Of course, maybe it would be good for the Dictator to learn to be a little more independent. Right? I mean, I’m not always going to be with her. Right? And the Fiancé is right. It wouldn’t be much of a vacation with her. Okay, I’m going.
5 P.M.
God, I so don’t want to go. Or maybe I do. I don’t know.
Midnight
WAAAA!
The Fiancé and I hear the screams. We’ve both been in bed for more than an hour. I pray he’s going to get out of bed and get her a bottle. He’s not moving though. Why isn’t he getting up and getting her a bottle? Why do I have to do it?
“Fuck, she’s crying,” he says. Duh.
“I’ll do it,” I say, and feel my way in the dark out of the bedroom.
2 A.M.
WAAAA!
Who am I? Where am I? Right. The Dictator is screaming. Again. Again, I pray that the Fiancé is going to get out of bed and get her a bottle. I did it the last time. It’s his turn. Why isn’t he getting out of bed?
“Fuck, she’s crying again,” he says. Duh. “I’ll get her,” he says, literally stomping out of the room.
I fall back asleep.
4:30 A.M.
WAAAA!
No, seriously. This cannot be happening.
“I’ll get her,” I say. The Fiancé did go the last time.
6:30 A.M.
WAAAA!
Man, I can’t wait to go to Paris! How soon can we leave?
“I’ll get her,” the Fiancé says. “I might as well just get up now and go to work. I’m obviously not going to get any more sleep.”
“Okay. Don’t forget to call the travel agent,” I say sleepily. “We are so going to Paris.”
Is this how it’s going to be? I literally have to leave town to get a solid night’s sleep?
March 20
6 P.M.
Mommyitis.
Today was the first time I heard this word. Like the words “sippy cup” and “onesie” and “playdate,” there is certain terminology that you would never have in your vocabulary unless you’ve had a baby.
I was at the grocery store, buying a couple of cartons of soy milk. The Dictator refused to let me put her down. At the cash register, another woman in line saw me struggling with the milk while holding the Dictator.
“Oh, does she have mommyitis?” she asked. “I have an eight-month-old who refuses to let me out of his sight for even one second. He has mommyitis real bad.”
“Yes, I suppose she does,” I say. Luckily, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out the meaning of mommy words. I’m not sure whether or not I actually like this one. On the one hand, it’s a little too cutesy. Also, it sounds like a disease. On the other hand, it is a heck of a lot better than saying, “She won’t let me put her down for a friggin’ minute!”
March 21
11 A.M.
My mind, along with being full of children’s songs and mommy words, is still also consumed with thoughts of babies. Babies, babies, and more babies. In fact, I don’t think I have conversations anymore that don’t include talk of babies—what they do, what they don’t do, finding out people are having them or asking people when they are having one, or hearing about other people’s babies, or talking about mine. My friend Heather, who I’ve talked to less and less frequently, is now going on and on to me on the phone about how she’s not ready for a baby. She tells me she isn’t even sure she wants one anymore, and how she loves being childless. I let her go on about her life without child and how she can’t imagine how a child would fit into her fabulous, childless life.
I think she’s lying. Of course, I don’t tell her this.
It’s funny to think that I once thought that way too. And maybe Heather isn’t lying about not really wanting a baby. Maybe she honestly means it. She’s a couple of years younger than me, so she definitely has time to change her mind. And most women do change their minds. Well, most women who profess they don’t ever want children while in their teens or twenties change their minds one day, don’t they?
Sometimes I read articles about older women, past the childbearing age, who have never had children, who say that they were too busy working and enjoying life to even think about having children. I can’t help but think they’re lying too. Maybe they were busy working and enjoying life. But can’t you be busy working and enjoying life and also have thoughts about having a baby? Can’t you be busy working and enjoying life and get pregnant?
