Babyhood (9780062098788)
Read Babyhood (9780062098788) Online
Authors: Paul Reiser
Babyhood
Paul Reiser
To Ezra Samuel Reiser,
the Boy of my Dreams.
And to his beautiful mother,
the Woman of those very same dreams.
Â
(What did you think, I'd forget?)
And to my parents, with all the love in the world.
I think I get it now.
Contents
The Power of a Two-Inch Paper Stick
Every Day, Every Day I Buy a Book
“Y'Know What You
Have
to Get . . .”
And Thy Name Shall Be . . . Something
One Sonogram Says a Thousand Words
Just a Few Things to Worry About
I've Never Been This Tired, Ever
Is That a Needle in Your Hand, or Are You Just Glad to See Me?
Does This Come with Puppies Instead of Clowns?
E
very book I've ever picked up about babies seems to wrestle with the
pronoun
issue: Should it be “him” or “her,” “he” or “she”? Are they writing about a baby boy or a baby girl?
It's not an insignificant dilemma. If you use just one gender, you could alienate half the readers. If you use the combination “he or she,” you irritate
everybody.
Some try to alternate usage, as in, “When
his
baby teeth first come in,
she
may show signs of fever.”
This helps nobody.
The real diplomats use the baby-book version of Ms.â“s/he”âwhich, ultimately, means nothing. It's not even a word; it's just “he” with a slash and an alternative “s” standing by just in case. Basically, they give you all the letters, you pick the ones you want. It's a nice idea, but in practice, it's too hard. Plus, no one knows how to say it. Is it “sss-he,” or “shhhhhh-he,” or “she-
slash
-he”? Who wants that kind of aggravation?
The only real solution would be to customize each book with your very own child's name throughout the text. This way, even the most technical information becomes warm and fuzzy. For example:
Don't be alarmed if
Dustin's
umbilical stump becomes inflamed. This is very common, and can be treated easily by lubricating
Dustin's
inflamed stump with
Dustin's
favorite ointment.
But frankly, we're not set up for that kind of thing.
So I've decided to settle it this way:
I
have a boy, so the
book
has a boy. On every page, it's going to say “he” or “him.”
Now, if
you
also have a boy, you should have no problem. You may begin.
If, however, you have a
girl
, please feel free to go through the book with a pencil and scribble in “s” or “her” wherever you see fit. But please, don't change any other stuff. I've worked very hard on it, and I would be upset if I ever came to your house and saw you messing up my book.
Thank you.
âP.R.
Los Angeles
O
kay, so here's what happened.
We're on a plane, my lovely wife and myself, sipping a tasty beverage, eating as many really salty nuts as we feel like, enjoying a perfectly bad movie togetherâin short, having a grand old time.
We had been married several years, gone through the rosy early parts, through all the scary stuff that comes immediately
after
rosy, and navigated ourselves successfully through enough little ups and downs to land on our feet and know with confidence that we were very good together and very much in love. Life was very nice.
So we're on this plane, and across the aisle from us was another couple, about our age, traveling with their two childrenâa two-year-old girl and a very new boy who, though tiny in stature, had a crying scream so piercing, it was annoying people on other planes.
The parents looked like hell. No kidding, they just looked like life had taken them by the ears and twirled them violently around in circles until finally, exhausted, weakened, and drained of even the capacity to
imagine
joy, they were flung into the seats next to us.
The little girl was running up and down the aisle, tripping on people's luggage, screaming when anybody talked to her, and screaming a tad louder when everyone tried to ignore her and
not
talk to her. The baby was wailing literally without pause from the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream Waters.
Somewhere over the midwestern states, the two-year-old took a couple of bites of airline macaroniâand then reconsidered, shooting the remains quite dramatically onto her daddy's jacket.
The mom, whose hair was graying before our eyes and caked with baby spittle and something else puddinglike, was spending the last of her waning energy trying to shield her eyes from her squirming infant's fast-flying fists.
