Tales From the Crib (13 page)

But I digress. Quite a bit, in fact. My point in the “Anjoli goes to AA” story was that I’m not quite sure how Anjoli always seems to wind up at the wrong meeting. And once she gets there, why it takes so long for her to figure it out. Because when I entered the community room of the Unitarian Church, there was no doubt in my mind that I was at a La Leche League meeting. My first clue was that every child—not just every baby—was breastfeeding. One kid walked up to his mother’s diaper bag, yanked out a book, unbuttoned her blouse, and started reading a little Tolstoy at the breast. Okay, maybe it was a book of shapes and colors, but the kid was a full-on, walking, talking, blouse-unbuttoning toddler.

I saw three species of mother. First, there was the crunchy contingent with rainbow knit skullcaps, long braided hair, and hemp necklaces with a single shell in the center. Rope mesh purses rested beside their Birkenstocks. I could easily see any one of these three mothers scooping organic grains from barrels at the health food stores. I imagined they hand-made rag dolls for their babies and mashed their own baby food. The next group was the one I fell into. Two tired-looking mothers sat in sweatpants and oversized tshirts.  They threw their hair in unbrushed, low-hanging ponytails. One had socks that didn’t quite match. The other looked as though her idea of a morning shower was running a baby wipe under her armpits. The other two mothers at the meeting surprised me. They were the tidy twins, more suited for Junior League than La Leche League. These women were impeccably dressed with immaculate toddlers playing calmly with natural wood blocks. Both wore ironed jeans. One wore an Ann Taylor sweater set in icy blue, while the other donned a snowflake sweater over a winter white top. Icy Blue Top had straight black hair, cream skin, and chipper blue eyes. She wore Ugg boots and a cute suede jacket with lamb’s wool trim. My savior, Mary, was one of the granola girls.

Helene, one of my fellow-slovenly moms, complained that her parents were constantly asking when she was going to wean her son.
Note to self: Cross this question off your list. Helene does not seem happy having to answer this inquiry.

“Ohmigod, he’s only two!” a crunchy mom exclaimed. “Do they realize how healthy it is to breastfeed?”

For two years?! That seems a bit long. I think at that point it has more to do with...
Helene jumped in again. “If I hear one more person say that my nursing has more to do with me than my son, I’ll scream.”

Note to self, part two: Anything I am thinking should be kept to myself around Helene.

Mary took out a bunch of articles and said that Helene’s comment was well timed because this month’s topic was the benefits of extended breastfeeding. “I hate even calling it that because throughout the world, the norm is to breastfeed well into the toddler years,” Mary said, passing out article after article listing the health benefits to nursing past a year. I was just feeling victorious for making it through the first two weeks. These marathon lactators made me feel thoroughly inadequate.

Candace, previously known as Icy Blue Top, placed her hand on my knee and whispered, “Don’t worry, no one says you have to nurse that long. Mary just doesn’t want new moms to dismiss it out of hand because they don’t realize it’s a legitimate option.”

“Oh, okay,” I whispered back, wondering how Candace read my mind. At the break, Candace asked if she could hold Adam, then took him over to her toddler, Barbie, to see. “Do you live around here?” she asked.

“Right in Caldwell.”

“Me too!” Candace said with delight, though I couldn’t really understand why. “How come I haven’t seen you around? Is Adam your first?”

My first? No one had referred to him that way yet. I knew what she was thinking. I looked older than she did by about ten years, so she probably figured I had another few in junior high. “Yes, he’s my first.”

“Barbie’s my fourth,” she said proudly. “Breastfed them all.”

“And you’re still at it with her, huh?” I said, hoping she wouldn’t be offended like Helene. She nodded. “Do you mind if I ask how old she is?”

“Three in another few weeks.”

“Wow, and you don’t mind nursing her that long?” I treaded lightly.

“Sometimes I do, but I’m committed to it, and I know how good it is for her immune system, so most of the time, I’m happy to do it. But I’d be lying if I told you that some days I am not at all in the mood for it. At this point, she’s down to once or twice a day.”

Well, that certainly made a difference. I’d cringed at the thought of her nursing a child every two hours. As I spoke to Candace, I was struck by a double whammy of guilt. First, she was so slim and pretty. I felt I’d somehow failed in the looks department. She had four children and yet she looked so clean and put together. The second guilt trip was brought on by Candace’s invitation to Barbie’s birthday party. I had no invitations with which to reciprocate. I was also quite sure that her party would outshine anything I could ever hope to put on for Adam. I heard Anjoli’s voice in my head:
Release guilt. Guilt leads to punishment. Punishment leads to suffering. Suffering leads to
. . . “Okay, what time?” I asked.

