Not Ready for Mom Jeans (10 page)

When people said having a baby would change me, I figured they were right. I just didn’t expect that I could never go out to dinner again. I guess I should’ve enjoyed all those alcohol-soaked dinners in my twenties, because now it seems I’m going to be spending quite a large quantity of time indoors watching
Jeopardy!
and eating TV dinners.

The second I was ready to ship Sara off to Bali, she stopped screaming. The minute we walked inside, Sara quieted and smiled. She rested her head against my chest and relaxed. As she sighed and wrapped her teeny fingers around a strand of my hair, I whispered, “It’s a good thing you’re so cute. You just bought yourself more time.”

It’s amazing. She can take me to the brink of desperation, the edge of the cliff, and offer a little sigh or grin in return. And suddenly it’s OK. And I thought Sam had manipulation down pat.

After the Adobo Grill scream-a-thon, there was no way I was ready to write a column for the
Tribune,
so I posted more pictures of Sara on my blog.

“Hey, Jake,” I called from inside our bedroom. “Guess what? Wifey1025 just commented that she thinks Sara looks like a Gerber baby model. In fact, she knows someone at Gerber and would love to submit Sara’s picture if I could just meet her in the parking lot of Discount Cigarettes 4U at three a.m. tomorrow.”

Jake appeared at the doorjamb and leaned against it. “Just make sure to pack your Mace and collapsible billy club.”

“Funny,” I said as I closed the laptop and stretched my arms over my head. I noticed he was still standing in the doorjamb, smiling. “What?” I said as I retracted my arms.

“Well, I was going to tell you at dinner, but Sara made things too crazy.” He walked over to the bed and sat down next to me.

“What?” I said, my voice raised.

I hate surprises. But maybe it’s something good, like he won the lottery or something. Yeah, right, that kind of stuff doesn’t happen to us. He probably got laid off and I’ll have to—

“Clare, relax. It’s nothing bad,” he said, and laughed. His eyes sparkled a bit. He reached over and took my hand. “My boss called me into his office for a meeting with the VP today.”

My ears started ringing.
I knew it. We’re screwed. Maybe Princess can get a job.

“A promotion, Clare. They’re giving me a new senior title and a big bump in base salary plus guaranteed bonuses.” Jake’s hand grew tighter on mine as I allowed his words to settle in the space around me. I stared at him, eyes wide. “Clare?” he said after a few silent moments.

A smile crept across my face, crinkling my eyes and flushing my cheeks. “Really?”

“Yes, really,” he said.

I threw myself toward his body and hugged him tight. “That’s so amazing! Holy crap! I’m so proud of you!” All of my words ran together as I squeezed him.

Yes! I knew things would get better soon! Maybe we can get a house now!

“Maybe you can stay home now,” Jake said into my ear.

I quickly released him and leaned back. “What?” I said as my brow furrowed.

Jake looked down at the bed quickly. “Stay home. With Sara. It’s what you want, right?”

“What? When did I say that?” I said, and scooted away from him a bit. “I’ve never said that.” And I hadn’t. Truth was, going back to work was always just simply a given, financial need or not.

“You … well … I guess … never.” Jake fumbled over his words, confusion twisting his features.

I nodded my head. “Working is hard, but you know how much I like my job and how hard I’ve worked to get to where I’m at.” I shrugged my shoulders and twisted my hands in my lap. “And besides, if I stopped working, we couldn’t ever move or take the next step in our lives. It would be like one step forward, two huge steps back.”

Jake’s arm extended forward as he grabbed my hand again. “We still could move. I think we could still swing it financially. Especially if we weren’t paying for day care anymore.”

“Even still, I’ve always planned on being a working mom, so that’s what I’m going to do. Like I said, it’s hard, but I’m sure it’ll get easier.” As I said the words, they sounded more like a prayer, a hope, rather than a real belief. I shook my head slightly, as if to clear any opposing thoughts.

“OK, if that’s what you want. It’s just an option that you’ll have if you want. I just want you to be happy,” Jake said. He pulled me toward him, against his chest. I hugged him again and tried to ignore the disappointment I thought I saw flash across his face.

