Maternity Leave (9781466871533) (11 page)

T
HE
C
ANDY
C
OUNTDOWN:

It's 5:30 already. He better be gift wrapping that candy!

5:33. Where is he? Is he monogramming each individual piece of candy?

5:36. I need something sweet. I've already finished off the only sugary cereal we have, which is Alpha-Bits and barely counts.

5:41. I think we may have some Hershey's Chocolate Syrup. Maybe I can squeeze that onto a saltine.

5:43. Zach arrives home, and I practically knock him to the floor for my Charleston Chews. “Nice to see you, too, honey.” I snarl at him as I tear at the chew like a werewolf coveting his freshly killed prey.

54 Days Old

Plug seems to be clearing. Now what to do about the indigestion I've given myself after scarfing Sour Patch Kids, Junior Mints, and Raisinets (fruit!) for breakfast.

55 Days Old

My mom carries in lunch from our favorite local Italian restaurant.

“Your hair looks nice,” I note of the newly darkened color and covered roots.

“Thank you. Yours could use a touch-up,” she remarks.

“I know. My grays are glowing like a shiny beacon of oldness. But I don't have time. And it's not like it matters. Who sees me except you and Sam?” I stuff in a mouthful of salad.

“Your husband, for one. Don't you want to look nice for him?”

“I have no obligation to look good for him right now. I just birthed him a baby.”

“Well, for you, then. Maybe it'll put you in a better mood. You're always so surly.”

“Three hours of sleep a night will do that to a person.” I glare at my mom. “You know, making me feel like shit about the way I look isn't going to improve my mood.”

“Forget I said anything.” My mom chews her food superiorly.

I stand up and fish through our kitchen junk drawer. “What are you doing?” Mom asks. I ignore her until I find what I was looking for: a brown Sharpie. I whip it out and march into the bathroom. I remove the cap and spend the next ten minutes seeking out the two inches of gray invading my otherwise chocolaty-brown hair. Each metallic strand is quickly coated in the stench of permanent marker. When a suitable number of grays are marked out, I exit the bathroom and present my newly colored hair to my mom. “Voilà. Is that better?” I ask her.

Mom, the keeper of the perfect beat, holds her tongue for a classy three seconds, then offers, “You can get cancer doing that, you know.”

I was this close to drawing a permanent marker mustache on her face.

56 Days Old

I tried running again this morning. Things went well for maybe a minute, but then it felt like the bottom was about to drop again. What a bizarre sensation. I envision my vaginal area looking something like a Hellmouth from
Buffy the Vampire Slayer,
and if I shake it up too much, everything—demons, vampires, fallopian tubes—is going to start flying out into the new dimension I opened. Not to mention the extra sixty pounds of boob I feel like I'm toting around. I don't know if I could run even if I managed to stop up my giant nether-chasm.

Best walk instead. Wouldn't want to sweat too much and agitate the marker on my scalp.

57 Days Old

My mom dropped off a box of Pixies from Fannie May on her way to knitting. “Don't go rubbing these all over your head now. They
are
brown.” I might have thrown them at her if I didn't intend to eat the entire box in the coming hour.

58 Days Old

Zach and I are watching a behind-the-scenes flashback show about
Fast Times at Ridgemont High
. I just put Sam to bed, which means absolutely nothing in my cyclical sleep-wake-sleep-wake lifestyle, but it's the time of day when Zach and I get into bed and watch TV as though I'm about to sleep like the sandman intended. I'm enjoying a detailed dissection of Damone and his piano scarf when out of nowhere Zach asks, “Do you want to have sex?” The marker makeover must really be working.

“What?” I'm barely hiding the look of disgust on my face. “What do you mean?”

“You know. Knocking boots. Do the nasty. Sex?” Zach clarifies. I'm not a fan of when Zach uses gross slang for sex. Maybe he thinks it's funny, but all I can think of is the guy I lost my virginity to my senior year of high school offering me the “hot beef injection” à la
The Breakfast Club
.

“I just had a baby,” I remind him.

“Two months ago,” he stresses.

“I don't know if this area”—I gesture in a circular motion to my crotch—“is quite ready.”

