An Alice comes in many guises.

I am beset with work (the paying kind, not the baby kind), which is good, of course, except that I have neglected my poor little infant blog, and if I can’t take care of a 4-month-old blog, how can I ever expect to take care of a child?

Speaking of which!

I dislike it when people say, “I’m not sure if I’m going to have a baby, because, you know, I can’t even take care of a plant.” Because 1) one does not generally have the depth of feeling for a plant that one is biologically compelled to have for one’s offspring, and 2) a baby is not a plant, only more so. They’re actually sort of different from plants. Get out your biology textbook, put it side by side with your horticulture textbook, and study for a while. I’ll be here waiting.

And now I supply an anecdote!

(What do you think of these segues? I’m working on creating the most awkward segues imaginable.)

(You know what’s a great word? Segue.)

Saturday morning. The doorbell rings. It’s a large and merry band of religious proselytizers! They implore my kind, yet Jewish, husband to accept Jesus, but he politely demurs. Then they stand outside our window and jabber at each other about Jesus, and how great it is to love Jesus, and oh, Jesus Jesus Jesus, if he were there right then they’d want to give him a GREAT BIG HUG because they love him THAT MUCH. Now, seeing as how they’re leaning against our window and talking so loudly they might as well come on in, pour themselves some coffee, and wrench our unholy bagels right out of our blasphemous hands, I have the nerve to ask them if they might leave. I heretically lean toward the window and godlessly ask, “Do you think you could walk away now?”

“We’re doing the Lord’s work!” one of the proselytizers exclaims. “We’re here in Christ!”

“That’s swell. But it’s time to be somewhere else in Christ,” I say (more or less; it was probably something less clever than that. But this is my blog! Here I can be clever! Hello!).

At that, there is huffing and muttering among the group, but they eventually shuffle away—about five inches. That’s five inches more than Christ would have wanted!

A few minutes later, I’m leaving my apartment, off for a few hours of (undevout) freedom from the (heathen) child, when I pass the group of proselytizers (notice how I’m subtly not mentioning their religion, so as not to alienate any readers who might share that particular faith! Do you love me? You do!), who are now standing in the middle of the sidewalk, DOING THE LORD’S WORK by blocking everyone’s path, when the woman I had verbally tussled with grabs one of the child-proselytizers by the shoulders, turns him toward me, and said, “A satan comes in many guises.”

Does anyone know what "a satan" is? I am, of course, intimately familiar with Satan, but "a" Satan? What, I'm not good enough to be the real thing? Jesus.

And she didst have the sickness, and the sickness didst prevent her from tending to her blog.

And God did declareth thus: unto thee there shall be given great pains; yea, thou shalt have the soreness of throat, as well as achiness of limbs, and thou shalt whine and call all of thine friends and family to update them on thine escalating fevers, but no one shalt care very much, as fevers are not all that interesting.

This is what happens when you complain about your poor child’s sickness—you get smitten by the Lord. I’m not all that religious, but I know a good smiting when I see it.

Today—healthy at last!—we bounded, skipping and singing and tossing Cheerios to the wind, all the way to our music class, our artsy funky look-how-New-Yorky music class that’s held in the far hipper neighborhood of Fort Greene. This was the first time I didn’t go with my friend S., as we managed to infect both S. and her daughter with our plague. So I was thinking, hey, maybe for once I’d socialize with some of the strangers in our little song-circle; maybe I’d make a new friend in some hipster-mama Fort Greener. (I think the fact that I just referred to someone from Fort Greene as a “Fort Greener” makes me so unhip that I will never be invited to any of their sex parties.) (They have sex parties, right? The hipsters? Someone’s gotta be having them.) (Not that I would go to one, even if I was invited. Hi, Dad!) But by the time I got there I was sweaty and shaky, suffering some residual badness from the death-virus that only recently finished ravaging my innards, and Henry was caterwauling because the precious Cheerios had disappeared (see above, re: Cheerios, tossing of). And all the mothers were already in their circle, all talking with each other and laughing and gesturing with their clean-shirted arms, and I realized that they all probably were disgusted by my presence, and anyway, I was not in any kind of shape to socialize. So Henry and I sat down and kept to ourselves until it was time for us to sing songs about hailing cabs and hugging homeless people. The one father who goes to the class made a late entrance and sat next to me, and although his cute, large-headed child was engaging with my equally cute and somewhat equally large-headed child, I could not for the life of me catch his eye to say something that I wanted to say, which was, “Your kid’s head is bigger than my kid’s head! What do you know!” Which would not have been a good or clever thing to say, but I really wanted to say it, because his head! Was so! Big! But this father was too handsome to talk with me, so instead he chatted with a gorgeous woman to his right. Here’s what I’m pretty sure they were saying:

