Happy Mother's Day, Mary Cheney

Happy, Mother's Day, Mary Cheney! What a joy it must be for you and the Woman Who Has No Legal Relationship to You and Your Baby to be celebrating your first Mothers Day together. (Note the apostrophe placement. Its Mothers Day, not Mothers Day. And if your dads employers have anything to do with it, its gonna stay that way.)
Given the Cheneys flair for secrecy, Im not sure exactly when youre due to spawn Baby Poe-Cheney. No one is. Weve all learned by now that anything having to do with your hoo-ha is hush-hushunless its being written into the Constitution. So Im just going to go ahead and assume that the deed is either done or nigh by the time this is published.
Mothers Day has always been important to me too. Years ago, my mother and I made a pact. I would no longer buy her Mothers Day presents picked solely on the basis of their inheritability appeal. Instead, each year I would send her a card inscribed with one of my favorite memories of the two of us together. Its a nice family valuestype tradition, and Im just passing it along in case you wanted to start something similar with Baby P-C. (Oh, arent your dads pals going to have a field day with that nickname!)
Think of the joy it will bring you in your old age when you get a card reminding you of the time Baby P-C was in the hospital getting (his? her?) its tonsils out and Miss Heather had to wait in the lobby with all that melting Baskin-Robbins! (Rules are Rules, Grammie Lynne chuckled.)
Or when you were at work and Little P-C came down with chicken pox but the school nurse wouldnt release Little P-C into Miss Heathers care. Luckily, Grampie Dick was free to pick up his little biological warfare agent.
Of course, not all memories are happy memories. Some of the most poignant memories recall times when you, Little P-C, and Miss Heather had to pull together as something-similar-to-but-not-at-all-legally-a-family. Like when you kept getting turned down for mortgages by Virginia banks that can legally discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. After all, it was kinda fun living in the car for a few weeks. Just like the pioneer ladies in Grammie Lynnes book! Miss Heather had said, before remembering that Grammie Lynne warned her if she ever mentioned that novel again shed get shot in the face but good.
And theres nothing like home movies to jog ones memory. Maybe youll get a card recounting Grampie Dicks first televised acknowledgment of Baby P-C. Youre way outta line, he told the reporter asking about your pregnancy. It was pretty funny when Grampie nicknamed the baby Who?
Finding godparents was no piece of cake either, was it? None of the fundamentalists you sucked up to in order to get Grampie Dick elected wanted much to do with Baby P-C. And remember when Uncle W.s pal Dr. Dobson finally agreed to perform the baptism? Who knew a baby could survive being held underwater for that long?
And no doubt Little P-C will fondly remember the nights you lulled it to sleep reading one of the 994,000 unsold copies of your autobiography, Now Its My Turn. Boy, the lessons Little P-C learned from that. Like: Never actually take your turn until nobodys listening anymore. And: Self-loathing is easier with the support of your family. And, hoo-boy, remember when you went back to work for the Republican Party for the 2008 election? At first Little P-C was frightened of having to live in a bunker for so long, but its illegal guardian, Miss Heather, comforted it, telling it they were just like the pioneer ladies in BANG. Oh, well. It wasnt like losing a parent or anything. www.iamnotmyselfthesedays.com