Saturday, March 29

3:00 P.M.

I have spent most of today saying things like, “I
love
being able to run errands on my lunch hour!” and, “Remember how excited I was to land my first job in event planning?” Jake is looking at me like I’ve gone clinically insane. Truth is, I’m not sure if my proclamations are more for his benefit or mine.

Naturally, my
Tribune
article is still not done. It didn’t help that Jake and I disappeared into a black hole this afternoon, i.e., Costco.

Ordinarily, I would be too smart to even set foot inside Costco on a weekend, but my recent lack of sleep has rendered me malleable to nearly any suggestion, so I agreed. Not to mention, I thought it was a fabulous procrastination avenue and a wonderful distraction from any Serious Thinking.

If this is any indication of how it went, my blog entry today was titled: “This Day Needs to Come to Life So I Can Painfully Kill It.”

After I pumped Sara up in the car with so much formula Jake and I could’ve used her as an inflatable raft in case of a sudden flash flood, we set forth to the giant windowless building that houses things like five hundred empanadas in one box. As we walked through the parking lot, I snickered at the people around me trying to fit things like boxes of seven thousand Cheese Nips into their trunks until Jake reminded me that the last time we came here I bought a box of Pringles so large we had to strap it to the roof of our car.

We walked in the door and I futilely tried to distract Jake from the huge televisions displayed as we walked in the door.

“I think the diapers are over here.” I pointed to the left.

“Just one second,” he said, and wandered over to the electronic section.

I sighed and leaned my head forward, resting it on Sara’s car seat.

“Your daddy is going to drive me nuts here, isn’t he?” I asked her.

She grinned at me and said, “A-Gee,” which I took to mean
You can bet your ass, Mom.

After ten minutes, I steered the extra-large cart over to Jake.

“We have one of these giant TVs, remember? It makes me nauseous every time I watch it, since our place really isn’t big enough for a sixty-inch screen.”

Silence as he ignored me and continued to stare at the whopping electronic.

“You know, we should probably get a new television. Thanks to my promotion and all.” Jake walked forward and pretended to pet the large black thing. I have no idea what it was, possibly some kind of speaker.

“Jake?” He still didn’t move. “JAKE. I DON’T HAVE THE STRENGTH TO ARGUE WITH YOU ABOUT WHY WE DON’T NEED THIS. WE DON’T NEED EYEGLASSES, AN ENGAGEMENT RING, T-SHIRTS, OR RANDOM WEIRD BOOKS OR ANY OF THE OTHER CRAP THEY SELL HERE. CAN WE PLEASE JUST BUY DIAPERS? AND MAYBE SOME VALIUM?”

That did it.

“OK, sorry. I just wanted to see what deals they had. Costco kicks ass.”

We made it another ten feet before my husband wandered off again. A Siren, a.k.a. the free-sample-dispenser lady, enticed him to crash his boat into the rocky cliffs by waving around some spring rolls, and I knew I’d lost him. I watched as he jockeyed for position, trying to get a sample amidst all the people who stand in front of the displays for hours on end, jamming free food into their mouths.

He handed me a small cup. “Try it.”

He extended his arm, like Eve giving Adam the forbidden fruit. I gave in and tried the spring roll.

“So good!” I proclaimed, and 750 frozen spring rolls entered our cart.

Another five feet and Jake said, “Hey, look! Taquitos!”

This time, I resisted temptation. “Jake, fifteen hundred taquitos would slowly colonize in the freezer, become self-aware, and hypnotize Butterscotch into believing Zoltan is coming down from the cosmos to save him, so he should throw himself out the window to join the spaceship. And they will force me to get really, really fat,” I said. The free-sample lady shot me an evil grin as she turned to peddle her wares to a different customer.

“Fine.” Jake’s shoulders slumped as he pushed the cart away.

As we turned down the aisle with twenty-three thousand Band-Aids in one box, an elderly woman with a very large, silver beehive cooed “How cute! She’s adorable!” as she pointed at Sara.

