I’m grateful that the employee comes back to say he does have a ladder in the back. He brings it out and climbs it and gets the stupid balloon back.
“Thank you so much,” I gush to him, thinking, “I think I’ll send a nice thank-you card to this McDonald’s location.”
I take the balloon and say tersely to the baby, “Here’s your balloon.”
She stops crying and I tie the balloon to her stroller with a triple knot. There is no way I will let this balloon fly off.
When I’m out with the Dictator, I’m always a bit nervous. I worry that if she acts up, strangers will look at me and immediately assume I’m a horrible mother. I always feel like I’m being watched, and judged, when I’m out with the Dictator.
Can you understand why?
June 20
We’re at Tammy’s house for the evening.
We’ve just plopped our kids down at a mini-table with crayons and construction paper. The Dictator has a blue piece of paper in front of her, and she picks up a blue crayon.
“You know, children get more out of coloring if they use a different-color crayon than the paper they’re drawing on,” Tammy’s husband tells me.
Once you become a mother, you can easily tell the difference between those parents who have read parenting books and those who haven’t. I roll my eyes inwardly. I may have become a different person, but at least I have not become the type of parent who cares what color crayon her child draws with.
June 21
My friend Marci has just told me that someone we both know—someone we never thought would be a mother—is pregnant. I’m not as stunned as Marci is.
“Yes, supposedly she really wanted to have a child,” Marci says. “So she just stopped using birth control and got pregnant. Can you believe that?”
“Yes, I can. She is almost forty, right? She had to do it soon,” I say. April always wonders if she is having fertility issues because she didn’t get pregnant when she was younger.
“Yes. I just can’t believe she’d do it on her own,” Marci says.
“I actually think it’s great that she figured out she wants to do it on her own. And she went out and did it.”
“It would be hard to do on your own,” Marci says.
“Yes, it will be very hard. But a lot of women do it.”
“I just can’t imagine her being a mother. She seems like such a free spirit,” says Marci.
“Well, that will change. I guess she just really wanted to have a baby. I’m happy for her.” Marci, I can tell, is less happy for her. Part of this has to do with the fact that Free Spirit is not exactly what you’d consider mother material. But I know how Marci feels. When everyone around you is getting pregnant, even the ones who you’d think would be more comfortable with a martini glass than a sippy cup, it makes you think of your own fertility and whether it will happen for you.
I’m not worried about Marci. In fact, out of all my friends, Marci is the one who, if push came to shove and she wanted to get pregnant but didn’t have a partner, I could see raising a child on her own.
“My friend saw her at a restaurant the other night and said she was showing and everything,” Marci says.
“You know, I think we should be happy for her.”
“I’m trying.”
“Try harder. It’s a good thing. She wanted to be pregnant. Now she is.”
“You’re right. You’re right,” agrees Marci.
“You know it’s going to happen for you, right?” I ask her.
“I know, I know.”
But you never really do know anything for sure, do you?
June 28
I’ve lost my shit. I’m yelling at the Fiancé because I don’t know who to yell at.
“Seriously! Who do they think they are?” I scream.
“Beck, they’re only trying to help.”
“I know! But honestly, I think they think they are her parents.”
“They do not,” says the Fiancé.
“They do too! Every time they come over they tell me what she should be doing, that she shouldn’t be drinking out of a bottle, and then your mother tries to feed her, like she knows better than me!”
“That’s just the way they are. They think they’re helping.”
“Your mother already raised you! She had her chance! She’s my baby and I’ll raise her the way I want.”
“You’re being ridiculous,” the Fiancé says. “Your parents are the same way.”
Even while I scream at the Fiancé, I know I sound ridiculous. It’s just in-laws. Argh! The more they try to “help,” the more they make me feel like a failure as a mother. No matter what I do, the Fiancé’s parents think they can do it better. I say things like “She’s not hungry.” And the mother-in-law will be like, “She’s hungry.” I can’t take it anymore.
“I can’t take it anymore!” I scream again.
At this point, I’m screaming and crying. In fact, one could say I’m having an adult tantrum.
“Did you hear her tell me that she’s taking her on the Disney cruise?” I ask the Fiancé.
“My mother is not taking her on any Disney cruise. She’s not even two!” he says.
“That’s what she said. She said, ‘I’m going to take her on the Disney cruise.’ She didn’t ask me if it was okay to take my daughter on the Disney cruise. She just said she was taking her. She always does this. Is it too much to ask me—her mother—if it’s okay to take her on the Disney cruise? Or if it’s okay with me that Nanny Mimi take her to her office to visit? All I want is to be asked. Not told. I am her mother. She is not!”
“Beck, she just talks. Have you taken your antidepressant today?”
“NO!” I scream at him.
“Maybe you should.”
“Maybe you should tell your mother to stop acting like she’s the mother of our child. I’m her mother! I’m her mother! I’m her mother!” I say, stomping my feet. (Okay, at this point, even I think that maybe I should take my antidepressant.)
