Super Special #11 The Baby-sitters Remember - Jessi
Prologue/Kristy
Stacey
Claudia
And onto Jessi’s story... I’ve always hated her handwriting, because it’s so damn loopy and swirly. Though if you asked the writer, I probably hate her handwriting because she’s black.
Anyways! Jessi’s most vivid memory opens with a letter to... Squirt? What is this? Oh. She’s apparently writing a letter to him in the future. Okay then. We get the important stuff out of the way right away: Jessi’s most vivid memory is of when Squirt was born. A little strange, isn’t Jessi’s character trait ballet, not creepy devotion to her siblings? I’d think her most vivid memory would be her first recital or something...
Right, moving on! So the chapter starts out with Jessi explaining that the letter she was writing was, in fact, for a time capsule for Squirt. I sure as hell hope that he either reads it at the height of his cursive writing ability, or retains knowledge of cursive better than I did, or he’s screwed. Apparently the time capsule came up from Becca whining and Jessi not having the stones to just smack her and tell her to shut her damn mouth. It seems like a cool idea, but there are two big problems:
1) A time capsule is fun for about ten minutes. You find some shit to throw in it, then bury it, and then... wait. For years. So yeah, it’s not exactly on ‘barrel of monkeys’ levels of long-term fun
2) Jessi lets her little sister run rampant around the house, and... sits down to write a letter. Stellar baby-sitter there, Jessi. Nothing like watching to make sure the 8-year-old doesn’t decide that putting in her baby brother’s favorite blanket is a great idea.
So Jessi’s mind “traveled back to a year and a half ago” and she “remembered that time as clearly as if the events were happening now.” I sure hope so, hun. Then again, maybe she’s got extremely early onset of Alzheimer’s, and can’t remember a thing about last week. It’d explain why she keeps having to repeat sixth grade, and has insisted she’s 11 for years.
Ugh, sentence fragments! I can feel my literacy dropping. A semicolon is not the enemy! It’s not! I promise! Oh no, now I’m doing it too! Must make longer sentences; must connect thoughts with semicolons! Ahh... So much better.
So, Jessi is remembering her old house in Oakley, where racism doesn’t exist because no one does a double take when the only non-white girl in school walks past. And also how the entire neighborhood was like home to her, mostly because it was full of her family. For New Jersey, this place sounds very Deep South. Wide front porches being sat on during summer evenings, people not moving around a lot, no guidos to be seen... Basically, Oakley is the bomb and Stoneybrook sucks hardcore because everyone that lives within five blocks of her isn’t related to Jessi. Right.
Mama Ramsey is super pregnant, and super nervous because she’d had two miscarriages after Becca was born (but of course can’t use a word like that). Apparently, she’d miscarried far enough along to know the gender of the baby each time, which a quick googling tells me, is normally found out (by ultrasound) between the 18th and 26th week. So, going by modern standards rather than 1994 (copyright date) standards, that’s still four and a half months, at the earliest. That’s... pretty far along to lose a baby, I think. Not positive, since my loins have yet to spring forth new life, and probably never will. But anyways, traumatic.
But it looks like third time’s the charm, and the Ramsey’s will welcome in a healthy baby to their fam-
Whoa, wait, what?
Jessi, you... you don’t want this baby to be born?
But what about the “oh my gosh babies squee!” BSC mentality? What about getting to change his diapers and feed him and teaching him to worship at the kid kit altar to the overload Kristy? How can you betray my faith?!
...Because it’ll smell bad? Really? That’s your justification for the hate? A little baby smell? Seriously? That’s it? I... I’m disappointed, Jessi. Severely disappointed. Somewhere in the ‘Brook, Kristy is glowering at you. Better get in front of your Kid Kit altar, face towards BSC HQ, and pray for forgiveness.
