Due to Extenuating Circumstances

I am a roadie

My son stays up until four in the morning, screams at his entourage, ingests dust that costs more per ounce than platinum, and drinks til he pukes in my hair then face plants into it, fast asleep. I’m parenting Keith Richards.

As we settle into our life at the Casino/Hotel, I become aware that there isn’t very much substantive parenting to be done at this stage. He doesn’t need to be disciplined, taken to soccer practice (I married a Canadian. There will be soccer practice. My husband wrote it into our wedding vows) or helped with homework. What I am, in reality, is a roadie.

Everywhere we go the baby is the superstar. His job is to Be The Baby. Everyone will adore him for this. My husband and I have the job of making sure The Baby makes his appearances. The Baby sleeps whenever he wants, throws a fit when everything isn’t to his liking, and is expected to be moody, well-dressed and then covered in vomit. Our job is to stage manage everything that goes on behind the scenes of Being the Baby.

The baby is supposed to meet new family? Great. The first thing people will notice is the New Baby Multi-Sensory Experience. They expect him to be soft, smooth and have that luxurious New Baby smell. Get him bathed, dried, lotioned and diapered. Pick out what Baby will be wearing. Be CERTAIN that is what Baby is in the mood to wear, because you know how he feels about those little tags that poke out. Get him dressed and looking sharp.

Coordinate with staff at the venue. Make sure The Baby will be arriving in a warm car, right at the door, there will be no waiting to get inside. The fans wait for Baby, never the other way around. It’s winter in Iowa and there will be a backup plan for all roadtrips in case there is ice, snow or biting wind. The Baby does not do inconvenience.

Assemble all of the gear you need to travel. You know if he’s gone for any length of time there will be peeing, pooping, spit up and gassy farts. It’s the roadie who loads everything in the car to make sure these events are handled properly. You’ll also need a way to get him around (what, you thought he’d walk? He’s The Baby, not some peasant) and then a place for him to sit. He requires entertainment at all times if the people surrounding him are too much/too little/too whatever to handle. Remember that he has special dietary requirements. He will not be ordering off the menu no matter how swanky the restaurant thinks it is. The Baby eats on his own schedule. Should the roadies also want to eat, they may do so when it is convenient for The Baby. For this reason, roadies ordering food designed to be served at a certain temperature are foolhardy.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s not all the glare of the spotlight. At the hotel you get to see a side of private side of him when he’s not “on” and that feels pretty cool. Just remember, that doesn’t mean you’re actually equals. He sets the schedule, he dictates the mood in the room, he makes the staff rota. It doesn’t matter if Daddy hasn’t slept since Tuesday, if Mommy is boring as hell and we want Daddy, then Daddy better quit working on his (unapproved) side gig as a “professor” and come back to his only real responsibility. Right. Now. DAMMIT.

To be fair, it’s hard to hold a grudge against a superstar whose shit literally doesn’t stink. **A sidenote here to thank Mother Nature for that grace period. Think about that for a second…two people new at diapering and there isn’t another room in which to throw away the diapers or put dirty laundry.** It’s also fair to say that he never, ever lets down a crowd. Sure, the hotel room looks like a bomb went off and feeding him costs more than the GDP of Finland. Isn’t that the price of stardom? Who ever hears of a really big name that picks up his own socks, eats generic soup and turns in at 9:30?

So I’ll pack the gear and buy the special formula. He can barf on me and I’ll take it. Hell, I even paid for the privilege. Tune in next time, when we cover the Farce of the Swing and it turns out I’m Bob Newhart.

Christmas Eve

The night we bring him Hotel (home wasn’t in the cards for now) there were some hiccups getting him in and out of the truck. The car seat is, in theory, not that hard to use. We think. There’s a handle you use to carry the seat, and then a base, and a red thing you lift up to put the seat in the base…but do you lift the red thing before putting it in the base? Is the red handle supposed to click into place without lifting it? What if there’s no click at all? If there is a click, and seat doesn’t move, and the base doesn’t move, and you put the handle back towards the top of the carrier, and the baby is buckled in the five-point restraint snuggly in appropriate clothing for the weather but NOT a snowsuit because that’s too appropriate/puffy/you didn’t bring one even though it’s December then is this the part where you sing FIVE GOLD-EN RIIIIIIIIIIINGS?

