Plastic Bags and New Life

I remember the night my little brother was born.

My four and a half year old self was shuffled off to stay with a family friend. They had a little girl, younger than me, and a little boy just my age. We were terrific pals. And if we really were as wild that night as I remember, those friends of my parents probably had headaches when they woke the next day to send me home with my dad.

I think we watched The Land Before Time like 7 times or something. And we spent the rest of the night throwing stuffed animals onto the canopy of the little sister's bed, and then trying to jump into it ourselves from the top of her dresser.

And that's all I remember until the part where Dad came to take me to the hospital to meet my new baby brother.

I climbed into that big blue van I so adored (the one dad didn't have a key for because it was so old - he used his pen knife to start it up), and we went to Ingles, for some last-minute groceries. I spent that time leaping from one white tile to the next, convinced that the white tiles were safe and the orange tiles were molten lava.

Since mom was in the hospital, it was up to my dad to remember to bring a jacket for me, in case it rained. Which... he didn't.

And rain it did. Scratch that... it poured.

And when we pulled into a parking space at the hospital, little me had no desire to go out in that rain without a raincoat.

My dad didn't panic for a second. He simply reached into the back seat, pulled some plastic grocery bags up, and dumped the contents out onto the floor.

He then proceeded to punch two holes in the bottom of one of them. Two holes for my legs to go through, and the handles went over my shoulders.

One plastic bag for a hat, two more for over my shoes, and I was not only waterproof - but the proud new owner of what I thought was absolutely the coolest rain gear on the block.

I took Dad's hand and marched proudly into the hospital to meet my new brother.

The security guard at the door took one look at me and said "Nice raincoat you got there!"

"Thanks", I beamed, "My Daddy made it for me"