Baby's First Girlfriend

Through an intense series of negotiations, I have officially been given permission to disclose the following:

Eli has a girlfriend.

I am not at liberty to disclose much about her. She is a human. She exists in our part of the multiverse. She occupies space, she has mass. She is between 3ft and 7ft tall. And is between 15 and 4,000 pounds.

Plus, she’s super sweet. 

Embarking on a junior high level relationship in the age of COVID is strange. Lots of texting. So much texting. I think they also talk until all hours of the night. I also assume they communicate through TikTok. What is TikTok? I totally know, but maybe you should tell me so I can double check that you know.

They’ve arranged a few COVID social distance dates. Here is how the last one went: His girlfriend insisted on buying them lunch at Chipotle. In true Hamann fashion, Eli panicked and bought her a pair of shorts at Target to even things out. The math checks out.

The Pandemic hasn’t dampened Luca’s duty as little brother to be an absolute nuisance in this budding relationship. Luca spent an afternoon tracking one of their dates like Lord Baltimore (I watched “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” the other night). Phone theft is rampant. Eli’s girlfriend takes it all in stride, and is super cute about indulging the nonsense.

Speaking of nonsense, I can’t resist. I text her frequently to encourage her to play practical jokes with my insider knowledge. I also do that thing where I press my index fingers together and make kissing noises whenever Eli talks about her. Eli and girlfriend, sitting in a tree and so on and so forth.

 Eli takes this all in stride with good humor. Oh wait. No. He hates it and screams at us to shut up whenever we butt in on his relationship.

A little bit of normalcy in an insane world. 

Baby’s First Surgery

In the middle of the general collapse of society, Elijah needed to have some minor surgery. In the interest of preserving the last shred of his privacy, let’s just say he had a none of your business removed from his none of your beeswax.

I was delighted to discover the hospital would only allow one parent to accompany him. And then horrified to learn they relaxed that policy the day before his surgery. It’s not that I didn’t want to be there, I just didn’t want Eli see me have a complete emotional breakdown.

On the morning of, I went into full Rick Mode. Which meant sitting in the car 45 minutes before we needed to leave and communicating only through a series of grunts and clicks. 

I do not recommend going to a major hospital during a global pandemic if you have anxiety issues. But the Children’s wing did their best to make wearing a mask and not touching anything fun.

Eli was understandably nervous. When asked about pain, his doctor had given the kiss of death, “There will be a little discomfort for a couple days.” And that, my friends, is how you get a new Playstation.

Once the sedatives kicked in, I pulled out my phone to record any viral hits, but then felt gross and put it away. He did give a hilarious monologue about his new superpowers and the benefits of gravity, but mostly just behaved like a bridesmaid who made the mistake of mixing whisky and wine on an empty stomach. 

Then the nurse said, “Okay. If you want to say goodbye, this is the time.” Goodbye? Remember that one girl who died from anesthesia? Was that at the dentist? Why are we doing this? Run. Run! I wondered how far I could get with a hundred pound babbling sack of Jell-O. Diana and I kissed him and told him we loved him.

They wheeled him out of the room and he shed a single tear down his cheek. At which point I died. 

Diana and I spent the next couple of hours silently scrolling Twitter and washing our hands. Diana received texts about the Eli’s progress like she was receiving a package from Anthropologie. 

The procedure was a complete success. Eli did great.  His recovery was a little barfy, but our post op nurse was amazing. A playfully gruff southsider who seemed to exist to play against all nursing stereotypes. His entire goal in life was to “get you out of my hair.” We loved him.

Eli and I became roomies for the next couple of days. He needed pain meds every three hours and wasn’t supposed to leave his bed, so we built a little nest made of video games, Doritos and opioids. 

But now he’s up and about and is healthy enough for me to yell at him about leaving wet towels on the floor.