Oh, wait, she also doesn’t want to share a room with her sister. I’d say it makes sense, because she’s nine and despite what Ann wants to admit, just about ready to begin puberty, and Becca is only six, and will probably ask all sorts of embarrassing questions, but... that’s not the reason Jessi doesn’t wanna share. Jessi doesn’t want to have the same size living space as every other child in her family. Her current room is about twice the size of Becca’s room (which will become the baby’s room), and Jessi doesn’t want to lose that.
Bitch.
Rather than talk to her parents about how she feels, Jessi keeps her budding hatred for her unborn sibling a secret, because she doesn’t want to “jinx” it. Because having feelings of your own is just pure evil waiting to manifest in another miscarriage, clearly.
Right, so summer vacation has started, and Mama Ramsey is upset because “her ankles were swelling”. Not because she’s carrying another person inside her, and has gained a lot of weight and hormones, and has to deal with sweltering heat (which she was, quite specifically, complaining about in the dialog). Nope, it’s all because of those swollen ankles. Damn you, ankles, and your swelling!
Mama Ramsey wants the girls to start moving Becca’s stuff into Jessi’s room, even though the baby isn’t due for a whole month, because she’s a sensible person and wants her daughters to adjust to cohabitating before there’s a screaming infant thrown into the thick of it. Or, you know, because her ankles are swollen and she wants to torture them to make up for that. Whatever theory floats your boat. We also find out that the Ramsey’s have very few things specifically for the new baby. Sure, they have a crib, and a high chair, and a car seat, but they don’t have clothes, or diapers, or other “smelly baby products”.
Well, Jessi tells her sister to quit her bitchin’ and get to work so they can avoid their mother’s pregnant wrath (maybe Jessi remembers the month before Becca was born), and chapter one draws to a close.
Anyone else sense that the specifically mentioned lack of baby things is foreshadowing with all the subtlety of a brick to the face?
Nope, just me? Okay.
Chapter two! So apparently even though Jessi’s room is twice the size of Becca’s, it’s difficult to cram all of Becca’s stuff into Jessi’s room. Right, story time from me.
When we first moved into the house my parents live in, there were two upstairs rooms-the big room (purple) and the small room (blue). Both of my step-brother’s took the blue room, since they were only staying with us on weekends at the time, and I took the purple room. They managed to fit two beds (bunk beds at first, but later two singles), two dresses, a large desk, and other crap in there just fine. When both of them moved in to our house, we swapped rooms, and they fit all of their stuff into the purple room even easier because, gasp, it was twice as large as the blue room! I don’t know what size beds Jessi and Becca have, but here’s an idea, Ramseys: downgrade. Get the girls smaller furniture and it’ll probably fit better. Or maybe Jessi’s room is just in a really funky shape, like a triangle or something.
Or, hell, turn your basement “rec room” into a bedroom for one of your daughters, if their stuff won’t fit in one room. Jeez... Why do each of these girls have an ARMCHAIR in their room, anyways?
Oh, wait, moving back to the knowing-the-gender thing again! Did Mama Ramsey carry both of her assumed miscarriages to term, and have stillbirths instead? It’s specified that the first was a girl and the second a boy... But now Becca is asking what if this baby is a boy. So... did they not find out the gender this time? I can’t imagine Mama Ramsey would go eight months without an ultrasound, especially since it had been specified that she was getting a lot of tests done. Is she keeping the gender a secret from her children? I just... it doesn’t make any sense. Gender is something that they should logically know at eight months if they’ve gotten an ultrasound, so... Do they think that knowing the gender before somehow “jinxed” the baby? Oh, my head is spinning now.
Let’s move on. So since Becca’s room looks like crap, they talk about how they’ll have to work on it, and how they’re so glad that the baby is still a month from being born. Oh, the foreshadowing. It doesn’t get any subtler.
So breakfast the following morning. There’s still a whole bunch of stuff to do, a point that is hammered into our very skulls. And right in the middle of making the list of things to do-
Oh my god, babytime! My maternity clock strikes and I punch myself in the ovary because no dammit, but Mama Ramsey is ready to push this kid out! Papa Ramsey is all worried that something might be wrong, and Mama gets all “sorry, can’t go shopping, baby time.” And then my head starts spinning as apparently a million things happen at once.