Jake and I smiled at each other, beaming at our supermodel-like daughter.

“Thanks,” I said to the elderly woman as I leaned down to pat my daughter.

Sara grinned at her and kicked out her fat, luscious legs.

“What a sweetheart! You look just like your daddy!” the elderly woman said as she patted Jake on his arm.

Jake smiled broadly as she left.

“What?” I said to him as I eyed a seventy-four-ounce bottle of shampoo.

“Nothing. She said I’m cute,” he said.

I shook my head. “No, she didn’t. She said Sara’s cute.”

“Yeah, but she said Sara looks just like me. So, that means I’m cute.” Jake smiled again, proud of his fabulously attractive appearance.

“What about me? I’m not cute?” I said as I stopped the enormous shopping cart and looked at Jake.

Jake looked thoughtful. “Yeah, you’re cute, too. But apparently I’m adorable.”

I rolled my eyes and pushed the cart forward.

“Aren’t you happy you married someone so adorable? I mean, so your kids could be so cute?” Jake continued.

“You’re not going to be adorable in like five seconds after I punch you in the face.” I looked over at him and smiled.

“Maybe you’d be more adorable if you didn’t threaten me all of the time,” Jake said as I steered the cart down the diaper aisle.

“Your dad’s nuts,” I whispered to Sara. I leaned forward to kiss her and whispered, “You
are
pretty much the cutest child ever to have lived.”

Jake reached up and grabbed a huge package of diapers that Sara will no doubt outgrow before it runs out. We’ll have to use them in other ways, like for dishrags or possibly materials for an art-mural for above our fireplace.

“You know, if we bought in bulk, we could really save money on our groceries,” Jake said.

“Yes, in theory. But we’d spend two hundred and fifty dollars today and how fast do you think it would take us to get sick of only eating Kashi freezer meals, hash browns, and pumpkin pie? We’d still end up at Subway while twenty frozen pizzas languished in our freezer,” I said.

Sara cooed in agreement.

As we walked past the alcohol section, Jake wandered off again to check out the wine selection. I put my head down on the front of the cart and wondered if I could sleep just for five minutes. Or maybe I could go to the car and sleep while Jake checked out. Kind of like the afternoons at work when I’d go and sleep in my car at lunch because I was hungover from the night before.

I wearily lifted my head as a crazy woman behind me clipped the backs of my heels with her enormous shopping cart. A huge display of beer caught my eye to my right. Cases of beer, all on sale.

A case of beer. Like in college, when my roommates and I would buy the cheapest beer possible and split it. Before there were important questions to answer like Am I a Bad Mother for Choosing to Work Even Though I Don’t Have to Anymore?

“Petite Sirah for eleven ninety-nine!” Jake’s voice brought me back to reality. He stood in front of me, holding three bottles of wine. I nodded and exhaled loudly. We steered the cart toward the checkout and waited amongst the chaos.

I longingly looked back at the wine section, remembering the days when Jake and I would stay up until the wee morning hours, not caring how much wine we drank, comforted by the knowledge that we could sleep in as late as we wanted the next day.

“Is Julie’s birthday coming up?” Jake said as he pointed to cigarettes sold in groups of ten cartons.

“Ha-ha, very funny,” I said. I eyed the couple next to me, who were clearly having a marital meltdown. It was also obviously their first trip to Costco. The husband kept muttering, “But
why
do we need four bottles of ketchup? It’s just us two!” as the wife hissed, “It’s supposed to save money or something. I don’t know, either. But this is how it works.”

Jake and I stood in line for twenty minutes, patiently waiting with our items, behind people with giant grocery carts filled to the brim to check out. Then we waited for them to bag their own groceries. Then we waited behind them as the Costco Nazis checked their receipts to make sure they weren’t stealing anything. Then we waited for Sara to stop screaming before we left the parking lot.

Total time spent in Costco: two hours.

Total money spent in Costco: $42.95

Items purchased: diapers, spring rolls, and wine. So, if on the way home we are stranded in a snowstorm, we can at least change Sara’s diaper three hundred times and consume approximately 57,890 calories.