Babyhood (9780062098788) (5 page)

So where did these cravings come from? I concluded it's the baby,
ordering in.
Prenatal takeout. Even without ever being in a restaurant, fetuses develop remarkably discerning palates, and they are not shy about demanding what they want. If they get a hankering, they just pick up that umbilical cord and call.

“You know what would taste good right now? A cheeseburger, large fries, and a vanilla shake. And if you could, hurry it up, because I'm supposed to grow lungs in a half hour.”

I
n an ideal world, once you ascertain what it is your wife craves, you would stock up on it and have more ready at all times. In the
real
world, however, not only does the hankering change day to day and hour to hour, but the very same thing that hit the spot at one in the morning can be the most repulsive suggestion imaginable at one forty-five.

“I'm starving.”

“How about another lamb chop?”

“Uchhh! What's the matter with you?!”

“What'd I say?”

“I'm going to throw up right in this chair.”

“I thought lamb chops were helping.”

“Stop!”

“What?”

“Stop saying it!”

“What—lamb chops?”

“Hey!”

“Sorry . . .”

It is virtually impossible to suggest the right snack to a pregnant woman. The chance of hitting the bull's-eye is infinitesimal, and, more significantly, the margin for error is enormous. As a reasonably intelligent person, I could pretty safely guess that if someone's feeling queasy, it's better not to suggest, let's say, a warm glass of
clam juice.
You just know that. Certain foods simply do not paint a pretty picture: Sweetbreads. Frog's legs. Sauerkraut soufflé. Crabmeat daiquiris . . . clearly all to be avoided. But—a
cracker
? Never would I have dreamed that the mere mention of a dry, salted
nothing
of a cracker could send a grown woman lunging for a sink. But I
did
mention it, and she
did
lunge.

I
n addition to the wild cravings and the crippling nausea, women also get the tougher end of the deal foodwise, because they have to restrict themselves in consideration of the youngster hatching within. A lot of nifty foods and delectable beverages are cut right out of the picture. Wonderful man that I am, I jumped behind my wife in full support.

“You know what, sweetie? If
you
can't have any wine,
I
won't have wine either. You can't have a sip of beer? None for me, then. No spicy food for you? I, too, shall abstain. I shall submit myself unwaveringly to the very same grueling regimen of denial and sacrifice as you, my love.”

But after a while, I had to rethink it.

“Look, I know what I said, but let's be honest:
You
have to protect the well-being of our child. Me? I was just trying to be nice . . . There's no reason I should have to put myself through
that,
is there, really? I mean, not that I'm not enjoying the steamed bok choy and brussels sprouts platter, but I'm just going to grab a pepperoni pizza and seven beers. I will, however, eat over
there,
so don't worry, you won't see a thing . . .”

The one aspect of this whole food circus that I wish someone had told me about is how much weight
men
put on during pregnancy. Traditionally, dads-to-be pile on as much as—and often
more than
—the women who are actually With Child.

I'd like to say I did it on purpose. To “keep my wife company.”

The sad truth is, I didn't know it was going on. It quietly snuck up on me. In retrospect, it shouldn't have been that surprising. Not only did I snack every time
she
snacked, but more often than not, I'd run down for some food that the Love of My Life needed to have
“NOW!!!”
and in the time it took me to prepare it just-to-her-liking and sprint it back upstairs, the aforementioned Love of My Life had changed her mind. The oh-so-urgent urge was no longer urging. And as I mentioned, not only is that very same food—ordered minutes ago—no longer desirable, it's now entirely
disgusting.
The thought that I would even be
holding
a plate and making it available is both repulsive and a testament to the enormity of my insensitivity.

So as I would head back down the stairs in conciliatory retreat, I'd think, “Well,
someone's
got to eat all this spaghetti . . .” And the next thing you know, there's twenty pounds of extra Person around the top of your pants that didn't use to be there.

And sadly,
men
going through pregnancy are never admired for the mass they accumulate. While everyone's lining up around the block to feel and revere my wife's expanding belly, nobody's applauding
me.
I'm part of this thing, too, you know . . . I think it would be nice if just once during the pregnancy someone came over to me and said, “That's a lovely gut you've got there. May I touch it?”

“Sure. Thanks for asking . . . and if you want to come back in a while, we're going to be having doughnuts and spareribs. Wait till you feel
that.
”

“Y'Know What You
Have
to Get . . .”

O
ver the first few months of pregnancy, we watched other couples with babies and concluded that we not only had a lot of things to learn, but a lot of things to go out and
buy.
People with kids just accumulate an unbelievable amount of
stuff.
It's sort of like taking up a new sport. And I have always subscribed to the rule, “Whatever you lack in skill, make up for in silly accessories.”

“How's your tennis game?”

“Not great, but I have a racket the size of an outdoor grill, the exact same sneakers as Agassi, and a hat with a tiny solar-powered fan that keeps me very cool.”

I figure if they went to the trouble of manufacturing it, there's probably a very good reason. And I'd be crazy not to get one.

Especially where your child is concerned. Even if the kid is still in the womb, you want to send the message that every conceivable comfort will be provided.

Sadly, I had no idea what I was up against. There's an infinite number of store chains, all with cutesy names that aim to convey both the smallness of babies and the enormity of their selection: “Tot Town,” “Teeny World,” “Infant Hemisphere,” “All That's Small,” “Papoose Palace,” “Mess-O-Whipper Snappers.” And they really are gigantic. The first time my bride and I ventured into one of these retail monsters, I got literally dizzy. Seriously, I had to lie down. The sheer size of these places is staggering. Three miles long, eight hundred aisles, each a building-and-a-half high—an unfathomable array of choices.