Jessi gets orders to pack a bag for her mother, and freaks out about what she’s supposed to pack, which is worth a laugh.
“Pack a bag for her? For a grown-up woman? For a grown-up pregnant woman? What was I supposed to pack? Bras? If so, how many? And how much of that big underwear?”
Poor Jessi is just fixated on when she’ll catch up to her peers and get her first training bra. Answer: Never, if you keep up that ballet.
Apparently able to sense that if she lets her oldest daughter do it she’ll be stuck at the hospital with nothing but bras and giant panties, Mama Ramsey decides to man up and pack her own damn bag, and Jessi gets stuck cleaning the kitchen.
Of course, since they’re not expecting the baby until July, everyone that they would turn to is gone on vacations in June. Literally, they see their grandparents and Keisha, the cousin-best-friend from across the street, and her family pulling out of the driveway. Why no one runs over there and goes “Hey baby time do you wanna cancel your vacation?” I don’t know, but maybe Oakley was downwind of Stoneybrook that day, and the lack of common sense was blowing in.
Well, Aunt Cecelia can’t be reached, so the neighbor comes over. And Papa Ramsey makes Jessi wonder if she’s going to be getting a letter from Hogwarts soon, because her father seems to think her aunt is a wizard capable of fixing up an entire baby room before said baby comes home. A room that is currently half-wallpapered, covered in drop clothes, and full of plaster dust. Good luck, Auntie!
Jesus, no wonder Jessi was so eager to become a babysitter. Mrs. Jasper, the neighbor that came over to watch them, made them both sit around inside on a beautiful summer day because it was “easier” to watch them from there. Kristy is seething at you quietly from Connecticut, have no doubt, Mrs. Jasper. At least they’re not watching television.
Anyways, after a while Aunt Cecelia comes over, and does what, apparently, every aunt does while a baby is being born: watch the existing children, cook a ton of food, and perform acts of logic. I am a terrible aunt, by these standards. Anyways, she solves the “this baby’s room is a mess” problem by pointing out that the kid can just sleep in the parent’s room until the room is ready.
So, finally Papa Ramsey calls with the news: it’s a boy, and he’s tiny but fine. John Phillip Ramsey, Junior. Hooray, cheers all around, and-
He’ll be home Monday? A premature baby, born on Saturday afternoon, is going home... Monday?! Don’t they mean that Mama Ramsey will be home Monday? What... I... Brain... Breaking... Logic... What...
...
... ...
What!
Whoa, sorry. Blacked out for a minute there. What was I doing? Oh, right. So he’ll be home Monday because this is magic land.
Jessi’s still being a cow about having a baby brother, and totally not excited to go see him in the hospital (though she did think that Papa Ramsey cutting the cord was cool, even if Aunt Cecelia didn’t). Jessi also fills Becca’s head with nonsense about the baby being their doll and being fun on the way to the hospital, because fake excitement is better than real emotion any day!
So they get to the nursery to see the baby, and Jessi has a mental breakdown because he’s tiny and ugly. Sorry we weren’t all born supermodels, babe. Hate to tell you, but most babies are pretty ugly when they’re only hours old. Jeez, kid, calm the hell down. Did your parents do nothing to prepare you for this baby, assuming you’d just remember from last time?
Oh, also he’s crying, and Jessi apparently can see her sanity slipping away with each tear that rolls down his tiny, ugly cheek.
Chapter three is gonna be fun...
Oh! We learn that Becca also harbors animosity to her recently born sibling, and the originals of his nickname. He’s called Squirt because-shock, awe-he’s very tiny, due to being preterm! Go figure!
Sunday brings it more cooking, and also cleaning, and Papa Ramsey comes home to work on the baby’s room and apparently not discuss with his daughters how they’re feeling about having a new sibling in an honest, open situation. Stellar parenting, Ramsey!
