Moms Don’t Make Martinis

Allow me to clarify:  moms don’t make martinis (at least none that I know of) but they sure do need one every once in awhile.  Dads do, too, but nowadays they make their own.  Moms don’t wear pearls and smart little aprons to greet their partners at the door after a long day’s work (and I refer to the work done by both partners, not just the primary breadwinner), as June Cleaver did on the iconic Leave it to Beaver tv show in the late 1950’s. But admittedly, I have found myself wishing I could channel some of that which Barbara Billingsley had in her famous role, ill-conceived ideas of becoming a hellish homemaker in high heels.  Let me explain.

The day of my delusions came six weeks after my twins were born, and a sleep-deprived me, who couldn’t even function in the checkout lane to buy groceries, was going to show my husband how dialed in I was to this mommying thing.  So dialed in that dinner would be on the table when he came home from work.  Despite my venture into an Alternate Reality I felt a very rational fear:   it was at this six-week mark that for the first time, all the family who had been a constant presence since the babies were born were no longer present.  And Shamrock shakes, my excuse to delay Project Baby Weight, were no longer available, either.  It was time to get it together and show the world, however limited to what happened under my own roof, that I was June Cleaver.  But we are talking about one mother, two babies, and ten hours together.  Alone.   A lot can happen in ten hours but even more can happen in the final 30 minutes.  And how.

The day was going well.  As long as I wrote down what times the boys ate, pooped and napped, and when I need to pump again, I could keep the three of us on some kind of routine.  We played.  I even became better at propping and rolling pillows and towels so I could feed the boys at the same time.  None of us cried too much.  I’m sure it was when the fatigue from a busy day set in I that I became deluded enough to think I could set a scene of serenity and light for the moment my husband walked in the door.  He would see his beloved wife and his two little men happily playing on the floor (by the way, that’s us in the opening photo above), cooing away, with the scent of spaghetti sauce simmering on the stove.

Right.  There were times I couldn’t even remember my name; I really thought I going to pull this one off?

Yes, I honestly did.   I could June Cleaver my way to the perfect modern day homecoming for my husband, sans the martini (didn’t have the ingredients) and my tiny, apron-wrapped waist (recent birthing of twins and the consuming of Shamrock shakes, remember.) by creating a tranquil setting with sweet baby sounds that would sooth my husband after a stressful day at work.  He deserved it, being sleep-deprived himself from helping with night time feedings and still getting up to go to work every day.  Everything was falling into place:  the boys needed to be fed just before Daddy was expected home and they would have happy tummies and dry diapers just in time to help Mommy prove she was a pro at this baby thing and at providing a calm, stress-free environment in which her husband could unwind and watch The Daily Show.

Man, I’m good.

Or not.

It’s like I remember from being in high school concert band.  It doesn’t matter how well rehearsals go because when it comes time to perform, the conductor is no longer in control.  The band is, and the director has to deal with sour notes, unexplained tempo changes and skipped lines in the music.  I was used to being in the band.  But on that fateful day in April, 2005:

I was the conductor.

My boys ate a nice meal and we were to the burping stage  when I heard a loud gurgle come from a baby tummy.  Then an even louder, icky-wet belch.  This was followed by a warm, trickling sensation down my shirt and a scream from the burping baby.  My son had emptied the entire contents of his stomach onto the both of us and was clearly unhappy about it.  That made two of us.  I managed extricate myself from the mass of sticky pillows on which he and his brother were propped and then find a baby carrier.  I snuggled my happier baby into the seat but not before noticing the stench of a dirty diaper.  Unfortunately, that situation would have to wait as my fussy boy needed not only a diaper change himself, but a bath.  I carried him into the nursery, stripped him down, removing my own formula-soaked shirt as well.  As I was changing his swollen, heavy diaper, still crying away, I heard the dissonant notes of his brother’s cry from the car seat in the other room.  Thinking a three-part harmony was in order, I started crying as well.

And then the unexpected thud of a door closing, and the heavy rhythm of footsteps.  Guess who was home?

So instead of offering my husband a martini (or a swell pasta dinner), I offered him the choice of a formula-covered baby or a baby who smelled like poo.

Yes, I am a modern day June Cleaver.

“The Two Handed Feed.”