“Didn't your midwife give you the okay after six weeks?” He waggles his eyebrows.

“Put your eyebrows in check. We may technically have the all-clear, but Betty Sue has the final say. It still feels … different down there.” Not to mention my giant dark areolae, the line down my middle, the filthy belly button, and the hideous mass of a pimple that my chest birthed just as I did to Sam.

“Different can be good,” Zach notes.

“What are you talking about, Zach?”

“I don't know. Watching this show about teenagers having sex is making me want to. I can't help that I have a beautiful wife who inspires lurid thoughts.”

Points for the compliment and use of the word
lurid
. Still, “I'm just not ready, Zach,” I say in a gentler tone. “Can we cuddle? Later on you can masturbate into the toilet like Judge Reinhold does as he fantasizes about Phoebe Cates taking off her bikini top.”

“I'll keep that in mind,” he retorts.

Thankfully, the cuddling was enough for tonight, and Zach fell asleep within two minutes of cuddle time. But how long can I keep him at bay?

To: Annie

From: Louise

This new baby is such an asshole. She doesn't want to eat from me, wakes up a million times a night, and she farts all the time. ALL THE TIME. Her doctor says I should try changing my diet because maybe she's having a reaction to something in my milk, but fuck that! I already had gestational diabetes for this turducken when she was inside me, pricked myself 75 times a day, and couldn't eat a single thing I wanted. A pregnant woman who can't stuff her face is not a pregnant woman!!! Fuck. I'm going to go eat the leftover from Terry's birthday cake. There's about half left. That should be enough. Burn this email after you read it.

xo Louise

60 Days Old

My sister, Nora, came over to snuggle Sam today. She seemed perfectly content, giggling and cooing. Sam was eating that shit up (probably thinking,
You're much nicer than my mom, who can't think of a single thing to do with me 90 percent of the day. Her breastmilk doesn't even taste that good
), but I'm consumed by guilt. How did it happen that I so easily got pregnant and totally suck at this mother thing, but Nora wants a baby so badly and is a complete natural at it and can't get or stay pregnant without having to go through repeated invasive interventions? Why does life work that way? High school girls, crack addicts, and people who didn't even know they were pregnant and give birth on the toilet get pregnant all the time. Babies are born to people who truly do not want them, yet my amazing, responsible, kind, deserving sister can't seem to have a baby. It kills me.

I walk over to Sam and kiss his forehead, trying to appreciate what I have. I sit down on the couch next to Nora, who has Sam propped up on the coffee table.

“Don't you just love babies?” she asks. She's not the first person to ask me this. It's supposed to be a rhetorical question, because what kind of satanic sociopathic sonofabitch doesn't like babies? However …

“You mean as a group?” I ask.

“Yes. They're small and cute and smell so good, and they need so much from us.”

“Tell me about it.” I shrug. “Not really.”

“Not really? Why?” I'm surprised that she's surprised by my answer.

“Because saying ‘I love babies' is like saying ‘I love cats.'”

“Don't you love cats? Look at little Doogan.”

Doogan scrunches up in a ball beside me on the couch. I stroke his side for a moment, until he bites me. “Damn, Doogan! Why ya gotta hate?” I ask. I turn to my sister. “I love Doogan, yes, because I know him. That took a while. I wasn't such a fan when he used to knock everything off my dresser in college. Or when he bites me.” I shoot Doo a glare. “That doesn't mean I love all cats. Just like I don't love all babies.”

“You love your baby, though, right?” Nora holds up Sam in front of her face and babbles, “Mommy loves you. Yes, she does.”

“Yeah, of course,” I admit. And I think I do love him. “But I've known Doogan longer.”

“So are you saying you love your cat more than your baby?” Nora's still talking in baby-babble voice.

“Not necessarily.”

“Give it time, Annie. How could anyone not love this little butterball baby? Nomnomnom…” Nora eats Sam's belly.

I lean over and rest my head on Doogan's pillowlike frame. “You bite me, and I throw you off the couch,” I warn. “How much time am I supposed to give it?” I ask, muffled by Doogan's fur.

