The other mothers were obviously wondering why I was wearing black nail polish to the Fancy Nancy-themed birthday party.
"It's called 'Nocturnelle,'" I whispered to one woman who was staring in alarm at my hands. "By MAC."
She was immaculate in a white linen suit and wearing something eggshell-pinky on her perfectly-manicured fingers.
"It's not really black," I tried again. "It's deep grey."
Truth was, it was the black nail polish I had bought for Emma and me for Halloween when we dressed as vampires. And the reason I was wearing it in mid-summer at a party where little girls were parading in matching pastel tutus and twirling chiffon parasols goes back to my desire to impress Quinny.
Quinny is a tough customer. While Emma seems to have just accepted me as this woman who landed in her life like a friendly alien one day, Quinny has always been a little skeptical.
I am a third wheel to Quinny. He has a mama whom he adores. If you ask him his favorite ice cream flavor, he'll say "Mama." He loves to go to "Mama's Bank," which he apparently believes Mama owns and keeps stocked with lollipops just for him. And of course, he has Papa, too, who carries him around on his head and tickles him just right. So with lollipops, tickles and all that love, who needs this other lady with her incessant hand washing and rules against lightsabers in the living room?
Quinny understands that I carried his beloved brother Henry in my belly and that I am therefore Henry's Mama. So he begrudgingly accepts that I have to be in the house, sort of like the late party guest who brings a case of beer after the liquor store is closed. No matter how you feel about him, you have to let him in.
Of course, for my part, I am wild about Quinny. I haven't known this kind of unrequited love since my freshman year of high school when the basketball player I had a mad crush on wanted nothing to do with me. He worked in the mall and I spent hours teasing my bangs into an irresistible hedgerow before gracing his counter with my presence, only to be ignored. My only solace is that he still works at the Chick-Fil-A.
But back to Quinny. I decided that we would make Star Wars cookies. Taking my cue from McDonalds, I thought I could endear myself to Quinny by aligning myself with his favorite franchise.
We bought Star Wars cookie cutters and new baking sheets so they wouldn't burn. Quinny and I made the dough together and pressed it into Darth Vader and Yoda shapes. Giddy with success and Quinny's smile, I announced that we would now make Darth Vader icing.
Having slept maybe three hours, I took the container of black food coloring, popped off the lid and then shook it vigorously. Quinny watch wide-eyed as I sprayed the kitchen with what looked like squid ink. The floor, counter tops and appliances all had leopard spots. Somehow, Quinny was spared, but I looked like a chimney sweep.
"Papa! We had an accident!" Quinny shouted. I put my hand over his mouth, instantly covering his face with black fingerprints.
"Ha ha ha!" I said. "Isn't this fun? This is how you're supposed to make Darth Vader icing."
"Papa!" screamed Quinny.
It took a roll of paper towels and an entire container of wet Swiffers to clean the kitchen. By the time I was finished, Quinny had lost interest in decorating the cookies. And I had about 5 minutes to get ready for the birthday party. So I loofaed myself until my face, neck and chest were covered in pale green rather than black blotches, but my fingernails still looked like I had been making mud pies. So I quickly coated them with black nail polish.
Emma eyed me critically.
"Black nail polish really isn't in style anymore," she informed me.
"I know," I said.
"Grey is in," she offered.
"I know."
"Mama wears grey," Emma continued. "It looks really pretty. It's called 'Chinchilla.'"
HOME WITH BABY HENRY
Monday, June 28, 2010
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
DEGAGNE
I've always been a late bloomer. I drove myself to the mall to buy my first training bra. I didn't start law school until age 26. The only thing I did before most of my friends was to marry and divorce.
When I was a little girl, I assumed I'd start having children around the same time my mom did, well-timed to coincide with the legal drinking age. But my twenties came and went, then I found myself separated from my husband at age 32. Although I had high anxiety about whether or not I would ever have children, I was able to distract myself with my law career and a string of relationships, some good, some not so good, while time marched on and my ovaries began their steady decline.
Then I met Scott. And he came with two of the best little bundles in the world, Emma and Quinny. And so it was that in my late 30s, I was introduced to the wonders and perils of true love, love for a man and his children, the kind that suddenly leaves you vulnerable to the vagaries of the universe in a way you never thought possible. One minute I was blithely jay-walking in high heels through Tribeca traffic, the next I was clutching two beloved little hands in an Upper East Side crosswalk, saying a little prayer that we'd make it to the other side.
The watershed moment when it really hit me that the footloose, champagne-fueled single girl I had been was gone for good came when I was about five months pregnant and Quinny had the stomach flu. Scott and I took turns carrying him into the bathroom, watching him cry and wretch into the toilet while we sat on the ledge of the bath tub and surreptitiously wiped our own tears. Exhausted, Quinny finally begged not to go into the bathroom again. So I held him over my shoulder and I just let him throw up all over me, again and again.
