How Not to Calm a Child on a Plane (19 page)

TWENTY-NINE THINGS I HAVE LOST SINCE BECOMING A PARENT

1.
   
Nipples that point in the same direction.

2.
   
Bladder control
when I sneeze, laugh, do jumping jacks, or stand up from a seated position.

3.
   
The desire to party,
unless said partying involves lying on a couch watching old episodes of
Hart to Hart
while spraying a can of Redi-Whip into my mouth in short, steady bursts.

4.
   
The nail on my big toe,
after angrily kicking a semifunctional Diaper Genie and telling it (unironically) to “EAT SHIT!”

5.
   
My memory
of the last time my bras were washed. (Nearest estimate, spring 2011.)

6.
   
The ability to stay awake in a movie theater.
Or while watching a TV show after six o'clock. Or while reading an e-mail. Or right now . . .

7.
   
My virginity.
(Just making sure at least one of us is paying attention.)

8.
   
The capacity to wake up at 5 a.m. to go for a jog.

9.
   
All credibility for implying that there was ever a time that I woke up at 5 a.m. to go for a jog.

10.
 
The combination to locker 623
at the gym that I have been paying forty-five dollars a month since November 2007 to use, but which I have not actually set foot inside since March 2008.

11.
 
The notion that babies are pure, innocent, loving souls,
replaced by the knowledge that they are the neediest, most narcissistic creatures in the universe.
^*

12.
 
Patience for the sound of children whining,
after one minute.

13.
 
Patience for the sound of adults whining,
after twenty seconds.

14.
 
My crush on my ob-gyn
ever since the day that I looked between my legs and saw him one elbow deep inside me, the other arm holding a cell phone to his ear telling his wife that he may
be late for dinner but that he would almost certainly be able to make the 8:00 show.

15.
 
Since laying spread-eagle on a gurney in the hallway of a maternity ward,
the concern that someone might see my naked body.
(Now I couldn't care less if someone were to post in Times Square a high-def fifty-foot nude photo of me popping a chest pimple.)

16.
 
The beeper number to my pot dealer.

17.
 
My badass rep.

18.
 
Okay, I never actually had a badass rep. Or a pot dealer, for that matter.

19.
 
The job that I interviewed for when I was eight months pregnant,
and after the interviewer asked, “Aren't you due to have a baby next month?” I said, “Yeah, I'll probably lay low for a coupla weeks afterward, but I should be ready to get back to work after two, three weeks, tops.”

20.
 
My shit,
just now, upon rereading #19.

21.
 
A handle on current events;
if pop culture knowledge was an animal, mine would resemble a groundhog emerging every six weeks to randomly yell out a social trend (“Gangnam Style!” “
Game of Thrones
!” “Ryan Gosling!”) only to retreat back into its hole of social oblivion and stale macaroni for another six weeks.

22.
 
My belief that children can be “molded”
into anything other than who they intrinsically are.

23.
 
An argument
with another new mom—a close friend—over the use of baby leashes.

24.
 
My friendship
with that mom.

25.
 
The ability to enjoy any form of entertainment in which a child is in danger,
even though when I was a kid I couldn't get enough of it and when
Flowers in the Attic
came out my friends and I passed that dog-eared paperback around the fourth grade like it was a
Playboy
and hoped/wished/prayed that someone would lock us in their crawl space, and when no one did, we all wondered what was wrong with us.

26.
 
A lifelong family friend
to a heart attack—a decidedly unfunny event.

27.
 
The illusion that anything in life is guaranteed.

28.
 
The capacity to dwell on emotionally painful topics.

29.
 
The hard shell around my heart,
causing me to weep openly at the beauty of life as it manifests in such moments as an elderly couple holding hands, a plastic bag blowing in the wind, or a pair of feral cats copulating in my backyard.

*
With the exception of a boss I once had whose ability to turn every conversation back to her was so amazing, upon reflection it may have been a superpower.

twelve

ALL THE BOYS I'VE LOVED BEFORE (YOUR DAD)

J
ust minutes after my friend's wedding ceremony, the three-year-old's face screws up into a grimace, and she begins to sob.

I ask her why she's crying.

“I WANNA GET MAWWIED!”

I am startled by her outburst, but more than that I am entertained, which, due to the fact that I am a horrible person, is often the effect that my daughter's emotional breakdowns have on me.

Until I hear her response to the groom's line of questioning.

“You're upset because you wanted to get married?” he asks.

She sobs heavily. “Y—Y—YETHHHHHH!”

“Who do you want to marry?” he asks.

“I WANN . . . I WANN . . . I WANNA MAWWY . . . MOMMY!”

And that's when she throws her chubby arms around my thighs, and I don't even care that she's getting snot and tears on my three-hundred-dollar silk bridesmaid's dress/future throw pillows. I just stand there, enjoying this sweet spot of parenthood, and the aroma of the deep-fried, bacon-wrapped hors d'oeuvres now being circulated on platters all around us only enhances the delicious perfection of the moment.

But while I am weirdly flattered by her proposal, it occurs to me that one day she's going to realize that she probably won't be marrying me (at least not until the laws around here change pretty drastically), and someday after that, she's going to throw her arms around some guy or girl the way she's hugging me now.

That's
the day that consumes me. That day, and every day that comes after.

My own dating history is a dark and meandering story filled with adventure, danger, lots of smeared mascara, and naughty bits in various states of undress. And ever since the day that my own child proposed marriage to me, I have been filled with a need to tell her the entire story: the story of all the men I've loved before.

But of course I can't, because she's barely out of diapers. At best it would just confuse her, and at worst I'd get picked up by Child Protective Services and locked up for being a pervert, because I'm guessing it's not appropriate to tell your toddler about the first time you got French-kissed by someone, especially since it wasn't her dad.

But what if I never get the chance? What if I drop dead from some all-over body tumor that I'll develop from standing too close to the microwave? How will I teach her what I learned about life from playing Strip Backgammon with my upstairs neighbor?