As we wandered down the first few miles of this store, we tried to familiarize ourselves with the inventory.

“Look at this—a diaper
genie
. . .”

“If you rub it and ask it to clean up the diapers, it has to do it?”

“I think so . . .”

“Okay . . . good . . . What's this—‘Four-in-one car seat'?”

“It's a car seat, but the seat comes out and you carry the baby in the bucket part. So it's like a carrier, too.”

“So, how is that ‘four-in-one'?”

“Because you can also put it on the thing with wheels, and push the baby in the seat.”

“Okay, so that's
three.
”

“What?”

“That's only ‘
Three
-in-one.' ”

“Yeah . . . so?”

“It says ‘
four.
' ”

“Yeah . . . well, maybe they counted wrong.”

We perused the next aisle.

“Why would you need a crib
and
a cradle?”

“The cradle is for the beginning, and then they move on to the crib.”

It was becoming clear that my wife was further into the “Preparing Your Baby's Room” chapter than I was. I still had questions.

“How long do they sleep in the cradle?”

“I don't know . . . a few months?”

“And then what?”

“Crib.”

“They don't go back to the cradle?”

“Why would they go
back
to the cradle?”

“I don't know . . . because we
have
it. It seems like a shame to get a whole cradle if they're only going use it for an hour and a half . . .”

“Maybe we don't need the cradle.”

“That's all I'm saying.”

In addition to cribs and cradles, you also have to consider playpens, which at first impression struck me as no more than brightly colored, miniature
jails.
Is this really how we want to treat a brand-new person? Poor thing spends nine months cooped up in the womb, and first thing we do is toss him in a cage like a zoo animal. At least zoo animals get shrubbery and little ponds and schoolchildren tossing them peanuts.

You can also, evidently, purchase a
porta-crib
—the beauty of which is that no matter where you may travel, your newborn gets to stare at the
same
four nylon walls.

“Okay, Junior, we're going over to visit the Millers, who have a beautiful house filled with lovely antiques and a stunning view of the mountains. But it doesn't really matter, because to you, it'll look just like every other place—a small purple rectangle.”

(This, of course, assumes you can
assemble
the rectangle. When we later got one of these as a gift, I followed the instructions to the letter, but still ended up with some sort of post-modernistic sculpture/collage of plastic, metal, and mesh netting, which, while totally uninhabitable for infants,
is
currently on loan to the Guggenheim.)

The jewel in the baby product crown is the
stroller.
And if in America you are what you drive, then in Parentland, you are what you
push.
This department had its own salesman, and as soon as he saw us, the guy swooped down like a vulture in a bad tie.

“Hi, how are you two this afternoon?”

“Well, we're actually just looking.”

“Of course . . . Well, you obviously have an eye for quality.”

“We do?”

“Absolutely.
This
stroller you're looking at here is considered the Cadillac of strollers.”

“Honey, did you know that strollers have a ‘Cadillac'?”

“I didn't.”

“Oh, yeah,” the guy says. “Check out the wheelbase on this baby. And the plush interior. Your baby will be riding in the height of comfort and safety. Believe me, when people see you pushing this down the road, they'll say, ‘Why,
there's
two people who really care about their child.' ”

This is a guy with an easy job.

I don't imagine there are a lot of jobs
easier
than being a baby-store salesman, simply because you can't say no to them. You can't negotiate. If you walk into Planet Tinywood and a salesman tells you, “You don't
need
the high chair with the extrasafe support lock, but it
is
safer”—what are you going to say?

“Thank you, sir, but we're gamblers by nature and are curious to see if our infant doesn't do exactly as you predict and slide right out on his head, crashing violently onto the hardwood floor. That's something we'd like to see . . .”

And you can't believe how many different
types
of strollers they have. One for every conceivable occasion. You have your heavy-duty, everyday stroller; your pack-up-and-travel
umbrella
stroller; your “this-is-only-good-for-going-from-the-car-into-the-mall” stroller; and the very popular
jogger
stroller—which when I first saw I thought was pretty cool, but after having a child, I have come to view as more of an irritant. Because when you have a newborn, you realize, “Who has the energy to jog?”

It's my opinion that even
conceptually
, going from a “stroller” to a “jogger” is a move in the wrong direction. What we need is a “napper.” A big Bed on Wheels, pulled by a team of hefty Akitas.
You
get to rest, the kid sees the world, and the dogs get walked—it's a win-win-win proposition.

And if I can be honest here, when I see someone actually jogging with their baby, I always feel the need to give the parent a little
smack.
Because if, after being up all night with your baby, you still have it in you to run around the neighborhood pushing something, I don't need to know about it. (And if you're so peppy, I see no reason why you couldn't accept one tiny little smack in the head from me.)

Ultimately, I say, “What kind of nut runs in the streets with a baby, anyway?” That can't be good. Even just walking, I always thought it kind of perverse that people push their kids into traffic
ahead
of them. The premise is, apparently, “If it turns out to be safe enough for the baby, I will then step forward myself.” I think they should design a stroller you drag from
behind
, or one that attaches to your
side
, so at least you're
both
taking a risk.

But I digress.

Back in Youngster-burgh, we meandered through the first five or six acres of strollers and cribs and playpens without incident, and then came upon a section of stuff I never even knew about: baby exercise products. These contraptions are no doubt well intended, but seem like a cruel practical joke we play on the kids.

“We're not going to let
you
move around, but we will bind you to a mechanical device which will give you the
illusion
of movement.”