So Monday begins with Aunt Cecilia waking the girls up by announcing that their brother is going to be home that day. Does no one notice the lack of enthusiasm these girls have? The uncaring behavior of the adults around them just drives me insane...!
Becca has apparently decided to call the baby “It”, while Jessi is taking the admittedly more mature route of just using his name “John Phillip” instead of a nickname that she doesn’t like. Sounds peachy-keen to me. Just make sure your little sis doesn’t go all Patrick Hockstetter in Stephen King’s IT, and smother the newborn with a pillow, Jessi.
Touching reunion with Mama Ramsey, even though it’s only been two days and who lets a preterm baby go home after only two days she was like 32 weeks along he should be in the hospital for longer than that especially in that time period...!
Right, that’s why.
Turns out little Squirt has colic, and so all he does it cry. And cry. And CRY. And Becca chooses steamed cauliflower over at Mrs. Jackson’s to hearing her little brother kick up a constant fuss. I don’t blame her, that’d drive me insane eventually. Even though she can apparently hear him next door (wow, thin walls). Jessi uses the power of ROCK to drown him out, but listens every once in a while to see if he’s still freaking out. You should have kept that technique going into your BSC years, Jessi. Watch Kristy have a conniption.
Well, since Jessi doesn’t know what ‘colic’ is, she goes and looks it up, and just about dies. Crying for hours on end, inconsolable, it can last for three months. I kind of don’t blame her, because that sort of screaming would drive me insane, too.
Unsurprisingly, the baby’s constant screaming leaves the rest of the family exhausted. Aunt Cecilia peaces out whenever she can, Papa Ramsey goes back to work, and we find out that Mama Ramsey believes in breast feeding without actually dropping the word breast, just hinting.
Oh, apparently here’s the part of the letter where Jessi goes “but don’t worry, I eventually stopped harboring animosity towards you. I mean, you’re reading this, right?”
Like the A-plus parent she is, Mama Ramsey is asleep while her newborn son screams his head off. I don’t blame her, poor woman is dead tired. Papa Ramsey is at work, and Becca (who wouldn’t help anyways) and Aunt Cecilia are at the store. So, it’s up to Jessi to shut the kid up... once and for all.
With rocking and songs from Annie of course! What were you thinking? Infanticide is no joke, people (except when it is).
So, while singing away to keep him from screaming so that her ears will stop ringing (and so she doesn’t have to whine to her parents about getting more batteries for her walkman, probably) Jessi comes to love her little brother. How... touching? She even thinks that he doesn’t smell bad, just... not good. You’re giving the kid complexes, Jessi.
This is also, apparently, the cover picture. Jessi sitting in a rocking chair with her little brother on her lap, looking oddly caring for someone with so much hatred. And also oddly covered up for the middle of June. She's got on jeans and a long-sleeve, collared shirt, and her hair is (surprise, surprise) pulled back except a weird tuft in the front. Poor girl's got some pretty heavy-looking smile lines for a nine-year-old, and also giant man-hands... Guess it is dancer' feet, instead of dancer's hands, though. What little we can see of Squirt poking out of the blanket doesn't look too bad, though I worry he's about to get his head bonked on the arm of the rocking chair. Once again, not too terrible of a picture... Dammit, I want something to mock! (oh wait, Logan's up next, and his picture is a doozy...)
Realizing that she’s got a good thing here, Mama Ramsey then forces her eldest daughter to be a part-time mother every time the screaming gets to be too much to bear. Because hell, it shuts the infant up, who cares about the nine-year-old’s needs?
Well, I actually do kind of like this story. It addresses a lot of the real thoughts and emotion that a ten-year-old with a younger sibling on the way might have... Now if only it continued on, by having her parents actually TALK to her about it, rather than apparently be oblivious. Maybe if the BSC had been there to notice Jessi’s feelings, things would have been different?
Either way, that’s Jessi’s most vivid memory for you: becoming a mini-mom because she’s the only one that can make her screaming brother chill the frick out.
Hope you enjoyed! Now I need some sleep, because I'm off to Rhode Island in the morning!