I can’t imagine not having a baby. Though I was once the type who thought I’d never get married and never have kids (I also once thought wearing safety pins in your jeans and getting perms was a cool look), now I even want a second child. Oh, man, what has become of me? When did I stop wanting to take over the world? Why is my main worry now not how to get a promotion and a raise but how to trick the Fiancé into wanting to have a second child with me?
Noon
You know, it really bugs me when people say they “really don’t want children” to women who have children. I mean, I don’t tell people who have just cut their hair into bangs that “I can’t imagine life with bangs.” Do I tell my friends who have great, fun jobs interviewing celebrities, “I’m so glad I don’t have to meet Jennifer Aniston?”
1 P.M.
Okay, it really, really bugs me that Heather said to me that she really doesn’t want to have children and she can’t imagine having a child. What is wrong with people?
3 P.M.
I’m convinced that women who say their lives are so much better without children are really jealous of those of us who have children. Those of us who have children don’t have to worry about meeting a good man to have a child with. We already have one, thank you very much. Young women who say they’re not sure they really want to have children and that their lives are so much better without children to people who they know have children are just saying it in case one day it turns out that they don’t have children. This way, they can say all along that they always professed they never wanted a baby.
5 P.M.
Why am I so obsessed, and upset, that Heather said that to me? One is because I know now, for sure, that our friendship is no longer the same. How can it be the same when my life is so different from hers, and hers is so different from mine? The slow death of any friendship is cause for concern and obsession. Second, it also really bothers me because I still can’t shake the nagging feeling that she might be partly right about not having kids. I hate myself for sometimes still wondering what all the friends I used to hang out with are doing on the nights I’m at home watching reruns of Friends because I can’t go out because I have a baby. It bothers me that I do sometimes wonder how much more fun my life might be if I was single, childless, and thought of myself as still fabulous. It really has hit me that I am not that person anymore. So, along with mourning the death of old friendships, maybe I’m mourning the death of the old me.
March 22
8 P.M.
I put my new plan—“Being the Best Partner Possible to Trick the Fiancé into Wanting a Second Child”—into action.
First, I put the Dictator to bed and tell the Fiancé to go relax. I change her diaper on my own. I put her into her pajamas on my own. I read her a story on my own. And then I go downstairs to join the Fiancé.
I hold his hand while we watch television.
I tell him that I’ll get the baby if she cries. Of course she does, and I do, as promised.
When I come back, I tell him that I love him and that he’s my best friend. Which may be going overboard. I think he’s on to me. Argh. He’s looking at me like he doesn’t know me. Is it really that odd to him that I can be accommodating, sweet, and nice? Can’t a woman tell a guy that she loves him?
10 P.M.
“I love you,” I say. “You’re my best friend.”
“I love you too,” the Fiancé responds.
I grab his hand to hold it again.
10:15 P.M.
“I love you,” I say. “You’re my best
friend.”
“I love you too,” he responds again.
10:30 P.M.
“I love you,” I say. I think I’m now actually cooing the words.
“I love you too, Beck,” he says.
How can he not want to have another baby with me? I’m so nice! I’m the best woman he’ll ever find. He’s lucky to have someone so sweet like me in his life. I wonder how many days I can go on being so sugary sweet. I wonder how many days we can go on without arguing about something. I also wonder how many days I’ll last without his help at all with the Dictator.
March 25
5 P.M.
I get my answer. I turn not so nice. I get sick. Viciously sick. My throat is so sore it feels like I’m swallowing knives. I have a fever. I’m freezing cold but burning up.
Nanny Mimi has gone home. I can barely move and the Fiancé has an important meeting and can’t come home early. I get mad at him for not seeming to care enough to come home and help me out. For the first time—I can’t believe it—the in-laws have plans and can’t babysit. How can everyone do this to me when I’m so deathly ill and can barely manage to lift my head off the pillow?
The Dictator is grumpy. God, I miss the days when she would just lie beside me on the bed while I watched television.
What do women do when they are mothers and get so sick? I can barely form a sentence. I can’t swallow. The Dictator needs to be entertained, fed, and bathed. Bedtime for her is still hours away. I’m going to die. I’m not going to make it.