In a halo of lightly falling snow we drive the two blocks to our hotel and count the hours until we show off The Miracle to our entire family.

Then The Miracle becomes less of an idea and more of an actual human being with needs and a tiny, piercing wail.

Right. Down to business. First of all, food. My husband kicks into a previously unseen Primitive Hunter Mode and goes to track down and kill some sandwiches (“where?” “I don’t know, I’ve never been here.” “But what have we seen?” “The inside of a hospital.” “What else?” “I DON’T KNOW, EVERY FIBER OF BEING HAS FRIED WITH HAPPINESS AND SHOCK AND WOMANLYNESS AND USE THE DAMN GOOGLE MACHINE.”).

Now I need to organize a place for Baby to sleep, a place to make his food, to bathe him, change him, and…this is a hotel room. Those are all the same place. Right. Nesting has taken place in far less favorable circumstances than this, so I shall remain very Earth Mother and Zen and just let motherhood….be. Or something.

Nope, can’t do it. Type A takes over and tells Earth Mother to stuff it; we absolutely cannot have the baby formula stored near the diapers. There is literally a saying about not shitting where you eat. Therefore, the formula, nipples, burp cloths and the like must live on one side of the TV. New clothes, the blankets from the hospital, and anything we don’t yet understand will go under the TV. Diaper changes will happen on a towel on the coffee bar. We won’t bathe him because that is unquestionably Grandma’s Advice Territory.

My husband does kill some sandwiches, and then we eat them on the bed with Baby in the middle as a centerpiece we admire from all angles. It’s then time for the playpen farce, where the instructions insist the playpen will unfold easily if you touch the red button in the center and pull the walls up. These instructions were written by the same people responsible for the car seat, and if I wasn’t a Zen-Earth Mother-Christmas Baby Miracle recipient right now I’d push the red button in the center and pull the walls up inside their rectum.

My husband eventually did get it open, the old-fashioned way. He used the Google machine to find a video on YouTube explaining how to do it. Please don’t tell my husband this, but after he fell asleep I picked up the baby out of the playpen and held him all night. It was blissful. And I don’t trust anything that collapses with the push of a single red button, like playpens or nuclear weapon treaties.

The next morning we drove to the hotel that was as close as we could possibly be to Nebraska. It was in Council Bluffs, which a Facebook friend told me is often called Council-tucky. Well, I’ll tell you this: I don’t know what part of town she was thinking of, but we lived in a very nice casino hotel. It was close to a dilapidated mall, horrifying sculptures of metal that shot into the air like Viking warning arrows (see visual aid) and strip malls located within gas stations, but I’m sure that’s not all Council-tucky, er- Bluffs– has to offer.

OK, see? Viking warning shots. It’s obvious. Credit to bloximages for the demonstration that I’m not making this up, and that artist Albert Paley has a lot to answer for:

File photo – Visitors to CultureNOW can view Council Bluffs art online, including works by internationally known artists Jonathan Borofsky, Ed Carpenter, Jun Kaneko, William King, Deborah Masuoka, Albert Paley (pictured) and Brower Hatcher.

So now we get to the good part, the part where my family meets the baby. By “meet” I mean “I rush into the hotel lobby and say “Mom, this is my son” and then we cry, touch foreheads, and hug so much we look like a commercial for feminine itching. All of Christmas has transported from Nebraska to Iowa because if Baby leaves Iowa it will be Very Many Scary Things. The social worker used the phrase “kidnapping and custodial interference” and the non-adult part of my brain imagined a custodian trying to cockblock my husband while he changes a diaper.

My sister and her family arrive. My four old nephew announces that if the baby can’t talk, then “he’ll be playing by himself.” You can’t blame the poor kid for being less than impressed. The way all the adults were freaking out and carrying on, you’d think Aunt Sarah was bringing the Flash over for Christmas.

