Maternity Leave (9781466871533) (15 page)

“Fine,” I yield. “Be miserable inside.”

I'm surprised when Louise takes Gertie out of her stroller and proceeds to lift up her shirt and pop out her breast without the use of a cover. She catches me looking at her. “What?” she asks.

“You don't put anything over yourself?” I ask.

“Nah. I did with Jupiter, but now I'm too droopy and tired to give a shit. I'm not half the MILF I used to be.”

“That should be the title of your memoir,
The MILF I Used to Be
. We snort.

“You look great, honey! You're a superhero!” Louise calls to Jupiter, and I can see the love for her kids behind all of the grumbling.

Sam wakes in his stroller and commences his bloody murder bellow.

“Damn. He
is
loud,” Lou acknowledges.

“Yes. I am so proud.” I take Sam out of his stroller and fish around for my nursing cover.

“You don't have to wear that around me, you know,” Lou informs me.

“I know. I'm not quite as comfortable with the public breastiness. I'd like to keep the minuscule air of mystery my boobs have left. After giving birth, I feel like my vagina has its own TV channel.” I loop the cover over my head and help Sam latch. I wince at the initial tug.

“He's still hurting you?” Lou asks.

“Yeah. Not all of the time, but he latched badly yesterday, so now I have to wait for it to heal again. I will not miss the never-ending cycle of boob pain.”

“But you're going to stick with it. Fight the good fight?” Louise is definitely more outwardly aggressive about the importance of breastfeeding.

“I'm going to try,” I say. A man, probably around sixty, walks past and looks our way.

“Good morning.” He nods, and I watch as the recognition grows on his face that he just saw a woman's breast. He turns his head speedily in the other direction.

“Hope you got a good look, pal! If it offends you so much, go to a different park!” Lou yells after him. The man walks faster.

“Impressive. You just harassed a man for saying good morning.”

“Yeah, right. He's heading home to jack off at the memory of the women in the park with babies attached to their boobs.”

“Mine are covered,” I remind her. “Do you really think guys get off on watching women breastfeed?”

“Oh, sure. There's probably a subgenre of porn dedicated to lactating women. That dude totally subscribes.”

“If it's by subscription, then maybe we can make a little extra money,” I propose.

“Watch this, Mommy!”

“Jupiter is supercute, by the way. And so smart,” I offer my praise to Louise.

“Yeah, the doctor started recommending gifted schools for her yesterday. But I don't have the money for that.”

“So you ended up going to the doctor?” I ask.

“Yep. It turned out Gertie wouldn't stop crying because she had an ear infection. She's on antibiotics and is a billion times better already. I'm the worst fucking mother on earth because I didn't take her in sooner.”

“Watch this, Mommy!” Jupiter deftly climbs a mini rock wall, turning around to check the status of her mom's attention.

“Obviously, you are an amazing mom. Look how Jupiter's turning out.”

“Just wait until she starts stealing my car and using that crack pipe we found on the sidewalk.”

“Well, I think you're doing a great job. You have to stop beating yourself up about things.” I dole out the advice I've heard a thousand times over.

“I will if you will,” she bargains with me.

We nurse our babies in silence and watch Jupiter as she hops from one piece of playground equipment to another. Two moms, doing the best we can. And possibly starring in a porn video coming soon to a computer near you.

95 Days Old

Sam has his first cold. I don't want to trace its origins, so I'll pretend it had nothing to do with our day at the park. I'm awake most of the night trying to keep him upright so he can breathe. Thank goodness I'm not sleeping, or I would have missed this classic QVC sales pitch for a pair of stretch pants:

“This is an antigravitational zone! No more wiggle, no more jiggle!”

I totally bought them.

Not that I've even worn stretch pants in public.

The woman on the phone was really nice.

I bought two pair.

96 Days Old

I return to work in two months. I hate myself for looking forward to it. I miss the regular, quantifiable success of students learning. I miss the intellectual challenges of lesson planning. I miss showering on a daily basis.

