Sep
18
When I was counting down the days until I could give notice at Workplace, I was filled with a growing, jittery sort of anticipation that kept veering into dread. I was secretly afraid I’d find that I hated staying home with the kids.
I thought it might be like maternity leave, that being my only experience with staying home full time. And really, for all the wonderful, amazing moments that did happen during both of my maternity leaves, and for all the ambivalent, sometimes-truly-unhappy feelings I had about going back to work when they were over (which seemed stronger the first time around; I think after Dylan was born I was chomping at the bit to get back to an office), I kind of . . . didn’t enjoy those months. Very much. At all.
I mean, obviously being home with a newborn is a totally different situation. You’re walloped with so much insanity all at once—physical discomfort, roiling hormones that continually whip your brain from giddy transcendent joy to a murky froth of utter despair, depressing bodily lane-changes from Lovely Glowing Vessel of Life to Puffy Disfigured Lumpen Oozing Pile of Weaksauce, tortuous sleep deprivation, and so on. It’s a wonder any of us survive it, really.
Plus, I don’t know if everyone gets The Terror, but I sure did. That’s when you think every single tiny thing your baby does means he’s dying, from the way he snorfles when he breathes to the mini-geyser of milk he deposits in your bra. Sleeping for a long time? Not going to wake up! Crying inconsolably? Wracked with fatal internal injuries! Yawning? Struggling for oxygen! When you’re gripped by The Terror, ALL ROADS LEAD TO DEATH.
Have you seen that internet video with the baby panda sleeping near its mom, and out of nowhere it lifts its head and blasts out this sharp, super-loud sneeze, and the mom panda nearly falls over from shock? Like she’s thinking, what the FUCK was that? That’s The Terror, right there.
So part of my brain knew that being home this time would be different than sitting around all day hunkered nervously over a baby, occasionally holding a mirror over his mouth, but I was also thinking of how utterly lonely it was to be home with a baby all day, no one to talk to, and how leaving the house was such an expedition—just getting to the point of being able to walk out the front door was exhausting enough, and then 9 times out of 10 I’d have to turn right around and change a blowout diaper or scrape milk-barf off my shirt or whatever. I was thinking of how the hours used to stretch like taffy and go on and on and on and on and on. How I’d look at the clock thinking that surely JB would be home any minute and it would be, like, 10 AM. How when he did get home, I’d snap at him for daring to step onto the carpet and alter the fibers which I’d arranged as pathologically as the scene in Pink Floyd’s The Wall when Pink enshrines the smashed-up contents of his room because the one and only thing I’d managed to accomplish all day long was vacuuming that fucking carpet I WANT A DIVORCE.
Of course, it’s been nothing like that. Being home with walking, talking children is nothing like being home with a newborn, and oh, thank god, I am finding it about a trillion times more enjoyable.
(At this point I feel I should worriedly point out that I’m only describing my own experience and feelings here and your maternity leave is going to be awesome, okay?)
I don’t really know if I believe that everything happens for a reason, but I do think this opportunity came along at just the right time for me. I don’t think I would have been happy staying home with a baby. I’m pretty sure I would have lost my damn mind during the early-18-month zone. And I’m not saying that the full time company of a 5-year-old and a 2.5-year-old is on par with, say, a soothing hot stone massage or anything, but . . . well, it’s so much better than I thought it would be.
I love to be right. Doesn’t everyone? But sometimes it’s even better to be wrong.
Sep
15
There’s the matter of personal upkeep, of course. I do manage to shower every morning but my hair never gets blow-dried with the attention it used to and I spend about three minutes slapping on just enough makeup to cover the worst of the eye circles while small people circle me like sharks, fighting over who gets to hold the now-unused Kabuki brush.
I’ve been living in yoga pants and t-shirts and I know this isn’t a good idea, not only for the brief involuntary shudder that crosses the UPS guy’s face when he comes to the door, but because elastic clothing allows me to fool myself about my eating habits. “I haven’t gained a pound,” I think happily, tossing back another bite of the children’s uneaten peanut-butter-slathered banana bread, ignoring the faint groan of overtaxed Spandex.
There’s the ass-shaped dent that’s deepened in the couch, from where I sit during naptimes and late into the evening, typing into a glowing screen. Sometimes I get up and there’s a pattern from the cushion fabric printed across my thighs.
There are the spectacularly unsexy tasks of trundling around the grocery store or community play area or library with two children, alternately simpering over their good behavior and hissing like Medusa for them to slow down and use their indoor voices.
There’s my total inability, so far, not to get up and eat everything in the kitchen at 10 PM. I remember this from being on maternity leave, how I just really, really felt like I needed a reward at the end of the day. I find that I want a way to differentiate that oh-so-brief crossover into my time, and the best way I can think of to do that is with snacks. I’m aware of what I’m doing and why I’m doing it, but this doesn’t seem to help me put the brakes on my foodhole during that little carb-heavy slice of time between finishing the last of my work and going to bed.
Which is all to say, I’m not feeling super attractive lately. And as I was watching Mad Men last night—while I sprawled on my butt-sagged couch gnawing on a fistful of Frosted Mini Wheats—I eyeballed Betty Draper’s beautifully curled hair and nipped waistline and immaculate household and I thought, what the hell. Maybe I need to take up smoking.
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