Handsome father: You know, I find it a burden to be so handsome, when I am also so hip.

Gorgeous mother: I know exactly what you mean. As you may have noticed, I’m breathtaking.

HF: Indeed.

GM: It’s good, though. I do like being pretty.

[They laugh and nod.]

GM: [whispering] That woman sitting next to you? With the sweaty pits and nervous laugh? She’s not that gorgeous.

HF: [shakes head sadly.] I’m afraid not.

GM: You know what we should do? Judge her.

HF: Hey, I was already judging her, when you said that! I was judging her, right then!

GM: You don’t say! Would you like to come to my sex party?

Toddlers are less fun when they're sick.

The child is sick and has been crying crying crying nonstop for hours every day and as he screams my mind gets all dark and I feel like those evil little imps from the movie “Ghost” that go “bleah bleah” as they seep out of the shadows to drag the bad people into hell. (Yes, I just made a “Ghost” reference. I have not the mental energy to come up with something more clever. Someday I’ll make a Svankmajer reference, and won’t you be impressed then? Won’t you?) He’s in a constant state of crisis, always frantically needing something that is impossible to deliver, since apparently feverish toddlers believe that their teary protests will rend the fabric of reality, so that the very item they desire will come bounding toward them from some alternate universe. So, for instance, he wants a cracker BUT NOT THAT CRACKER! OH GOD I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU JUST OFFERED ME THE ONE CRACKER I DO NOT WANT, DAMN YOU, THE INJUSTICE, I WILL CLUTCH AT YOUR ANKLES AND WEEP WHILE POINTING AT THE SHELVES AT SOME OTHER BOX THAT ISN’T CRACKERS BUT SWEET CHRIST STOP TELLING ME IT ISN’T CRACKERS, JUST GIVE ME THE CRACKERS THAT SHOULD BE IN THERE, I DON’T CARE HOW IT’S DONE, I DON’T WANT TO HEAR YOUR LOGIC! I WILL SCREAM LOUDER, SO YOU GET THE POINT! AAAAAAIGH! NOW DO YOU SEE!

I am completely, utterly drained. I keep thinking he’s feeling better and then I’ll try to, say, put his shoes on and he’ll rip off the happy mask and shriek I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU’RE PUTTING SHOES ON ME AT A MOMENT LIKE THIS, THE PRECISE MOMENT WHEN THE LAST THING I NEEDED OR COULD HANDLE WAS SHOES! I DEMAND TO GO OUTSIDE TO THE GLASS- AND POOP-FESTOONED STREET BUT I WILL NEVER WEAR THOSE FOOT COVERINGS! YOU CAN’T MAKE ME LIVE BY YOUR RULES! HERE IS MORE SCREAMING FOR YOU!

He’s finally taking a nap although GOD HE DIDN’T WANT TO, WHY DID I PUT HIM IN THE CRIB OF DOOM. But, oh, he’ll wake up.

Attention, public: mothers must be judged as much as possible. Here's how.

“That’s not tuna you’re eating, is it? Did you know that tuna is composed entirely of mercury? Um, so, do you care about your unborn child?”

“Did you just order a turkey sandwich? Ever heard of a bacterium called listeria? Well, you better find out all about it, missy, because from now until that poor innocent baby is born, your thoughtless snacking can kill. No more cold cuts for you. Or brie. Forget brie. Don’t even think about goat cheese. If you care about anything except yourself. And I hope that’s decaffeinated tea you’re drinking.”