“Everyone knows you’re her mother,” says the Fiancé.
“Well, then, why don’t they act like it?” I ask him.
“They just love her,” he says.
July 1
I’m heading back to my hometown for a visit tomorrow. I’d like to see some friends. And this way, I can keep the Dictator to myself. I wonder if I’m being overly sensitive, but I don’t think so. Why can’t the in-laws see that the more they bug me, the more I want to leave town?
I ask the Fiancé if he wants to go out for dinner, just the two of us.
“Sure, that would be nice,” he says.
“Okay. Great.”
“Well, who’s going to babysit the Dictator? Mimi?” asks the Fiancé.
“Well, I already asked and she can’t because she has to do something with her father.”
“So who, then?”
“Um, your parents?” I say quietly.
“Ah!!” He laughs.
“What?”
“So you do like them when you want them to babysit?” he asks.
“Listen, do you or do you not want to go out to dinner with me and have your parents babysit?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Fine.”
The in-laws do seem to drive me less crazy when I want them to babysit.
July 3
I’m back in my hometown and attending a book-launch cocktail party. The Dictator is staying over at my parents’ house for the night.
“You look great!” says an old acquaintance, kissing me on both cheeks.
“Hey, thanks!”
“And you’re a mother now!” she adds.
Argh! Once you become a mother, there’s a whole new version of the backhanded compliment. Except you can’t really get mad because most of the people who don’t know they’re actually giving you a backhanded compliment don’t have children so they don’t understand why saying something like “You look great…and you’re a mother!” is irritating. It’s almost like
people believe it has to be one or the other. Either you look great, or you’re a mother. You couldn’t possibly look great and be a mother at the same time! Oh no.
But I’m used to these comments, so I just smile and say, “Thanks!” It is better than hearing, “You look so tired,” which, of course, I mostly do. I’m a mother!
I’ve been thinking about compliments a lot lately. When I see a new mother I know, and I want to say something nice, I say, “You look amazing!” But I try not to say it like I’m shocked that they look amazing. Mothers, especially new ones, are sensitive to compliments, or backhanded compliments, or compliments that aren’t really compliments, or basically anything you say to them.
I have to admit, I still love hearing “Wow. You look so skinny!” I know people are saying this wanting to add on, “And you had a baby!” Except now my response is “Yes, but I had my baby almost two years ago.” It seems less like a great accomplishment to be skinny nearly two years after giving birth than it did, let’s say, five months after giving birth.
While time does fly when you’re a mother and see all the developments, for other people, who don’t, it stands still.
“So, your baby must be almost two months old now,” acquaintances will say to me.
And then I’ll say, “Um, actually, she’s almost two.”
It’s weird though. Even though I see how the Dictator has grown, there’s no way I look older, is there?
July 4
What had I been thinking? Who had I been kidding? This was the worst idea I’ve ever had. Actually, it wasn’t even my idea. It was the Fiancé’s stupid idea. This was the worst idea he ever had.
He wanted professional photos of the Dictator. He heard about a well-known photographer in my hometown. Stupidly, he wanted this well-known photographer to take the photos of the Dictator.
Of course, the Fiancé wasn’t with us as I attempted to get these professional portraits done. I took the Dictator to this very well-known photographer—who has taken photos of many well-known authors and politicians. The difference between the authors and politicians and the Dictator is that the authors and politicians probably didn’t have temper tantrums and bawl their eyes out in front of this well-known photographer. (They probably had their tantrums in the privacy of their own homes.) The entire photo session took about an hour. There were about five minutes in that time frame during which the Dictator wasn’t crying or screaming. She’s such a diva!
But it was so interesting to watch a professional take a photo. Usually the one taking pictures of the Dictator is my father-in-law, or my father, two people who should not own digital cameras. “I can’t watch. It’s too painful,” I usually end up saying when either one of them attempts to take a picture. Why? Because it takes them forever to figure out how to do it. And they still don’t seem to understand that babies don’t understand that they can’t move while they’re waiting for you to figure out how to use the camera.
This time, however, I was just embarrassed. Well-Known Photographer didn’t seem to mind all the screaming. He was nice. But I minded all the screaming.
By the time we got out of there, I had a splitting headache and thought this man would really have to be a genius to have gotten even one good shot.
“How was it?” the Fiancé asks, calling me at home.
“It was awful,” I tell him.
“What happened?”
“Well, we were there for about an hour and she screamed, oh, I don’t know, for about fifty-five minutes.”
“Oh no.”
“Oh, yes. And now we’re going to have to buy the photos from him no matter what.”
“Why?”
“Because she was so bad that I’m embarrassed for us.”
Like with tipping, every time this child is bad, it ends up costing us.
July 5
“You know, this baby is making me fat,” I say to my friend Lena.
“What do you mean?”
“Do I look a bit fatter to you?”
“Not really.”
“Look at this,” I say, grabbing a handful of flab in the area right over my hip.
“That’s skin! Everyone has that!” she says.