April 2
I don’t remember the last few days. It all seems like a dream. I know that I have been in bed for many, many days. Thank God for the in-laws, who took care of the baby after Nanny Mimi went home. I must stop complaining about them to the Fiancé. They are nice people. Even the Fiancé, after he saw how sick I was, helped out. He would put the Dictator to bed, and bring me soup, and let me sleep alone while he slept on the uncomfortable pullout couch in the spare room.
“So, where’ve you been?” Vivian asks. It’s the first time in days that I’ve been to my office and answered my cell phone.
“I’ve been in bed. I’ve been so sick,” I tell her.
“That sucks.”
“I know. I literally haven’t been out of bed in days. The good news is that I think I lost five pounds,” I tell her. “My jeans feel great.”
“Ah, the advantages of being sick,” she says.
“I know! Sure, I was so sick I couldn’t shower, but, hey, it’s easier than going to the gym.”
“So, how’s the Baby Plan coming?”
“Oh, it’s not.”
“What do you mean?” Vivian asks.
“I mean that I realized that I’m not sure if I want another baby. I could barely take care of one when I was sick. I think I may have changed my mind.”
“Well, you’re going to change it back,” she says.
“I don’t know. I really don’t think so. Maybe one is enough for me,” I say. I really believe this.
“Well, you still have time.”
It’s true. I have at least a few years, I figure, to decide whether I want another child. For now, I’m completely happy with one.
April 3
My friend Cara has given birth to a boy. I buy her a blue Juicy Couture diaper bag. It cost a small fortune. I find myself way more generous to friends who give birth, now that I know what having a baby, living with a baby, and raising a baby entails. She might as well have a really nice diaper bag, because her life is not going to be so nice anymore.
April 15
1 P.M.
Cara calls me to ask me questions, thank me for the baby gift, and tell me about the first few days with her new baby boy.
2 P.M.
My friend Cara has made me feel like a bad mother.
Here’s the thing. She wanted to know everything she could expect with her newborn.
“So, how many times did she go to the bathroom a day?” she asked.
“Um, I don’t remember. A lot?” I answered.
“Do you remember when she first held her head up?” she asked.
“Um, not really,” I told her.
“How about when she could sit up on her own?” Cara asked.
“Um, maybe around three months? Or four? Or two?”
Oh my God. How long does mommy brain last for? Have I lost all ability to remember? When did the Dictator first hold her head up? When did she begin to sit up on her own? When did I lose my short-term memory?
April 22
I am totally starting to understand why women scrapbook. Not that I’m even sure what scrapbooking really is. All I know is that ever since I had the Dictator, I hear mothers talking about scrapbooking and have read about stores now totally dedicated to the art of scrapbooking. As a journalist, I’ve received invitations from many, many people to learn how to scrapbook; I’ve even been offered scrapbooking supplies. I had turned down all offers. I’m not the type who could scrapbook, I had thought. Scrapbooking takes organization. I’m the least organized person on the planet. All the baby’s photos are stuffed in old shoe boxes, in drawers around the house, on tables everywhere. Looking for her photographs is kind of like being on an Easter-egg hunt. You never know where you’ll come across them. I could be scouring around for a DVD I want to watch and I will find a pile of photos from when she was two months old. Or I could be looking for a new roll of toilet paper and find a stack of photos from her first birthday party under the washroom sink.
But suddenly I have realized that, like the photos scattered all over the house, my memories are also scattered. I really can’t remember any of the milestones of my baby’s life. I know she went from having a floppy head to not having a floppy head, from being able to roll over to being able to sit up on her own, from being able to sit up to being able to crawl, from being able to crawl to being able to walk. I just for the life of me can’t remember the age she started doing it all. I know she once had no teeth and now she has a mouth full of them.
Does this make me a bad mother? I should probably have joined the cult of scrapbookers. At least then I’d know when she got her first tooth.
