When I had one small baby, I was hungry to master having a baby out in the world. I had gone into parenthood with such shruggy arrogance, and I guess I needed to prove to myself that I wasn’t full of shit in doing so. We took Desi to Nick’s department’s fall potluck when he was just three days old, barely sprung from the hospital. Now, on one hand, newborns don’t do anything and are technically boring and there was free food! and he was so portable in his little bucket car seat. On the other hand, what if instead of doing that, we had just.
fucking.
CHILLEDDDDD.
My torn urethra was still being held together by surgical stitches. We had the rest of our entire lives to leave the house!!
I had a second kid earlier this year and it was not clear to me AT ALL how I was going to be a parent of two out in the world. My three-year-old is cheerfully defiant, and what’s known as a “runner.” Maybe if we had bothered to front-load some consistent, effective parenting, we would have already squashed some of that out of him. But we hadn’t, because we only had one kid, and we had the surplus time and energy for him to be a little shithead. There were two of us to handle his bullshit in restaurants, two of us to deal with his very illegal love of throwing his pajamas over the railing and down the stairs in order to delay bedtime. But if I had Jane in the stroller, and Desi bolted away from me at the farmer’s market, what would I do? Let the older one run into traffic? Abandon the baby? Yell impotently into the wind while strangers avoid my eyeline?
Unlike before, I was not in a rush to prove anything. My attitude this time around was more, how long can I avoid having to go out myself with both of them? Maybe I can just run out the clock on Desi being three before I have to do it? Helpfully, it was winter so there was not much anyone wanted to do outside of the house. I wondered how long I could keep getting away with it.
One Saturday, maybe six weeks in, Nick asked for some time to catch up on work, and I took the two of them out, finally, for the first time. To a playground. The playground was marshy with standing water, and it was much colder out than I had anticipated. Everyone’s shoes were sopping wet, Jane was underdressed, and after what I felt was a generous session of playgrounding with ample time warnings, Desi outright refused to come to the car where I had already secured Jane, and ran off into the goddamn sunset. When we got home finally, I made good on the barked playground threat of taking away all of his toys. Every last toy went into a Hefty bag while he wailed. I delighted in the sound of his wail. It was like I was watching my own heel turn montage. It occurred to me as I hungrily socked away matchbox car after matchbox car, that villains genuinely believe they are the good guys. No one would have to be a villain if you would just find your goddamned listening ears!!!! Look what you made me do!
Well, going out with two was fun, I thought, we’ll try again next year.
When Nick ran the idea by me of him going to a conference in Atlanta, I easily gave him my blessing because I figured I could scam my mom into coming out and helping me. She is A. retired and B. my house conveniently stores all of her grandchildren. It was all set to go but a week before Nick’s flight she broke it to me that, well, it turned out she needed to have a semi-urgent procedure, and well, maybe the procedure was surgery on her heart, and she was so so sorry to have to do this to me. I was bummed on several levels, levels such as: my mom will come through this procedure fine but there is a 100% chance that someday she will die. And also less bleak but still pressing levels such as: goddammit now I have to do it all by myself.
Nick made some arrangements to soften the blow of his absence. He asked the nanny if she could come at 9 rather than 11 for the days he would be gone (we have two full-time jobs but only part-time childcare for the time being, it’s very spicy!) She could. He picked up some blue boxes of pasta and cheese powder. We were going to be fine.
And we were fine. Most things I fear turn out fine. Solo bedtime for two was my main bogeyman. The first night, Desi begged me not to leave his bedroom, blocking me from his door with his body, whimpering that “I’m only sree years old! I can’t be awone!!! It’s not safe!!!!!” We worked it out. The next night, with teenage indifference, he said, “Don’t you need to go put Jane down?” and rolled over in his bed to face the wall. Great! I tap-danced right on outta there.
Nick’s flight was to touch down at BWI Saturday night, so I hatched what I felt to be a clever plan. My friends’ twins were having a birthday party Sunday morning in DC, so we’d head to DC Saturday afternoon, post up at my brother’s in Hill East, gather Nick from the airport, stay the night, birthday party the next morning then we all head home across the Bay together. Extra adults to help with the many children, I could get away with driving to the airport solo or with one child rather than both, Desi gets an exciting overnight with his beloved Uncle Dan, I get to see some friends (reminder that my friend count in our town is non-zero but not by much), Desi gets to burn off some energy at the party, we all head home together. Maybe we even hit up our favorite Scandi-modern lunch counter on the way home, aka IKEA.
Naturally on our journey west, a car burst into flames on the Bay Bridge and we sat parked, suspended over the brackish waters below, for nearly an hour. Our crew of three began to gently fall apart. My breasts sparked with fullness. Jane woke up and started to fuss. Desi shared that he needed to poop.
I was reminded of my brother having to pee in a promotional Catwoman McDonald’s cup (Batman Returns, 1992) while stopped in traffic on a family road trip. Dan had been like nine years old, though. Could I coax a child of three to shit in my empty Wawa coffee cup? Could I feed Jane in my seat? What if traffic started moving while she was nursing and I ended up pulling a Britney until I could find a spot to pull off and get her back in her car seat?
“Chicago” by Sufjan Stevens came on and I turned it up. None of my “options” were as satisfying as pretending none of this was happening, which was easy to do because I was facing away from both of them.
“This album came out when I was, like, 20 so it reminds me of being that age,” I shared with my passengers, despite their indifference to my inner life. I had barely spoken to adults in four days. Desi got his arms around the song structure and soon I was hearing from the backseat
I made a wot of mistakes
I made a wot of mistakes
I reached back and squeezed his foot. Ospreys looped low over the bridge, the fish in their talons still wet and flashing their tails. Wasn’t this the kind of romantic bad time I had signed up for when I decided to have kids? It was.
yr mate,
Evie
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