I still don't know what I'm supposed to be doing all day with a baby. Sam is awake enough now that I have to find ways to entertain him. But what more can I do with a three-month-old? Am I missing something? We do tummy time, listen to music, I read aloud from a Stephen King novel (he has no idea what I'm saying, right?) to let him hear language, and I hold and feed him. A lot. What else can I do?

Annika texted me the other day and asked me to drive into the city for brunch. I told her I couldn't, not bothering to explain why. She doesn't seem to comprehend that a baby complicates scheduling a tad more than the days of the Pee Sharps. I have to time everything correctly with naps and feedings and diaper changes. I have to make sure I have all of the necessities—toys, diapers, wipes, covers for both my boobs and gross public bathroom changing tables. And even then there is no guarantee that Sam won't cry the second I walk into the hipster brunch joint where people with all the time in the world spend two hours waiting to eat overpriced, underwhelming waffles (which I can get tastier and cheaper at our nearby truck stop), so we won't be able to eat there even after driving a tortuous hour in the car. Did I mention the death-defying drive where I have to keep one hand on the steering wheel and the other arm flanked over the back of the seat like a sideshow contortionist in order to hold the pacifier in Sam's mouth because he spits it out every five seconds even though it seems to soothe him when he bothers to keep it in place?

Text to Annika:

Sorry. Can't today. Maybe another time?

Like when Sam's in college
.

97 Days Old

Today my mom makes her annual trip to San Francisco to stay with my aunt Mabel for the summer. I am officially on my own. I acknowledge that I have Zach, and I realize I could try to find a babysitter, but by the time I find someone I trust enough not to drop my child or taint the breastmilk I would have had to spend weeks pumping to have enough for our time away, I'll be back at work anyway.

Before Mom left, we had this little exchange:

“Last chance to change your mind, Ma.”

“I'll be back before you know it,” she assures me.

“Grandma,” I speak in a baby voice, “if you go away, I will forget who you are. Don't leave me with this mean mommy.”

“They called my flight, honey. Be good. Love you!”

Click

Shit just got real.

98 Days Old

Today Zach and I celebrated our seventh wedding anniversary. He gave me a pair of handmade garnet earrings from Etsy. I gave him a monogrammed back scratcher and a
Battlestar Galactica
t-shirt. As we eat our romantic Burritoville takeout anniversary dinner, Zach broaches the delicate subject of sex again.

“Since tonight is our anniversary, and you are in fighting shape—you're looking lovely, by the way—I was thinking it might be a good time to try, you know, a little celebration lovin'?”

Zach and his weird, creepy sex euphemisms.

“I can't even think about sex until we buy some condoms. There is no way I'm risking getting pregnant again this soon.”

“Right. Condoms. I forgot you used to be on the pill.” Zach seriously considers this. “Can you come with me?”

“You're a grown, married man with a child who desperately wants to have sex, and you can't go out and buy condoms by yourself?” I chide.

“They don't know I'm a grown, married man.”

“Don't flatter yourself, dear. You look all of your thirty-six years. And you're wearing a wedding band.”

“I know, but it will look cooler if you and Sam are with me. My trophy wife plus the product of our previous intimate times together.”

“I have never been referred to as a trophy wife before. Well played. Fine, we'll go with you. We can let Sam pick the style. I'll take a picture and write about it in his baby book. ‘The first time I went shopping for condoms was…,' Right next to a picture of him with the Easter Bunny.”

“Are we going to get those pictures? Us raising him Jewish, and all.”

“I won't tell the Easter Bunny if you don't.”

“I don't think he really knows Jesus anyway.”

“How did our dinner conversation go from condoms to Jesus?” I ask, taking a bite of my burrito.

“It's my sneaky non-Jew way. I like to get a sprinkle of Jesus in every other year.”

*   *   *

The trip to Walgreens is an anniversary special event. Zach refuses to buy the condoms at our local Walgreens because he doesn't want one of the regular cashiers to recognize us and see our purchase.

“Seriously, Zach, they don't give a shit. And I highly doubt they recognize you.”

“You don't know how often I sneak off to Walgreens late at night to buy supersized Snickers.”

“Really?” I ask.

“I'll never tell.”