Stacey
Claudia
And onto Jessi’s story... I’ve always hated her handwriting, because it’s so damn loopy and swirly. Though if you asked the writer, I probably hate her handwriting because she’s black.
Anyways! Jessi’s most vivid memory opens with a letter to... Squirt? What is this? Oh. She’s apparently writing a letter to him in the future. Okay then. We get the important stuff out of the way right away: Jessi’s most vivid memory is of when Squirt was born. A little strange, isn’t Jessi’s character trait ballet, not creepy devotion to her siblings? I’d think her most vivid memory would be her first recital or something...
Right, moving on! So the chapter starts out with Jessi explaining that the letter she was writing was, in fact, for a time capsule for Squirt. I sure as hell hope that he either reads it at the height of his cursive writing ability, or retains knowledge of cursive better than I did, or he’s screwed. Apparently the time capsule came up from Becca whining and Jessi not having the stones to just smack her and tell her to shut her damn mouth. It seems like a cool idea, but there are two big problems:
1) A time capsule is fun for about ten minutes. You find some shit to throw in it, then bury it, and then... wait. For years. So yeah, it’s not exactly on ‘barrel of monkeys’ levels of long-term fun
2) Jessi lets her little sister run rampant around the house, and... sits down to write a letter. Stellar baby-sitter there, Jessi. Nothing like watching to make sure the 8-year-old doesn’t decide that putting in her baby brother’s favorite blanket is a great idea.
So Jessi’s mind “traveled back to a year and a half ago” and she “remembered that time as clearly as if the events were happening now.” I sure hope so, hun. Then again, maybe she’s got extremely early onset of Alzheimer’s, and can’t remember a thing about last week. It’d explain why she keeps having to repeat sixth grade, and has insisted she’s 11 for years.
Ugh, sentence fragments! I can feel my literacy dropping. A semicolon is not the enemy! It’s not! I promise! Oh no, now I’m doing it too! Must make longer sentences; must connect thoughts with semicolons! Ahh... So much better.
So, Jessi is remembering her old house in Oakley, where racism doesn’t exist because no one does a double take when the only non-white girl in school walks past. And also how the entire neighborhood was like home to her, mostly because it was full of her family. For New Jersey, this place sounds very Deep South. Wide front porches being sat on during summer evenings, people not moving around a lot, no guidos to be seen... Basically, Oakley is the bomb and Stoneybrook sucks hardcore because everyone that lives within five blocks of her isn’t related to Jessi. Right.
Mama Ramsey is super pregnant, and super nervous because she’d had two miscarriages after Becca was born (but of course can’t use a word like that). Apparently, she’d miscarried far enough along to know the gender of the baby each time, which a quick googling tells me, is normally found out (by ultrasound) between the 18th and 26th week. So, going by modern standards rather than 1994 (copyright date) standards, that’s still four and a half months, at the earliest. That’s... pretty far along to lose a baby, I think. Not positive, since my loins have yet to spring forth new life, and probably never will. But anyways, traumatic.
But it looks like third time’s the charm, and the Ramsey’s will welcome in a healthy baby to their fam-
Whoa, wait, what?
Jessi, you... you don’t want this baby to be born?
But what about the “oh my gosh babies squee!” BSC mentality? What about getting to change his diapers and feed him and teaching him to worship at the kid kit altar to the overload Kristy? How can you betray my faith?!
...Because it’ll smell bad? Really? That’s your justification for the hate? A little baby smell? Seriously? That’s it? I... I’m disappointed, Jessi. Severely disappointed. Somewhere in the ‘Brook, Kristy is glowering at you. Better get in front of your Kid Kit altar, face towards BSC HQ, and pray for forgiveness.
Oh, wait, she also doesn’t want to share a room with her sister. I’d say it makes sense, because she’s nine and despite what Ann wants to admit, just about ready to begin puberty, and Becca is only six, and will probably ask all sorts of embarrassing questions, but... that’s not the reason Jessi doesn’t wanna share. Jessi doesn’t want to have the same size living space as every other child in her family. Her current room is about twice the size of Becca’s room (which will become the baby’s room), and Jessi doesn’t want to lose that.