The sun came up and an exuberant Emma woke. She was nonplussed by her brother's stomach troubles - she'd recently had her own vomit-a-thon after getting over-excited about a trip to Disneyland - and insisted that I help her with a Halloween word search.
"Emma," I chided, with Quinny slung limp over my shoulder and both of us stinking and covered in vomit, "I'm a little busy. Can't you see that your brother is sick?"
"But I can't find 'DRACULA' anywhere," she pleaded.
I looked down and studied the puzzle. "Some of the words are written backwards," I told her. "Which really isn't fair. That's too hard."
So while Quinny rested his big, vomity head on my soiled neck and Scott changed our bed linens for the fifth time since midnight, Emma and I finished the puzzle. And I realized that I had completely capitulated to this family.
Nothing about my romance with Scott has followed the typical boy-meets-girl trajectory. It's more like one of Emma's word search puzzles than a narrative. Here's "LOVE," here's "CHILDREN," here's "FAITH." And just recently, over Memorial Day weekend, Scott and I, after "CHILDBIRTH," became "ENGAGED." Almost simultaneously, to Scott's delight, we also added a "CAR." And I suppose, once we get Henry sleep-trained and Quinny settled in nursery school and we find an apartment big enough to accommodate this growing menagerie, we will have a "WEDDING."
But for now, I am going to enjoy being a fiance. Because even though we've cared for children together, had a baby together, even bought an SUV together, Scott was still romantic enough to buy me a ring that, to this country girl, looks big enough to fry an egg on. There are moments in the midst of the chaos of our household when the light catches the diamond just right so that a little fire burns on my ring finger. And I remember that what came first was a girl who loved a boy and a boy who loved her back.
When I was a little girl, I assumed I'd start having children around the same time my mom did, well-timed to coincide with the legal drinking age. But my twenties came and went, then I found myself separated from my husband at age 32. Although I had high anxiety about whether or not I would ever have children, I was able to distract myself with my law career and a string of relationships, some good, some not so good, while time marched on and my ovaries began their steady decline.
Then I met Scott. And he came with two of the best little bundles in the world, Emma and Quinny. And so it was that in my late 30s, I was introduced to the wonders and perils of true love, love for a man and his children, the kind that suddenly leaves you vulnerable to the vagaries of the universe in a way you never thought possible. One minute I was blithely jay-walking in high heels through Tribeca traffic, the next I was clutching two beloved little hands in an Upper East Side crosswalk, saying a little prayer that we'd make it to the other side.
The watershed moment when it really hit me that the footloose, champagne-fueled single girl I had been was gone for good came when I was about five months pregnant and Quinny had the stomach flu. Scott and I took turns carrying him into the bathroom, watching him cry and wretch into the toilet while we sat on the ledge of the bath tub and surreptitiously wiped our own tears. Exhausted, Quinny finally begged not to go into the bathroom again. So I held him over my shoulder and I just let him throw up all over me, again and again.
The sun came up and an exuberant Emma woke. She was nonplussed by her brother's stomach troubles - she'd recently had her own vomit-a-thon after getting over-excited about a trip to Disneyland - and insisted that I help her with a Halloween word search.
"Emma," I chided, with Quinny slung limp over my shoulder and both of us stinking and covered in vomit, "I'm a little busy. Can't you see that your brother is sick?"
"But I can't find 'DRACULA' anywhere," she pleaded.
I looked down and studied the puzzle. "Some of the words are written backwards," I told her. "Which really isn't fair. That's too hard."
So while Quinny rested his big, vomity head on my soiled neck and Scott changed our bed linens for the fifth time since midnight, Emma and I finished the puzzle. And I realized that I had completely capitulated to this family.
Nothing about my romance with Scott has followed the typical boy-meets-girl trajectory. It's more like one of Emma's word search puzzles than a narrative. Here's "LOVE," here's "CHILDREN," here's "FAITH." And just recently, over Memorial Day weekend, Scott and I, after "CHILDBIRTH," became "ENGAGED." Almost simultaneously, to Scott's delight, we also added a "CAR." And I suppose, once we get Henry sleep-trained and Quinny settled in nursery school and we find an apartment big enough to accommodate this growing menagerie, we will have a "WEDDING."
But for now, I am going to enjoy being a fiance. Because even though we've cared for children together, had a baby together, even bought an SUV together, Scott was still romantic enough to buy me a ring that, to this country girl, looks big enough to fry an egg on. There are moments in the midst of the chaos of our household when the light catches the diamond just right so that a little fire burns on my ring finger. And I remember that what came first was a girl who loved a boy and a boy who loved her back.
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