Lena has always been the type of girlfriend who will let me moan about weight gain. Even though she is super-skinny, she also complains about gaining five pounds.
“No, this baby is making me fat!” I tell her again.
“How?”
“Well, I always order her fries. I mean, I’m eating fries sometimes twice a day.”
“But you’re ordering them for her, right?”
“Yes, but she eats maybe two, and then they’re sitting there on the table, so I eat them.”
“You need willpower.”
“Okay, if I had willpower, I wouldn’t have gotten pregnant, and then we wouldn’t even be having this talk about this baby making me fat because I have no willpower to stop eating her fries.”
I finally understand why the Fiancé used to tell me, when we were dating, that I was making him fat. I usually finished half my plate. And he’d finish his meal and then the rest of mine. Just like I’m now eating most of the Dictator’s.
It doesn’t seem fair. First, you worry while pregnant that you’re getting fat. Then you have the baby and try to lose the weight as fast as you can. Then, you finally lose the weight when your child starts crawling and walking because you’re always chasing after her, and then she starts to eat human food, but not a lot of human food, so just when you’re really sure you’ve lost the weight, you start packing it back on, because you’re always ordering fries for your child, who only eats maybe three of them.
The worst thing is, I just never seem to get tired of french fries! Ever!
July 8
5 P.M.
“Fuck!” I scream, as I give myself a vicious paper cut while trying to open a piece of mail. It stings. I fight back tears. I’ve just arrived back home with the Dictator. The Fiancé is still at work.
“Fuck,” the Dictator says.
“What did you just say?”
“Fuck.”
“Don’t say that,” I tell her.
“Fuck.”
Argh.
5:05 P.M.
“Fuck!” the Dictator says again.
“Oh, no. Don’t say that! You can’t say that,” I plead with her.
“Fuck!”
“Oh, God. No. Um, luck! Mommy said ‘luck.’”
“Fuck!”
Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!
5:06 P.M.
“Fuck!”
“No! Luck! That’s right. Luck!”
“Fuck!”
“No, no. Daddy’s going to be home any minute. You can’t say that! Say ‘luck.’”
“Fuck.”
Fuck!
5:45 P.M.
“So…welcome back! Anything exciting happen today?” the Fiancé asks, giving me a kiss on the cheek and a bear hug.
“No, nothing,” I answer.
“Why do you look like that?”
“Like what?”
“You just have a funny look on your face,” he says.
“No I don’t.”
“Yes, yes you do. What did she do now?” he asks.
“Nothing!”
“Did she spill milk on the couch again?”
“No. She’s been an angel.”
“Fuck,” says the Dictator.
“Excuse me? What did she just say?”
“Fuck,” says the Dictator again.
I can’t help it. I burst out laughing. I’m sorry, but it is kind of funny.
July 10
Marci calls. She tells me that she’s heard our single friend had a miscarriage. I feel awful. Much like I find reading newspapers and stories about child abductions so painful, I feel terrible when I find out that people, even people I don’t really know, have miscarriages. Especially if their pregnancy has been widely known. Ever since becoming a mother, I’ve become super-sensitive to these stories. She must feel
so much worse than I feel for her. Even free spirits must feel the pain.
July 15
9 P.M.
The Fiancé and I are fighting.
“She said her ear hurts,” I say to the Fiancé. “Does your ear hurt?” I ask, looking directly at the Dictator.
“Ear hurts,” she says.
“Why didn’t you take her to the doctor today? It’s Friday night. The twenty-four-hour walk-in clinic is going to be crazy!” the Fiancé growls.
I know it’s not the ideal time to be going to the twenty-four-hour walk-in clinic, which is also in a shady part of town, but what else can we do? My baby says her ear hurts. She could need medication.
“Why didn’t you take her today?” the Fiancé asks again.
“Well, she didn’t say her ear hurt earlier. She just started saying it now, and she’s tugging her ear. That means she probably has an infection.”
I’m pissed that the Fiancé doesn’t seem to care that his child has an earache. I know he’s thinking, “Can’t we just wait until Monday?”
No, we can’t. He grouchily drives us to the walk-in clinic so a doctor can check out the Dictator’s ear.
11:30 P.M.
We’re back from the walk-in clinic.
There was absolutely nothing wrong with the Dictator’s ear.
“God, my head hurts,” I say about my headache that just came on.
“Head hurts,” says the Dictator. “My head hurts.”
I would laugh. But the Fiancé is too pissed that we wasted our night in a waiting room at a walk-in clinic.
July 20
Somewhere along the way, I’ve realized that I say “What’s the magic word?” about 293 times a day.
“What’s the magic word?” I’ll say when the Dictator says, “Bottle!”
In fact, almost every time words come out of her mouth, I’m demanding that she say “Please” and “Thank you.” “Pleaseandthankyou,” she’ll always say, as if “Please” and “Thank you” are all one word.
“Blocks!” she’ll say.
“What’s the magic word?”
“Pleaseandthankyou,” she’ll answer.
“Water!” she’ll demand.
“What’s the magic word?”
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