Bitch.
Rather than talk to her parents about how she feels, Jessi keeps her budding hatred for her unborn sibling a secret, because she doesn’t want to “jinx” it. Because having feelings of your own is just pure evil waiting to manifest in another miscarriage, clearly.
Right, so summer vacation has started, and Mama Ramsey is upset because “her ankles were swelling”. Not because she’s carrying another person inside her, and has gained a lot of weight and hormones, and has to deal with sweltering heat (which she was, quite specifically, complaining about in the dialog). Nope, it’s all because of those swollen ankles. Damn you, ankles, and your swelling!
Mama Ramsey wants the girls to start moving Becca’s stuff into Jessi’s room, even though the baby isn’t due for a whole month, because she’s a sensible person and wants her daughters to adjust to cohabitating before there’s a screaming infant thrown into the thick of it. Or, you know, because her ankles are swollen and she wants to torture them to make up for that. Whatever theory floats your boat. We also find out that the Ramsey’s have very few things specifically for the new baby. Sure, they have a crib, and a high chair, and a car seat, but they don’t have clothes, or diapers, or other “smelly baby products”.
Well, Jessi tells her sister to quit her bitchin’ and get to work so they can avoid their mother’s pregnant wrath (maybe Jessi remembers the month before Becca was born), and chapter one draws to a close.
Anyone else sense that the specifically mentioned lack of baby things is foreshadowing with all the subtlety of a brick to the face?
Nope, just me? Okay.
Chapter two! So apparently even though Jessi’s room is twice the size of Becca’s, it’s difficult to cram all of Becca’s stuff into Jessi’s room. Right, story time from me.
When we first moved into the house my parents live in, there were two upstairs rooms-the big room (purple) and the small room (blue). Both of my step-brother’s took the blue room, since they were only staying with us on weekends at the time, and I took the purple room. They managed to fit two beds (bunk beds at first, but later two singles), two dresses, a large desk, and other crap in there just fine. When both of them moved in to our house, we swapped rooms, and they fit all of their stuff into the purple room even easier because, gasp, it was twice as large as the blue room! I don’t know what size beds Jessi and Becca have, but here’s an idea, Ramseys: downgrade. Get the girls smaller furniture and it’ll probably fit better. Or maybe Jessi’s room is just in a really funky shape, like a triangle or something.
Or, hell, turn your basement “rec room” into a bedroom for one of your daughters, if their stuff won’t fit in one room. Jeez... Why do each of these girls have an ARMCHAIR in their room, anyways?
Oh, wait, moving back to the knowing-the-gender thing again! Did Mama Ramsey carry both of her assumed miscarriages to term, and have stillbirths instead? It’s specified that the first was a girl and the second a boy... But now Becca is asking what if this baby is a boy. So... did they not find out the gender this time? I can’t imagine Mama Ramsey would go eight months without an ultrasound, especially since it had been specified that she was getting a lot of tests done. Is she keeping the gender a secret from her children? I just... it doesn’t make any sense. Gender is something that they should logically know at eight months if they’ve gotten an ultrasound, so... Do they think that knowing the gender before somehow “jinxed” the baby? Oh, my head is spinning now.
Let’s move on. So since Becca’s room looks like crap, they talk about how they’ll have to work on it, and how they’re so glad that the baby is still a month from being born. Oh, the foreshadowing. It doesn’t get any subtler.
So breakfast the following morning. There’s still a whole bunch of stuff to do, a point that is hammered into our very skulls. And right in the middle of making the list of things to do-
Oh my god, babytime! My maternity clock strikes and I punch myself in the ovary because no dammit, but Mama Ramsey is ready to push this kid out! Papa Ramsey is all worried that something might be wrong, and Mama gets all “sorry, can’t go shopping, baby time.” And then my head starts spinning as apparently a million things happen at once.