Mary asked the mothers to please return any books they borrowed from her nursing library. “Remember next month’s topic is keeping the romance alive in a marriage with young children. We’ll have some super ideas to share right in time for Valentine’s Day,” she said with excitement. I looked around the plain white room with its circle of folding chairs, and everyone else seemed tickled by this topic as well. Afraid to be exposed as the imposter I was, I blurted an uncomfortable, “Right on to that!” When will I learn to just keep quiet?

Chapter 16

It was with mixed emotions that I drove Anjoli back to the city after her week with us. Sure, she can cause drama and lunacy in our home, but the benefit of her visiting is that she can cause drama and lunacy in our home. As she stepped out of the car, Anjoli blew a kiss to sleeping Adam in his car seat and reminded me that Kimmy’s wedding was in just three weeks. “How much weight do you plan to lose by then?” she asked.

It was hard enough for me to look at my post-pregnancy body. Knowing that it was also disappointing to my mother was sinking. “Mary says nine months on, nine months off.”

“Is that the Leche woman who’s breastfeeding her three-year-old?” Anjoli asked.

“No, that’s Candace. Mary has the two-year-old.”

“My point, darling, is that your friend Mary isn’t exactly a model of discipline, is she?”

“Good-bye, Mother,” I blew a kiss at her body bent at the passenger window. “You’re sure you don’t want help with your bags?” As if on cue, two guys in formfitting jewel colored sweaters descended the front stairs of the building, overjoyed to see her. The air-kissing began and muscles flexed as the guys lifted my mother’s arsenal of clothing and cosmetics. As they turned their backs, I heard laughter and snippets of their conversation.
Catch-up party
sounded like a suggestion that went over well. Then, if an exaggerated eye roll had a voice, it would have been the one Anjoli used as she muttered the words
New Jersey.

I decided to spend the day in the city with Zoe, who I hadn’t spoken to in weeks. I suppose that’s normal in the first few weeks of being a mother, but I missed chatting with her about the mundane little things that fill our days. For me, it seemed I’d been out of touch with the outside world for years, but for someone like Mary, my few weeks of solitude probably seemed hurried. She suggested I take a “babymoon” with Adam, which is essentially spending the entire day in bed sleeping and gazing at him. Don’t get me wrong, there were times I’d stop dead in my tracks and watch his sleeping little mouth phantom nursing, his tiny lips pulsing in and out. I loved the way one of his little cheeks fattened when it pressed into the mattress. I melted at the sight of his wrinkly fingers balled into fists. I knew I’d have to break myself of the habit of shrieking “Look at that little acorn penis!” whenever I changed his diaper. My adoration of him was constant. The desire to sit and stare at him lasted about ten minutes. I tried the babymoon because it sounded like a sweet idea. It seemed like what good and virtuous mothers would naturally want to do. But after about an hour and a half, I couldn’t help getting up and making a list of things we needed at Costco.

“Hey, girlfriend,” I said into my cell phone. “I’m about to very gladly pay forty dollars for a parking spot for our play date. Y’ready?”

“Our what?” Zoe asked.

“Play date,” I said. “It’s jargon. Picked it up at a La Leche League meeting. Whaddya think ?”

“The
milk
league?” Zoe asked. “Hey, how’s your face?!” she switched gears.

“Judge for yourself!” I said, thrilled that the Bell’s palsy had gone away. I still felt a difference and people who knew me well could still see traces of it, but for the most part, my face was back to normal.

I decided when we went to lunch I’d drop the new mommy vocabulary. I recalled Zoe telling me that she was terrified that I’d become absorbed into the land of the children once Adam was born. She’d seen it happen before, she said. One moment she had a friend who could talk politics, books, and fashion. The next minute it was all Diaper Genie, car seats, and Baby Einstein videos. I remember laughing at the absurdity of the idea of buying a videotape of geometric shapes floating to classical music in hopes of boosting a baby’s IQ. Now, I wondered if there might be something to it. I mean, if there was no harm in it, maybe I should get one of these. If every other mother was amping up her baby’s brainpower with this magic video, would Adam be at a disadvantage if I turned my nose up at it?

