Little Labours

And so it went. Each time I would go stand by the elevator, press the button, wait for the elevator’s arrival, listen to the gentle ringing open of the elevator door, I would be filled with suspense. I had wasted more headspace than I could ever have imagined possible responding to an imaginary Dynasty. Yet even in the continuing expanse of time, I found I still had nothing to say. Sometimes I would imagine saying to Dynasty that it was … interesting, what different people notice about a baby: obviously a baby is just a baby, and what people see in the baby is a reflection of themselves. Other times I would think, threateningly, My daughter is a baby now, but if you ever speak like that to my daughter when she is old enough to understand, I will destroy you. I actually think destroy, like in a bad movie, or middle school. Sometimes I imagine simply asking Dynasty if she has a job. She is the wife of a very wealthy man who owns and runs an advertising firm located across the street, they own the entire top floor of our building, among other things, and I feel intuitively that she could and should be ashamed of this. I know that to say any of these things would be both wrong and weak, and also that it is the weakness, rather than the wrongness, that prevents me from saying them, which only makes me more in the wrong, and more convinced that my being bothered by Dynasty at all is evidence only of my usually obscured lesser self being the real, true me.

Finally I confess to the neighbors across the hall that I have spent hours on such thoughts. Then I ask my neighbors—for some reason it matters to me—whether Dynasty has a job. They tell me that Dynasty’s husband dated her for years without marrying her, that she had kept on working as a shopgirl at Commes des Garçons, that her husband still wears only Commes des Garçons, that probably she does too, that he probably refused to have kids with her, and also that they have reason to believe that the couple never has sex. I say that I understand that they are trying to turn my cartoon villain into a real person, but I tell them that I don’t appreciate it, that I prefer her as a cartoon. She (not me) embodies, I decide, the evil in the world that leads to women being preoccupied by weight, fluent in cosmetics, and aspiring to be dumb muses or high-end products of choice. She is the evil beneath the cartoon Acme holes in the ground to which my daughter will be vulnerable.

But another problem with being the mother of a baby is loneliness. On many days I speak with only one adult. And for many months now, I have not seen Dynasty. Where is she? She had been so enlivening; she is so clever, and so pretty; now I am tired. I wait at the elevator, with my daughter who now walks, who pushes the button to call the elevator, who now understands the elevator, and never does the elevator door ring open to reveal our special upstairs neighbor. Each time my daughter and I are again in the hall waiting, I wait with hope. I would really like to see Dynasty again.

Cargo cult

The baby likes to stand near the toilet, tear off small pieces of paper from the toilet roll, toss them into the waters of immeasurable depth, and flush. Then repeat. A sacred ritual.

Mysteries of taste

In her ten-word Moby-Dick board book, she above all loves the page that says captain. She loves to find a ball in a picture, especially a ball that is green or blue. Of the six animal notecards of black and white drawings, she exhibits a strong preference for Penguin. She has not yet encountered a quantity of olives that is sufficient. When she makes a scribble on paper, the result makes her giggle. When she finds herself trapped in her crib and wants out, she calls out to me; when I enter the room, she says, “Eyes?” If we come upon a square or round of metal on the sidewalk, she wants nothing more than to stand on it, and then to go on standing there. At other times, in the apartment, she’ll set down a book, also so as to stand on it. When she sees a bottle of milk being poured out for her, she laughs. Little holds more interest than a set of stairs, or a handicap-access ramp. Always she is the first to notice the moon.

Cravings

Despite having as a child refused tomatoes, refused olives, refused mushrooms, despite having as a child been unwilling to eat anything at Chinese restaurants save the white rice, and despite having as a child made a diet nearly entirely from couscous with butter and Pepperidge Farm Chessmen cookies, and for some reason, cauliflower—an achromatic diet—despite all that, I have historically had little tolerance for finicky children. I try not to judge such children, since they are children, but in the end I find I do judge the children and I judge the parents as well, even as it was through no effort on my part that I eventually became someone who will eat most anything.

But then I became pregnant and found I was a finicky eater all over again. I was nearly unable to bear the sight or taste of much of anything save potato chips, and lemonade, and occasionally, a slice of pizza. But only low-quality pizza, the kind of pizza where the cheese seems not to have a dairy component but instead to consist exclusively of partially hydrogenated somethings. All other foods seemed really gross. Oh, I thought, for the first time: children are pregnant with themselves.

Unfortunately, once my appetite returned so did my flair for being judgmental.

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