We drive fifteen minutes out of the way and land at a new Walgreens three towns over.

“Don't you feel like you're on vacation every time you step into a new Walgreens?” Zach asks as we approach the welcoming sliding doors.

“I feel the same way!” I exclaim. “I guess that's why we're still married.”

Zach wears Sam on his chest in a BabyBjörn. While I prefer the Moby Wrap, Zach thinks the Björn is easier to use and the black makes it more manly. He told me this one afternoon while brushing Sam's scant tuft of hair with a Cabbage Patch Kids brush.

In order to not just buy condoms (God forbid), Zach wants to pile our basket full of candy and office supplies. “Why not get one of those tiny shopping carts? Then you can look really old, like those cute little ladies who come to Walgreens for eighteen boxes of Kleenex,” I suggest.

“Whatever works,” Zach insists.

Twelve theater boxes of candy, two packages of highlighters, and a shitload of packing tape later (“It's buy one, get one/half off,” Zach notes), we're at the register. A middle-aged woman with cat's-eye glasses and a name tag reading “Mindi” greets us pleasantly. Since I'm alone with a baby 90 percent of the time, I take this opportunity to chat.

“How are you?” I ask, and she looks genuinely surprised by the question.

“I'm doing great, thanks. I get off in a half hour. How are you?” Mindi echoes.

“Doing well, thank you,” I answer as I unload the basket. Zach mills about several feet behind me, pretending to admire the last-minute tchotchkes offered nearby.

“Care to buy any Hershey products?” Mindi swipes her hand, game-show-hostess style, toward a candy bar display. “They're three for two dollars.”

“No, thank you. I think we've got our sugar fix covered. Let me check with my husband.” A line has formed behind me, so Zach moved himself to a nearby display of flowers that dance whenever you play music. “Zach? Want any more candy?” I yell to him. He shakes his head aggressively, as though I'm blowing his cover. “Nah. We're good,” I tell Mindi.

She beeps each item as she takes them out of our basket and drops them into a plastic bag. When she gets to the condoms, I strike up the band. “I used to work at F&M, a sort of discount Walmart place that closed before Walmart even existed,” I begin.

“I remember that store,” Mindi remarks.

“When I was in high school. A friend of mine, well, a girl who I was good friends with as a kid, but we sort of grew apart as teenagers, she came through my line one day. She was acting all sneaky and embarrassed because she was buying condoms.” I'm telling the story not only to Mindi now, but to an athletic-looking guy behind me buying two tiny energy drinks. “I could tell she picked my line because it seemed the least mortifying of the choices. So to clear the air, make her not feel so nervous, I say, ‘Would you like a bag, or do you want to wear these out?'”

Mindi snickers, and the jock guffaws. I slide my credit card through the slot. As she hands me the receipt and Zach finally decides to rejoin me, Mindi asks, “I'm guessing you want a bag?” to Zach. He's too flustered to answer.

Back in the car, Zach muses, “I can't believe you just did a stand-up act about buying condoms in Walgreens. Weren't you the least bit embarrassed?”

“I don't know. Maybe I just deal with embarrassment differently than you. It's all good. We've got the condoms now. And candy.”

“And tape. Don't forget tape,” Zach reminds me.

“My sticky hero.”

Three hours later, we put Sam to sleep and slip into bed. I'm wearing a giant Ren and Stimpy t-shirt my sister gave me in high school that happened to make for a perfect maternity nightshirt. I don't need to be wearing maternity-sized clothing anymore, but it's hard to give up the aged softness of Ren and Stimpy.

“That's what you're going to wear?” Zach asks me, sounding boyishly disappointed.

“I'm sorry I'm not in my Frederick's of Hollywood feathered robe. I'm not quite there yet. Besides, it's not like you dressed for the occasion.” Zach has on the NPR t-shirt he wore today, along with his ten-year-old plaid boxers and ubiquitous black socks. He refuses to wear socks of any other color, even if he's wearing shorts. Which is never.

“Maybe I'm not ready to wear my feathered Frederick's of Hollywood robe, either,” Zach cracks.