When not occupied roping in their children or apologizing to the growing numbers of irritated passengers around them, the Dad was busy either bending or reaching to find one of a truly frightening number of carry-on bags, collapsible strollers, fuzzy toys, and assorted burdensome baby paraphernalia.
There was virtually no conversation between the two adults. What words
were
spoken were in the form of barked orders, desperate pleas for help, and bitter assignments of blame.
“Why are you letting her eat that?”
“I didn't.”
“Whatâshe opened the jar of macadamia nuts herself?”
“No, she must have gotten it from theâ”
“Just take it from her.”
“I
will
, if you just give me a second here . . .”
My wife and I, plastic champagne cups in hand, watched this circus for a good long while, then turned to each other and simultaneously said, “May the Lord protect us from ever becoming
that.
”
N
ow, lest you think us unkind, let me point out that we're actually very nice people. And, in fact, we had always planned to have kids ourselves someday. Not Today, and not necessarily Tomorrow, but definitely Someday.
However, as we observed these people, we had all the reason we needed to push Someday back even
later
on the schedule. Watching this unfortunate display, all I could think was “Why? Why do that to ourselves?” Now that we had finally figured out how to successfully live together as
two
people, why would we want to jeopardize everything with a whole new human being for whom we'd be responsible every moment of every day for many, many years? I mean, the Couple Dance is tricky enoughâdancing as a threesome would have to be impossible.
Three has
always
been tougher than Two. Think of any of your famous threesomes. The Three Stooges? Look at the anger
there.
My bet is that before Curly was born, Moe and Larry could play together for hours without even a single poke in the eye. Huey, Dewey, and Louie? Donald Duck never had a moment's peace. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly? I rest my case.
   Â
O
ver the years, my wife and I had each argued convincingly every reason both
for
and
against
starting a family, but had somehow managed never to share the same opinion on the same day.
“What if we want to travel?”
“You can travel with kids,” I would counter.
“Not to Africa.”
“Who's going to Africa?”
“I'm just saying, hypothetically. What if we wanted to pick up and go to Africa?”
“Do you
want
to go to Africa?”
“Not particularly.”
“So?”
“But, someday, I
might
. . .”
The problem with this type of argument is that on closer inspection, when you list all the things you fear you'd have to give up if you had a kid, you can't help but notice it's actually a pretty pitiful list.
“What else? What specifically are you afraid you're not going to be able to do with a kid that you do now?”
“Okayâsleep?”
“Fine. Are we really going to forgo being parents so we can nap?”
“Maybe . . . And what about going to the movies?”
“You can still go to the movies with kids.”
“Yeah, but not whenever I
want.
”
This is where the argument starts to crumble: When you realize you would consider not having a child just so you could take an occasional snooze and be available to see
Batman Retires
the same weekend it comes out, you have to take a good hard look at yourself and acknowledge, “I am a shallow, shallow person.”
Which, if you need it, can be a perfectly valid reason for the “against” team.
“Hey,
we
can't have kidsâwe're too shallow.”
On the other handâbatting for the “maybe we
should
have kids” teamâwe both saw the appeal in creating an entire new person who would be, in essence, a tiny “us.” We spent a lot of time deciding which features of ours we'd want to pass down, which ones would be better off to skip. We started engineering the ideal combinations.
“Your eyes, my nose.”
“My teeth, your ears.”
“Your feet, my wrists.”
You become like mad German scientists, though without the genocide and blatant disregard of other countries' borders.
You do, however, step on unforeseen land mines.
“
Your
hair,
my
gums.”
“What's the matter with my gums?”
“Nothing. Okay,
your
gums, my nose, your lips, your laugh.”
“Your voice.”
“My toes.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, because
your
toes do a funny thingâhow the second one sort of drapes over the big one.”
“So?”
“So, nothing, on
you
it's cute. It's a trademark. I wouldn't dream of taking it away from you. But as long as we're starting from scratch, why saddle a kid with that kind of thing?”