“Listeria? I ate a salami sandwich every day and you turned out fine. Don’t be an idiot. Eat this prosciutto while I stand here and watch you. Eat it eat it eat it. Your child needs protein. Jerk.”

“Did you just take a sip of your husband’s beer? I happen to have in my hands twelve separate studies that show that as little as two grams of alcohol a month can cause your child’s brain to resemble, in size and personality, a walnut. Why do you want your baby to be walnut-brained? And vanilla extract counts, so hand over that cookie.”

“Your baby needs you to relax, so I’ve mixed you a special vitamin-packed Manhattan. Don’t talk to me about studies—when I had my kids, I drank Johnny Walker every day and smoked unfiltereds while I drove with the seatbelt off. And most of them lived, am I right? I mean, I don’t want to call you a gutless whore, but come on.”

“You’re only six months pregnant? Wow. I thought you were, like, more pregnant. I only gained 11 pounds with my kids. Wow. Um. Wow.”

“Have you gained enough? You know, they’re now discovering that you need to gain at least 35 pounds, or your child will be an asshole.”

“You’re getting an epidural, I assume. You know you’ll never be able to handle the indescribably blinding pain. You’re not going to try to prove something with that whole natural-childbirth hoo-ha, I hope. Please tell me you’re not going to prove something and that you’ll just take the nice drugs the nice doctors give you. What’s that? Oh, sweet Christ, what’s a ‘midwife’?”

“Of course it’s your choice, but I’ve read some alarming statistics on children whose mothers had epidurals. It seems they’re 89% more unloved, and 116% less happy for the rest of their lives. I’ve already emailed the studies to you. But I guess if a little pain is more important to you than your child’s happiness, you have to factor that in.”

“You’re only nursing for the first few weeks, right? After that it’s more about you trying to prove something, you know. Bottles are easier. Look at him—he’s got no idea what to do with those tits you keep shoving at his face. Are you trying to turn him into a gay?”

“Nursing is difficult, you say? I have no idea what you could mean. Mastitis? I think I remember having that. About seven times or so. Once I had a 106 fever, but I kept nursing little Dakota, no matter what. Did I tell you about when I was in that accident, and I was pinned under a tractor-trailer, and I had the paramedics bring me my baby so that I could nurse her as they sawed off my leg? Well, I mean, what choice did I have?”

“I hope your baby is sleeping in bed with you. Do you know what happens if she doesn’t? She stares all night at the bars of her cold, dank crib, trembling in fear and wondering why her mummy and daddy hate her so much that they’d put her in prison.”

“You’ve got that poor little thing in the bed with you? Are you trying to kill him?”

“Your baby cries all the time? Obviously you’re doing something wrong.”

“Your baby never cries? You got lucky. When your first child is easy, studies have shown that the second child is 99% more likely to drive you clinically insane with his ceaseless shrieking. So wipe that smile off your face. Yeah, that’s right.”

“Are you still letting that child fall asleep while she’s feeding? You know that you’re being selfish, lazy, and possibly criminal in your neglect of her sleep training. You need to leave her alone and let her cry it out. Right now.”

“What do you mean, ‘sleep training’? You’re not reading that Ferber book, I hope. I’ve read that if you let your child cry for more than 2.7 minutes, he’ll only learn that you hate him. You hate him, and want to sell him. To Dr. Ferber. Who, incidentally, you know what I heard about him? He eats babies. I’m just saying.”

“Don’t you think it’s a little selfish, being a stay-at-home mother? It’s not like he even knows who you are at this point. Or is it that you like staying in your pajamas all day and not showering? So your kid is an excuse, is what you’re saying? Nice.”

“You’re going back to work? I see. So you value your career more than your child, whom you’re abandoning so that he can be raised by strangers. Well, bully for you.”

“Lighten up—a little TV is good for kids. That’s why, when I was babysitting, I let him stay up late with me and watch some Cinemax. He learned some great new words!”

“You let your son watch ‘Sesame Street’? Huh. So I guess you’re fine with it if your kid lives in a fantasy world, where muppets bathe with each other and the number 8 tangos with the letter H. Incidentally, your cavalier parenting just caused his SAT scores to plummet 104 points. Bravo.”



(I'm sure I'll have more in a few months.)