Jessi gets orders to pack a bag for her mother, and freaks out about what she’s supposed to pack, which is worth a laugh.
“Pack a bag for her? For a grown-up woman? For a grown-up pregnant woman? What was I supposed to pack? Bras? If so, how many? And how much of that big underwear?”
Poor Jessi is just fixated on when she’ll catch up to her peers and get her first training bra. Answer: Never, if you keep up that ballet.
Apparently able to sense that if she lets her oldest daughter do it she’ll be stuck at the hospital with nothing but bras and giant panties, Mama Ramsey decides to man up and pack her own damn bag, and Jessi gets stuck cleaning the kitchen.
Of course, since they’re not expecting the baby until July, everyone that they would turn to is gone on vacations in June. Literally, they see their grandparents and Keisha, the cousin-best-friend from across the street, and her family pulling out of the driveway. Why no one runs over there and goes “Hey baby time do you wanna cancel your vacation?” I don’t know, but maybe Oakley was downwind of Stoneybrook that day, and the lack of common sense was blowing in.
Well, Aunt Cecelia can’t be reached, so the neighbor comes over. And Papa Ramsey makes Jessi wonder if she’s going to be getting a letter from Hogwarts soon, because her father seems to think her aunt is a wizard capable of fixing up an entire baby room before said baby comes home. A room that is currently half-wallpapered, covered in drop clothes, and full of plaster dust. Good luck, Auntie!
Jesus, no wonder Jessi was so eager to become a babysitter. Mrs. Jasper, the neighbor that came over to watch them, made them both sit around inside on a beautiful summer day because it was “easier” to watch them from there. Kristy is seething at you quietly from Connecticut, have no doubt, Mrs. Jasper. At least they’re not watching television.
Anyways, after a while Aunt Cecelia comes over, and does what, apparently, every aunt does while a baby is being born: watch the existing children, cook a ton of food, and perform acts of logic. I am a terrible aunt, by these standards. Anyways, she solves the “this baby’s room is a mess” problem by pointing out that the kid can just sleep in the parent’s room until the room is ready.
So, finally Papa Ramsey calls with the news: it’s a boy, and he’s tiny but fine. John Phillip Ramsey, Junior. Hooray, cheers all around, and-
He’ll be home Monday? A premature baby, born on Saturday afternoon, is going home... Monday?! Don’t they mean that Mama Ramsey will be home Monday? What... I... Brain... Breaking... Logic... What...
...
... ...
What!
Whoa, sorry. Blacked out for a minute there. What was I doing? Oh, right. So he’ll be home Monday because this is magic land.
Jessi’s still being a cow about having a baby brother, and totally not excited to go see him in the hospital (though she did think that Papa Ramsey cutting the cord was cool, even if Aunt Cecelia didn’t). Jessi also fills Becca’s head with nonsense about the baby being their doll and being fun on the way to the hospital, because fake excitement is better than real emotion any day!
So they get to the nursery to see the baby, and Jessi has a mental breakdown because he’s tiny and ugly. Sorry we weren’t all born supermodels, babe. Hate to tell you, but most babies are pretty ugly when they’re only hours old. Jeez, kid, calm the hell down. Did your parents do nothing to prepare you for this baby, assuming you’d just remember from last time?
Oh, also he’s crying, and Jessi apparently can see her sanity slipping away with each tear that rolls down his tiny, ugly cheek.
Chapter three is gonna be fun...
Oh! We learn that Becca also harbors animosity to her recently born sibling, and the originals of his nickname. He’s called Squirt because-shock, awe-he’s very tiny, due to being preterm! Go figure!
Sunday brings it more cooking, and also cleaning, and Papa Ramsey comes home to work on the baby’s room and apparently not discuss with his daughters how they’re feeling about having a new sibling in an honest, open situation. Stellar parenting, Ramsey!
