It’s almost the first anniversary of the day I quit my job. I wasn’t entirely sure I was going to quit. I had asked my boss, the CEO of the publishing company for which I worked as the general counsel, to breakfast. Just to talk. And see if maybe I could work part-time. Or full time from home while holding my baby.
I brought Henry with me because he was just a few weeks old, still small enough to evaporate if I left him out of my sight for more than a few seconds.
My boss was already there, sitting in a corner, drinking coffee. My stomach dropped. She was the first boss who ever intimidated me. And that’s saying something.
I have worked for a brilliant federal judge and half the white shoe law firms in this town, for some amazing lawyers and for more than a few who seemed to have escaped from the Reptile House at the Bronx Zoo. And none of them scared me because I knew that under their Brooks Brothers suits (or Armani, in the case of a particular downtown firm), they were the same little boys who once peed their pants in the lunch room and fainted during the fetal pig dissection.
But this CEO, she was different. A non-lawyer, formerly in sales, she had an off-with-their-heads style of management that kept the most senior executives cowed. She sometimes had a salad for lunch, sometimes a vice president. I respected her, and on this particular morning, yes, I feared her.
Still, she had a soft side for babies, and was bouncing Henry gently on her knee, cooing to him.
“Oooh,” she said. “We could set up a little nursery in the office, couldn’t we?”
Henry was a warm little bobble head then with a new gummy smile that could melt tungsten. Even his poop smelled like fresh grass and coconuts.
She was charmed.
Then we had a long conversation about the current demands of the business, an upcoming senior executives’ meeting in Vegas, and the energy we needed to start the Second Quarter with a bang.
I realized that I couldn’t fly to Vegas and leave Henry in New York. Let’s face it -- I hadn’t gone south of 72nd Street since Henry was born. And I had no energy. I wasn’t a lawyer, I was a husk. I saw myself in the office draped across my desk like an empty suit while my CEO spun through the executive suite like a tornado in black pumps.
I had to tell her I wasn’t coming back, but how? She was drawing a pie chart on a napkin, speaking animatedly about a new sales initiative. I had a trick I used when she gave me my monthly reviews. She had a strong British accent, so I just closed my eyes a little, until everything was slightly blurred, and pretended I was in a Monty Python skit. Then whatever she said was funny: “You still haven’t finished that vendor contracts template, have you? The one you promised me last month?” Ha ha!
So I squinted a little and blurted out: “I am either going to be spending all my time with you or Henry. And I can’t help it. I pick Henry!”
She was crestfallen, but understanding. Her reaction was perfect and I didn’t even have to pretend we were talking about a parrot or a cheeseburger to get through the rest of the conversation.
I rolled Henry home in his stroller and spent the rest of the day marveling that I would now be a full-time-mother. A SAHM, as we stay-at-home-mothers like to say. And for months, I doted on my little baby while he gazed at me lovingly.
Then one day, out of the blue, he said, “Get that!” He was pointing to a book. I got it for him and he threw it on the ground in disgust, probably because it had no pictures.
“Up!” he said later, and I picked him up.
“More,” he signed, putting his fingertips together, and I gave him another helping of pureed sweet potatoes. At his next meal, he spit out his macaroni, so I made him cheese toast instead.
“Uh oh,” he said the following day at breakfast, then tossed his sippee cup on the floor. I picked it up. “Uh oh,” he said again, this time throwing a handful of Cheerios at me.
“That!” said Henry, pointing at a ball. I brought him the ball. “Neh, neh, that!” he said, shaking his head at me.
“What?” I asked.
“That!” he shouted.
I brought him his dinosaur puzzle. He shook his head. “Neh, that!” I brought him his stuffed chameleon. His face was turning purple. He threw himself backwards, like an armless gymnast attempting a back handspring.
“That! That!” he cried, writhing on the carpet.
“What? The ducky? The pirate ship? The snorkel?”
He stood and strode to his miniature batting tee and picked up the plastic bat. He walked back to me and whacked me on top of the head. “That,” he said, smiling.
And that’s when it occurred to me. I have a new boss. A supervisor in size 3 Pampers, and he makes my former CEO look like a Twinkie milkshake in comparison.
I do say “No,” to Henry. I say it often and with gusto. But he just says it right back.
“Henry, no, you can’t play with that. That’s Windex.”
“Neh.”
“No.”
“Neh.”
“No!”
“Neh!”
“NO!”
“NEH!”
“NO, NO, NO, NO, NO!”
“NEH, NEH, NEH, NEH, NEH, NEH!”
Okay, so he’s not the first boss to bite me on the nipple.
That’s a joke. Yes he is. But he literally won’t allow me to stop breastfeeding him.
He’s relentless. “Up,” he says, and I pick him up, lest he dive backwards on to the hardwood floor. He walks perfectly well, but he likes me to carry him around the apartment like he’s Emperor Shah Jahan and I’m an elephant. He even gives a dictatorial salute as we parade around the living room – it’s the beauty queen wave without the wrist motion.
Then he says, “Vite!” which is “fast” in French and means that he wants me to run as fast as I can while carrying him, until the wind catches his corn silk cowlick. He smiles a small, satisfied smile. Until I stop.
Tubby time is the worst.
“Henry, time to get out of the tubby.”
“Neh.”
“Yes.”
“Neh.” He kicks his legs violently.
“Yes, Henry, now.”
“Neh!” He bows his head forward and comes up with a bubble beard.
“You can’t fool me,” I tell him. “I know it’s still you, Henry, and it’s time to get out of the tubby!”
And that’s when I lunge to catch his head as he tries to slam it against the side of the tub in protest.
I have had my share of bosses who were full of s*&%, but at least I used the phrase figuratively. Although I had to carry my share of other people’s litigation bags, their underthings were not my problem. Now that Henry eats like a real person, he poops like a manbaby and his diapers smell like a truck stop toilet. And he hates to be changed, so midway through cleaning what should be designated a Superfund site, Henry arches his back and tries to fling himself on to his stomach despite the fact I am holding his legs in a vice-like grip.
Sometimes he is successful.
That’s when I cry a little. Then I hug him ferociously. And then we both laugh hysterically, me because I am now literally, not figuratively, in crap up to my elbows, and Henry because he has a baby sense of humor and thinks poop is hilarious.
And I wonder, what would have happened if I had been given massive doses of oxytocin while working as an associate in a law firm?