“When he starts talking. Or crawling. Or maybe just smiling more. Hopefully something will just click, and then you'll realize what a lucky person you are.”

Dig the guilt dagger a little deeper, why don't you? I should just hand Sam over to Nora right now. She's more deserving of him than I'll ever be.

62 Days Old

T
ODAY'S
A
CCOMPLISHMENTS:

•
Folded three pairs of underwear.

•
Ate a bag of candy corn I found hidden in a cabinet (I was the one who hid them, and they weren't all
that
stale).

•
Made Sam laugh when I tripped over his bouncy seat.

•
Wrote 1.5 thank-you notes.

•
Set another lunch date with Devin for next week.

•
Cut six out of ten of my toenails.

63 Days Old

I am reading celebrity magazines voraciously. I have a stack of novels on my bedside that I naively expected to devour during my maternity leave, but I can't get through a single chapter without falling asleep. These magazines are vapid crap, yet I am addicted to digesting them. I wish I could go back in time and write a paper for my women's studies classes on the way these magazines try to make women, and moms in particular, feel like ass. What the fuck is wrong with how celebrities look without makeup? Why do I have to care how fast a celebrity who just gave birth lost her weight? It's fucking disgusting. As if we don't have enough pressure to bolster a human life, we also have to look good while doing it? I wish for once there would be a celebrity, a really famous and talented one, who would always leave the house without makeup and be pregnant with mighty tree stump kankles and then give birth and show off her stretch marks and puckered stomach and veiny legs in a bikini, her gray roots showing because she's too tired to get them colored.

I wish for once there really truly was a celebrity who did not give a fuck. I can't decide which is worse: those who pretend they don't care but obviously do or those who try so hard to be perfect even when they shouldn't be. Like pictures of celebs at the airport. How the hell do they not look wrinkly and covered with Coke that spilled on them during turbulence? Do they change on the plane? And if so, why? Why do they care so much? It sucks that they do, because since they care so much about how they look, then, in turn, all of us normal human beings are supposed to feel like losers who cannot possibly look even 15 percent as good as they do.

I wish I didn't care. I wish I could stop buying these stupid magazines and giving money to the cause. I wish I didn't get jealous that these celebrity moms look so good and, even worse, love their kids instantly, and all seem to be able to breastfeed like champs the second the baby passes from their loins.

They must be full of shit. There is no way they are all breastfeeding and traveling and wearing push-up bras without getting plugged ducts and no sleep. I am declaring that all celebrity moms are part of an evil army, and I am out to destroy their unrealistic representation of what it means to be a real mom. I'll start a blog! Write a book! Post pictures to some website where people write hateful comments from the safety of their anonymous hovels!

But first I have to go to the bathroom. I wish these damn magazines would write longer articles. There's not even enough content to last a basic poo.

64 Days Old

My mom brought lunch today, and we spent much of our time on the couch watching Turner Classic Movies. I managed to do two full loads of laundry, run(ish) on the treadmill, shower, and finish painting all ten of my toenails. In a month, my mom leaves on her yearly vacation to San Francisco. And while she drives me insane a good 97 percent of the time, I am freaking out. How will I survive without her?

66 Days Old

M
Y
S
LEEP
S
CHEDULE:

Put Sam to bed at 7:30.

I fall asleep while watching
Louie
.

Sam wakes at 9:45. I feed him.

Both fall back asleep.

Sam wakes at 1:45. I feed him.

Sam wakes at 2:45. I feed him.

Sam wakes at 3:45. I feed him.

Sam wakes at 4:45. I yell, “We're closed for business!” at the baby monitor and shove a pillow over my head.

Zach wakes me at 7:30 when he leaves for work and hands me Sam. “I love you,” he says, and kisses me. “I hate you,” I grumble, and flip on the TV to QVC.

67 Days Old

Today I took Sam on an outing to Walgreens. I spent over an hour plus $67, even though there wasn't anything I actually needed except a trip out of the house. People fawned and cooed over Sam, and he smiled at them. It was all very lovely. If only they knew what evil lurked inside of his terrible mother's brain. At least I have seven new nail polish colors that I will never find the time to apply.