So Monday begins with Aunt Cecilia waking the girls up by announcing that their brother is going to be home that day. Does no one notice the lack of enthusiasm these girls have? The uncaring behavior of the adults around them just drives me insane...!
Becca has apparently decided to call the baby “It”, while Jessi is taking the admittedly more mature route of just using his name “John Phillip” instead of a nickname that she doesn’t like. Sounds peachy-keen to me. Just make sure your little sis doesn’t go all Patrick Hockstetter in Stephen King’s IT, and smother the newborn with a pillow, Jessi.
Touching reunion with Mama Ramsey, even though it’s only been two days and who lets a preterm baby go home after only two days she was like 32 weeks along he should be in the hospital for longer than that especially in that time period...!
Right, that’s why.
Turns out little Squirt has colic, and so all he does it cry. And cry. And CRY. And Becca chooses steamed cauliflower over at Mrs. Jackson’s to hearing her little brother kick up a constant fuss. I don’t blame her, that’d drive me insane eventually. Even though she can apparently hear him next door (wow, thin walls). Jessi uses the power of ROCK to drown him out, but listens every once in a while to see if he’s still freaking out. You should have kept that technique going into your BSC years, Jessi. Watch Kristy have a conniption.
Well, since Jessi doesn’t know what ‘colic’ is, she goes and looks it up, and just about dies. Crying for hours on end, inconsolable, it can last for three months. I kind of don’t blame her, because that sort of screaming would drive me insane, too.
Unsurprisingly, the baby’s constant screaming leaves the rest of the family exhausted. Aunt Cecilia peaces out whenever she can, Papa Ramsey goes back to work, and we find out that Mama Ramsey believes in breast feeding without actually dropping the word breast, just hinting.
Oh, apparently here’s the part of the letter where Jessi goes “but don’t worry, I eventually stopped harboring animosity towards you. I mean, you’re reading this, right?”
Like the A-plus parent she is, Mama Ramsey is asleep while her newborn son screams his head off. I don’t blame her, poor woman is dead tired. Papa Ramsey is at work, and Becca (who wouldn’t help anyways) and Aunt Cecilia are at the store. So, it’s up to Jessi to shut the kid up... once and for all.
With rocking and songs from Annie of course! What were you thinking? Infanticide is no joke, people (except when it is).
So, while singing away to keep him from screaming so that her ears will stop ringing (and so she doesn’t have to whine to her parents about getting more batteries for her walkman, probably) Jessi comes to love her little brother. How... touching? She even thinks that he doesn’t smell bad, just... not good. You’re giving the kid complexes, Jessi.
This is also, apparently, the cover picture. Jessi sitting in a rocking chair with her little brother on her lap, looking oddly caring for someone with so much hatred. And also oddly covered up for the middle of June. She's got on jeans and a long-sleeve, collared shirt, and her hair is (surprise, surprise) pulled back except a weird tuft in the front. Poor girl's got some pretty heavy-looking smile lines for a nine-year-old, and also giant man-hands... Guess it is dancer' feet, instead of dancer's hands, though. What little we can see of Squirt poking out of the blanket doesn't look too bad, though I worry he's about to get his head bonked on the arm of the rocking chair. Once again, not too terrible of a picture... Dammit, I want something to mock! (oh wait, Logan's up next, and his picture is a doozy...)
Realizing that she’s got a good thing here, Mama Ramsey then forces her eldest daughter to be a part-time mother every time the screaming gets to be too much to bear. Because hell, it shuts the infant up, who cares about the nine-year-old’s needs?
Well, I actually do kind of like this story. It addresses a lot of the real thoughts and emotion that a ten-year-old with a younger sibling on the way might have... Now if only it continued on, by having her parents actually TALK to her about it, rather than apparently be oblivious. Maybe if the BSC had been there to notice Jessi’s feelings, things would have been different?
Either way, that’s Jessi’s most vivid memory for you: becoming a mini-mom because she’s the only one that can make her screaming brother chill the frick out.
Hope you enjoyed! Now I need some sleep, because I'm off to Rhode Island in the morning!