Bellybutton Maracas & Dried Up Urine Sticks

Two events happened this week that made me take a good, long, look at myself in the mirror.  I had to stare carefully to make sure the person staring back at me was not a lunatic.  Maybe she was.  You know what, I don't care.

Last week I went into the basement to pull out my Christmas wrapping paper.  I bought one of those fancy holders last year that organizes and stores the rolls, tags, ribbon, etc.  As it turns out, it doesn't hold nearly enough.  At least I didn't need to buy more this year.  Too bad I did.  I'm sure I'll need it and if I don't, I can store it in my fancy holder.

As I reached up to pull the organizer off the shelf, there it was, staring me in the face.  At first glimpse, one would think it was just a forgotten Avent baby bottle sitting on the shelf.  Oh, but that is not the case.  This baby bottle holds something else.  I may actually be a little embarrassed to admit this one.  Who am I kidding?  I'm not embarrassed.  It's awesome.

In this four ounce baby bottle, holds five umbilical cord pieces.  I like to call it, the bellybutton maraca.  I wish I was a fly on your computer screen to see the look that is now on your face.  Yes, I have a bottle filled with bellybuttons.  Shake these hard nubs up and you have a maraca.

Think back to the day you found out you were pregnant.  The swirl of emotions you felt knowing that life was developing in your womb.  After reading all of the baby books you discover the umbilical cord is the lifeline that attaches the placenta to the fetus.  It is how your baby is nourished and the thing that keeps your baby alive. 

Move forward to delivery day.  Your beautiful baby is out and the doctor asks your husband to cut the cord.  It has become a right of passage for the fathers. 

A few days later you go home with your new baby.  You are carefully instructed how to take care of the leftover piece of the cord that is now hanging off of your beautiful baby.  I always found this to be quite gross.  You may read up on how long it takes for this life giving piece of anatomy to fall off.  Soon, it does. 

Where did it go?  Joking.  Although, we did lose one; Elia's I think.  It was in her bassinet.  Now what do you do with it?  I remember thinking with Joey, our first, "Do I just throw it out?"

The event was momentously recorded in the baby book, but now what?  I couldn't do it.  I could not bring myself to throw out a piece of him.  It was the source of life to his growing body for 40 weeks.  I remember there was an Avent baby bottle on the dresser.  I took off the lid and placed the cord into the bottle.  I screwed on the sealed cap and put it on a shelf.  Five babies later, there they sit.  I can even identify which one belongs to which child.  Freakish?  You bet.  The stubs seemed to get progressively longer with each child.  I'm not sure why, but by the time Gracie came that sucker was a good inch and a half. 

The now hardened pieces of umbilical cord are in the bottle in the basement.  I reminisced a minute as I peered through the plastic bottle.  I gave the maraca a delicate shake and placed it back onto the shelf.  They certainly can't be thrown out now.

This leads me to part two.  I was tackling the bathroom for the fourty-seventh time this week.  Staring into the medicine cabinet I decided to clean that out too.  Miscellaneous things kept getting tossed into the can.  Expired medicine, 4 extra measuring cups for medicine (how many do we need?), old hand creams, blades for with missing razors, and other weird things. 

How does all this stuff get in there anyway?  Then I hit the mother load again.  This time I pulled a pregnancy test off the third shelf.  Down tumbled four more right into the bathroom sink.  Yes, you have guessed it, these five sticks were my peed-on positive pregnancy tests.  Again, I'd really love to be a fly.  Each stick was clearly written in black sharpie which number pregnancy they represented.  The two lines still have a yellowish tint from my urine.  Gross.  There I reminisced again.  I remember being overjoyed while waiting anxiously in the bathroom for the wetness of my pee to move up the test and soak the results window.  What a rush.  Such excitement those tests gave our family.  I will admit to being in tears for the fifth test, but I got over that.  That's a story for another day. 

So there sat my five pregnancy tests lined up on the vanity.  The five pee sticks that revealed to me the greatest gifts I have in this life.  The five pee sticks that have changed my life.  These five urine stained sticks have made me who I am today.  I remember smiling as I put them back on the third shelf of the medicine cabinet. 

I'm really not a hoarder.  I don't like clutter.  I don't save every scrap of paper my kids have ever colored.  I do save the important stuff.  Sure, bellybuttons and pregnancy sticks are definitely not the normal thing one would save.  But I have an attachment to them.  . 

Hooray for bellybutton maracas and dried up urine sticks!

Bellybutton Maraca

Dried Up Urine Sticks