At first I felt guilty for being so competitive, but after Zoe and my excursion to the puppet show, I realized I was an amateur. On the ticket line for the show, Zoe shot me a terrified look as we heard clips of mothers’ conversations comparing how old their kids were when they first spoke, potty trained, and split an atom. Of course, it was all done very politely, under the guise of exchanging information, but the subtext was clear. Mothering was an Olympic sport. I thought it was pretty cool that I was exposing Adam to live theatre at three weeks, but I was strictly a bronze medal mom for this. There was a pregnant woman sitting alone in the theatre, who I thought I saw holding her cell phone to her belly after the show so Daddy-to-Be could have a discussion with his future Ben Brantley.

More frightening than the one-upsmomship going on in the line for the puppet show was the constant chime of hyper-soprano voices crying, “Good job!” Zoe’s look implored,
Don’t let this happen to you!
“Good job, Olivia!” was immediately followed by another voice exclaiming, “Good job, Pete!” Thirty seconds later, we heard a different voice claiming that her child had also done a “good job!” What the hell were these kids doing that was so damned magnificent anyway? I glanced over to see that a four-year old had picked up a toy that he’d dropped. Isn’t that what kids are supposed to do? Why the vocal parade every time a kid wiped his nose? There was no way I was going to be able to keep up with this. I like spells of silence so I can think and worry about things. There was no way I was going to remember to chirp “Good job, Adam!” every time he demonstrated the slightest sign of competence. I didn’t have the emotional energy to build a verbal fortress of self-esteem to protect my son from feeling that he wasn’t doing a “good job” at absolutely everything.

A three-year-old started screaming that she wanted a cookie. Her mother calmly responded, “Wouldn’t it be great if we had sixty
million
cookies and could build a cookie castle to live in?!” Had this woman lost her mind? A cookie castle?!

Zoe was a sport to come along to the puppet show with us, especially since she thought it was ludicrous to take a three-week-old to a puppet show. “He’ll never remember it,” Zoe told me. The truth was I thought Adam would hear a lot of words and I could honestly report to Jack’s mother that our baby was on the fast track to Harvard.

“I know, but he’ll enjoy it while we’re watching,” I said. “Oh! I’m having a Zen parenting moment! I’m so excited. My new friend Candace lent me a book about being in the moment. She thinks I’m a little high-strung, I think.”

“Candace isn’t Jewish, is she?” I shook my head that, no, Candace Anderson wasn’t even one sliver Jewish. “Well, that’s good, Lucy. It’s great that you’re trying to be more in the moment now that you have Adam. That’ll be good for you.” She smiled, “Good job!”

The puppet show was not quite as dreadful as either of us feared. I’m sure I wasn’t the only mother who realized that Tim Johansen, the man behind the marionettes, was a certifiable babe. His dirty-blond hair was casually swept to the side, and his piercing blue eyes felt like they were looking right at me. Now, that’s a set of eyes I could take to Tantra class. I took some comfort in knowing that most of these women were here in part to gawk at the puppeteer. As kids cried out in delight about the aqua-blue sequined gown the roller-skating cat wore, mothers like me wondered what else Tim could do with his nimble fingers. I looked around the theatre and the moms were more mesmerized than the kids. All of the polite mothers who sang “good job!” now snapped “shhh!” when their children made a peep. I felt their pain. I too found it very difficult to maintain a sexual fantasy while kids kept yammering “pretty kitty” or some such nonsense.

I treated Zoe to lunch since she was kind enough to come to the puppet show with us. “That puppet guy was hot,” she said as tall glasses of fruit-infused iced teas were placed on a white tablecloth. Thankfully, Adam decided this would be an ideal time for a nap. For the time being at least. “Did you see him after the show?”

“No, what was he doing?”

Zoe brushed part of her neat blond bob behind her ear and leaned in conspiratorially. Her skin was flawless in a way that only women with time seem to be able to pull off. Zoe was not the most naturally beautiful woman I’d ever seen, but she pulled herself off exquisitely. She’d cultivated a professional Manhattan look about her that screamed
Don’t fuck with me.
Her eye shadow was expertly applied to look daytime smoky, while a thirty-dollar lip liner framed her even more expensive lipstick. Her purposefully ragged-looking pale-green skirt and blazer bore slightly darker green leather straps at the side seams, giving her an artistic and whimsical look. Artistic and whimsical while still being able to kick your ass. I wondered what it would be like to look like that again, before I realized I never did. So then I wondered what it would be like to again have the option to look like that. I looked at her small purse in wonder. I was packed like a mule with a Loony Tunes bag stuffed with diapers, wipes, a first-aid kit, a small blanket, Elmo, and a change of clothes. No lip liner for me.