April 24
6:30 P.M.
I’m still worried about the fact that I can’t remember every detail of the Dictator’s life. Baby milestones happen at an alarming pace. And I’m not talking about the big important milestones, like when she took her first step. The Dictator changes from day to day now. In fact, she can go to sleep one night and wake up the next morning knowing three more words. Even her taste in foods has changed. But not for the better. It’s changed for the butter. Literally.
“What is she doing?” the Fiancé asks.
“She’s eating butter,” I tell him.
“What?”
“She likes butter.”
“What?”
“She likes butter,” I say, overly pronouncing each word.
“But she’s just eating it in a chunk. She’s not even eating it with a piece of bread. She’s just eating plain butter.”
“I know. She likes butter,” I say. The Dictator had kept saying, “Butter, butter, butter.” I had tried to put the butter on a piece of bread, on some mashed potatoes, on some green beans. But, nope, she will only eat it in chunks, plain.
“That is one of the most disgusting things I’ve ever seen,” the Fiancé says.
“I know. It is disgusting. But it makes her happy. What can I say? She likes butter.”
“When did that happen?” he asks.
“Let me check my scrapbook,” I say.
“What?”
“I’m joking. I don’t know when it started. A couple weeks ago?”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Why would I tell you that your daughter is eating butter?”
“I don’t know. Do you think she’s going to have cholesterol problems?”
“Can babies get cholesterol problems?” I ask.
“I don’t know. If she’s eating a poun
d of butter maybe.”
This gives me pause. Maybe the Fiancé has a point. Maybe I’m slowly killing the Dictator by allowing her to eat chunks of butter.
“Hey, we should be happy she’s introduced a new food into her Survivor diet,” I tell him.
“Butter is not a food.”
“What is it, then?” I ask.
“It’s butter.”
10 P.M.
Along with Cara making me feel bad, and me obsessing that I really should remember the milestones in the Dictator’s life, I can’t stop obsessing about scrapbooking.
“Maybe I should pay someone to do a scrapbook for us,” I say to the Fiancé.
“Do they have people to do that?”
“When it comes to babies, they have people to do everything. I just don’t want to do it.”
“Then don’t,” he says.
“But I kind of want a scrapbook.”
“So find someone who’ll do it.”
I’ve come to think that scrapbooking is a lot like doing your taxes. I’d rather just hand over all my papers and receipts to an accountant and not have to take care of it myself.
May 2
8 P.M.
“Okay,” I say. “Which one of you farted?”
We’re having a nice family moment. Sort of. Well, we’re all lying on the bed watching television. The Dictator is sleepily sucking on a bottle.
“Beck, why are you always so gross?” the Fiancé asks. “It’s like I’m living with two children.”
“I don’t know. So was it you?” I ask him.
“No. It was not,” he says.
Crap. Baby gas leads nowhere good. It always ends the same way, in fact. It ends with a dirty diaper. Babies are like old men. They fart whenever, and wherever, they feel like it.
May 3
7:30 P.M.
I sometimes get the feeling that the Dictator knows more than she’s letting on. When she does something wrong, or thinks it may be wrong—like touching my laptop—she looks at me with an evil grin. It’s almost as if she’s testing me. I pretend I don’t care. Like when she falls, if I don’t make a big deal and I even laugh, she won’t cry. It’s the times that I’m like, “OH MY GOD! ARE YOU ALL RIGHT? MY POOR BABY! ARE YOU OK???” that she starts bawling. So when she does anything bad, I pretend that I’m not bothered, figuring if she’s trying to test me by throwing her sippy cup on the ground and I don’t show that it bothers me, she’ll stop doing it. I’m one step ahead of her. Bahaha. Except, the problem is, I do care. And sometimes I just can’t pretend I don’t. For example, right now, I’m sitting on the edge of the bathtub and the Dictator is acting like the bathtub is a swimming pool. And it’s pissing me off.
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