminary teacher was “Fozzie Bear.” I still wondered if he was listening.

When he was seventeen, and I asked him if he thought I was going to be alone the rest of my life, he told me, “Yes, you're going to be a lonely bitter old crone.”

When he was nineteen, I found out he had been listening in church and sent him into the mission field for two years. He wrote me lots of interesting, funny letters. He mailed a couple of them.

When he was twenty-one, he came home. Only home had moved. He told me that our rural island of Hawaii was “like Idaho with an ocean.”

When he was twenty-five—well, that is a couple of days off as I write this—but I just wanted to thank you, Scott, for giving me the chance to be a mother, but more specifically, the chance to be your mother. All I had to practice on was a doll in childbirth class, a doll that never would have put honey on the toilet seat at the age of three. They forgot to give us the owner's manual when we took you home from the hospital, but I still think I did a pretty good job. If you want to know how young and inexperienced I was, you are the age now that I was when I had you. You have a quarter century to my half century.

Paul was only around for the first ten months, but he did manage to drop you on your head, a parental prerequisite. When you were young I used you as a visual aid in Relief Society, as a thumb-sucking therapist, and an unending source of material for my writing. When you got older, I used you to carry suitcases and reach things off of high shelves, as a bouncer for my bad blind dates, and there are times I wish I had cashed in that coupon for you to beat up one of my co-workers.

Thank you especially for allowing your childhood to be broadcast to the world, through my books and talks, and for never going into the Witness Protection Program. I owe you several bloomin' onions. Maybe one of these days a beautiful girl will ask if you are related to me and it will all pay off.

I wanted to do something to make this milestone birthday special for you, and this is all I could think of. I love you.

Mom

Alison Moore Smith is a 61-year-old entrepreneur who graduated from BYU in 1987. She has been (very happily) married to Samuel M. Smith for 40 years. They are parents of six incredible children and grandparents to two astounding grandsons. She is the author of The 7 Success Habits of Homeschoolers.