Of the First Sally That I Made to Seek Adventure

It was so easy with the first. I could put her in a Baby Bjorn (still a fad at the time), sit her in the stroller, place her in the baby carriage and all was fine. I could vacuum with her hanging from my neck, dust the bookshelves, steam organic vegetables for her homemade baby food (she’s in her crib now—don’t worry), finish the mural in her room, translate Afro-Cuban folktales, write poetry and study for my qualifying exams while she listened to Berber folktales in Berber (which I didn’t understand, but she seemed to respond to) and, yes, finish my M.A. thesis while she played with blocks next to me or crawled around chasing the cat—poor Gordo. And I wasn’t that tired, my plantar fasciitis had not started bothering me yet, although there were signs of future trouble and I must confess that my back was killing me. Of course, I wasn’t sleeping well—our little angel, the apple of our eye was a stubborn, insomniac apple who did not sleep the whole night well into her seventh month. If I were to tell you that sleep deprivation made me take steps onto ledges and stairs that were not really there and that my brain literally turned on and off (as in a blink) throughout the day, you would not believe me—but you will, one day. If you have at least one child or, at the very least, a very annoying puppy, then you know exactly what I mean. If I were to tell you that, out of desperation—and following the advice of a little book that promised to give me the happiest baby on the block, if I followed instructions closely—I got my Revlon blow-dryer, hung it from a chair, turned it on high-cool, put the baby on the bed (in her secure, anti-smothering protective gear) and got next to her, you would not believe me. Or, perhaps, you would. Yes, the book told me and I had heard or read somewhere else that white noise would do the trick—it did.  It was a temporary fix that, in fact, the book by no means advices, but that allowed me to close my eyes for a few minutes at a time that day. God bless that blow dryer!

I started graduate school (I had really wanted to be a writer…oh well) with a seventh-month-old little apple who, as I said before, refused to sleep. I kept motherhood, for the most part, a secret from my peers. I was hiding in the hand-painted (by me) baby armoire for a long time—yes, what others call the closet—that is where I was. There were only two people who I had discussed my mother status with and that was two younger men from the department, only one of whom had children of his own. But it is somehow different for a guy to have children, isn’t it? Somehow, in some way, he manages to do a great deal more than a woman with children? I wonder why that is?! But let us not get ahead of ourselves and let us not talk about those other people who (you know them well), having no children of their own, have no idea what it takes to take on an extra student, yet another conference, or finish a sentence in the unfinished paragraph of an unfinished dissertation. So, the first one was a breeze and I would have had a whole basket full of apples had it not been for the second one who—although planned to the very last diaper (disposable—I am not a martyr!)—insisted on teaching me about moderation and yes, serenity.

It’s hard and don’t let anybody else tell you differently —but questions, such as, “Why do you have hair on your peepee?” or “Why are your boobies so droopy?” make it all worthwhile.