4. I have lost some of my old single, fabulous friends.
5. I have made some new, good mother friends.
6. I will always miss a part of my old life.
7. I look forward to the rest of my new life.
8. I still miss my old ass. I might always miss my old ass.
9. I could never love anyone as much as I love the Dictator. Though she can be really, really, really bad, as soon as she says “I love you,” all is forgiven.
10. There will always be better mothers than me out there. There will always be worse mothers than me out there.
October 16
7 P.M.
“You have to come home right now,” I tell the Fiancé, calling him on his cell.
“I was just leaving,” he says.
“And you have to buy diapers,” I tell him.
“What? I just bought a jumbo box last week,” he says. “We couldn’t possibly have used them all up. There were, like, 120 of them in that box.”
“I know. But we used up all the ones with the picture of Elmo on the front,” I say.
“So?”
“So? So? Well, she’ll only wear the ones with Elmo on them. Just stop at the drugstore and buy some, will you?”
“What do you mean, she just wants the Elmo ones?”
“Just get Elmo ones, trust me…Hello? Hello?”
I think the Fiancé hung up on me.
Arguing with a two-year-old is like arguing with a two-year-old. The conversation, if you could call it that, went something like this.
Me: “What about the Cookie Monster ones?”
Dictator: “Elmo!”
Me: “How about this one with the blue bear? He’s cute. So cute!”
Dictator: “Elmo!!”
Me: “What about Big Bird! How could you not like Big Bird??”
Dictator: “ELMO!!! ELMO!!! WAAAA!!”
7:15 P.M.
I speed-dial the Fiancé back.
“What now? Does the Dictator want special wipes? Does the Dictator want a private jet? Does the Dictator want a canary diamond?”
“No, I was just wondering if you remembered to buy a new DVD player. Remember? She threw it on the floor? Hello? Hello?”
8:00 P.M.
“Thank God, you’re home!” I say, when the Fiancé walks in, holding up a jumbo box of diapers like a prize he had just won.
“You know, Beck, she’s starting to get out of control,” he says.
“I know! She really had a tantrum over not having an Elmo diaper.”
“Great, the terrible twos are starting,” he says.
“Just think. Pretty soon she’ll be toilet trained and we won’t have to worry about diapers anymore.”
“Finally we can get rid of that thing,” the Fiancé says, as we put the diaper on the Dictator.
“What thing?” I ask.
“That white thing in her room. You know what I’m talking about. What’s it called again?”
“What thing?” I ask again.
“That thing! The thing we never used. The thing we never figured out how it works.”
“Ohhh, you mean the Diaper Genie?”
“Yes!”
8:15 P.M.
“OW! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” I scream out.
“What happened?” the Fiancé asks, giving me a look because I’m using swearwords.
“She just butted me in the head! I think she broke my nose!”
I was trying to put the Dictator into bed, and we were fooling around, having fun. That is, we were having fun until she head-butted me. It was an accident, but my God, it hurts like a bitch.
“Fuck! I think my nose is broken! I think she broke my nose!”
Later that night…
who really cares what time…
I’m lying in bed with a pack of frozen peas on my face. At least now I know how and why there are frozen peas in my fridge, unlike two years ago when I was so tired I walked into the wall and needed to ice my nose, after also thinking I had broken it. I feel somewhat proud of myself now, thinking how much I’ve grown up in the past two years. I may not even care this time that I might wake up with two black eyes. I can be myself around Nanny Mimi tomorrow. I look forward to seeing the head-butting Dictator tomorrow (or will that be in an hour?).
It took me two years to finally get, and come to terms with, my new life as a mother. At least I’m here now, I think. It took two years.
In fact, I now think I actually may be good at this mothering thing. I can’t stop thinking that maybe the Fiancé and I, who somehow made it through the past two years without either one of us asking for a separation, should try for a second, now that we know what we can expect and everything. But maybe I should concentrate on that thing called “balance” between a happy home life and a solid career first. I haven’t cracked that secret to a happy balance just yet. And maybe now is not the right time to bring up another child with the Fiancé, not that there may ever be a right time.
But I do know we still have to get through the terrible twos with the child we have now, the Dictator.
But, really, how bad can the terrible twos be? Surely, they must be easier than the first two years of being a mother, right? I’m not that naïve, am I?
For now, I’ll sleep. Another day done. I’m wiped.
Acknowledgments
Thanks to Denise Bukowski and the team at the Bukowski Agency, including David and Emily.
Huge thanks to Jill Schwartzman, Allison Dickens, Beth Pearson, Jordan Fenn, Linda Pruessen, and Kendra Michael.
Thanks to the mommies: Victoria, Dana, Tamar, Kama, Jodi, Tessa, Jasmine, Liza, and Rebecca, the best mommy friend a gal could hope for.
Special shout-outs to Louisa McCormack, Ken Whyte, Sherilee Olson, Dianne Defenoyl, Domini Clark, Ceri Marsh, Marcella Munro, Danielle, Joanna, Dara, Sheri, Carolynn, Valerie, and Nanny Mimi.
Thanks to the readers of ninepounddictator.blogspot.com.
The biggest thanks to the man who puts up with the most, S.J.C. I love you.
About the Author
REBECCA ECKLER is one of Canada’s best-known journalists. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Elle, Fashion, and the Los Angeles Times, and she is a frequent contributor to Canada’s weekly newsmagazine Maclean’s. She was a feature writer and the relationship advice columnist (“Advice to the Lovelorn”) for the National Post. She now writes a weekly modern-parenting column for The Globe and Mail, Canada’s national newspaper. Her first book, Knocked Up, has been published in nine countries. She lives with her fiancé, her toddler, Rowan (A GIRL!), and her King Charles spaniel, Ruby. She has no set plans to get married, have another child, or get another dog. Ever. Well, at least not yet, anyway. You can check out her website at www.rebeccaeckler.com.
Praise for Knocked Up
“Knocked Up is what would happen if Bridget Jones was finally impregnated by Mark Darcy…. At the end of nine months, Ecklerhas covered the basics of young motherhood in her own quirky and outlandish way.”
—New York Daily News
“Painfully funny…Readers are treated to Eckler’s biting wit…. It’s fun to watch [Eckler] change from the woman who dreaded seeing mothers with infants…to being a mother herself.”
—Los Angeles Times
“[Eckler’s] frankness, quirky style and light touch are a winning combination.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Hit[s] the mark among twenty-and thirtysomething mothers.”
—Library Journal
“Knocked Up is the best cure for morning sickness! Knocked Up is the answer to postpartum blues! Knocked Up can cure preeclampsia! Yes, Knocked Up can solve gestational diabetes! Knocked Up even works on stretch marks! Like Prozac, and safe to take while nursing—this is a hilarious book!”
—Molly Jong-Fast, author of The Sex Doctors in the Basement and Normal Girl
“Knocked Up is a delightful story about getting knocked up, popping the baby out, and everything that happens in between. Rebecca Ec
kler’s hilarious and candid account of what seem to be the longest nine months of her life will go down as smoothly as a well-mixed cosmopolitan.”
—Amulya Malladi, author of Serving Crazy with Curry
A Villard Books Trade Paperback Original
Copyright © 2007 by Rebecca Eckler
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Villard Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
VILLARD and “V” CIRCLED Design are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
www.villard.com
eISBN: 978-1-58836-609-2
v3.0
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