My sister and her husband are excited. We’re excited. The baby is expertly swaddled (by whom? Our attempts still require duct tape) and excited. I’d say my mom is excited, but she can’t stop vibrating with joy long enough to really talk. My dad seems pretty pleased that, statistically speaking, we have doubled the chances of someone playing for the Chicago Cubs that will get him good seats.

We all go out for Christmas Eve dinner. This is rare for us, Mom usually cooks it. While we’re at dinner we learn that the birth parents have signed the 72 hour consent form, meaning the last papers they will need to sign, the “no take-back clauses,” will be signed the 27th. We raise a glass in their honor. All funny aside, I know Christmas 2014 was dramatically different for the two sets of people on those papers, and only one set gets to think of it as the best Christmas they have ever had, or will ever have. I won’t forget that.

We trundle back to the casino and find mom has packed Christmas Eve for us. I mean it. All the presents, cookies, cakes, stockings, the only reason there’s not a tree is because my father would have to lift it. We give Santa the night off in the Imes Borden casino/hotel room and wish a Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

I’m kidding. They go to bed and we get up every time the baby moves, snores, whimpers, cries out, farts or has an adorable look on his face.

Join us next time for a Guide to Living with Newborns in a Casino over New Year’s Eve.

The secondary Extenuating Circumstances

Attention! Due to extenuating circumstances, the following things must occur within three hours, so as to drive to another state and become parents immediately: verify there really is a baby and not husband playing the most ill-advised practical joke of the millennium, get fingerprinted for the third time this calendar year, call everyone we know and freak the hell out, ask sister what babies need to survive in a hotel room, throw up. Also, someone should probably do something about the cat.

Nope. Husband not suddenly evil, he is stating the real truth. A baby has been born in [STATE REDACTED BECAUSE PRIVACY AND IT SEEMS LIKE WE’RE IN A REAL-LIFE SPY NOVEL WHICH IS COOL]. It’s a little boy, and he….what? What is he? You remember having the conversation but don’t remember any of the contents? No, you were freaked out. I totally understand. We need to be in the car in three hours. Oh God, I have to call the entire world. I mean, just family. But anyhow.

Tears. Tears and tears and more tears as we explain the good new and sudden departure. My sister screams “I’m leaving work! I’m in the parking lot right now! I’m going to Target!” This is definitely good news, as the sum of our baby equipment is defined thusly: we have a teething ring my nephew used twice in 2012. Naturally we didn’t stockpile a cradle, bottles, anything like that. First of all, we were told that people are chosen while the birth mom is still pregnant. Secondly, imagine the thing you want most in the world. Now imagine everybody else has it. An Oscar, a Super Bowl ring, a flat stomach, whatever. The entire population of your town has one, and there you sit with your Super Bowl-ringless thumb up your nose. Would you keep a room full of footballs or a full-length red carpet gown laying around? You would not. Or maybe you would. I don’t know how you live your life. I wouldn’t, is the salient point.

We run to get fingerprinted. We return to find our brother-in-law installing a car seat. Where did he come from? He has a job. He doesn’t have an extra car seat just hanging out in the trunk in case of emergencies. Yet there he is! Brilliant. Sister shows up with a bag of things babies need. I recognize half of them. Swaddling blankets? Uh, ok. I thought you basically did that once, when the baby is presented to you, and then that’s pretty much over. A variety of things you stick in orifices (the baby’s, not mine) and then we bolt down the world’s quickest lunch before leaving. On my way out the door, I hear my sister on the phone saying “oh God! Yeah, sorry. I should have mentioned I’m not coming back to work today.”

Drive. Pumping for more information about the baby. My husband keeps saying he can’t remember, but with some prodding it turns out he knows at least a little. It’s a boy! He’s healthy! He’s Mexican-American! He has a height and weight but no idea what they are! He’s at a hospital we can’t remember the name of! Everything gets an exclamation point because holy shit we’re going to be parents!!!!!!!!!!

It is the world’s longest/shortest drive. I throw up twice I’m so nervous. I realize I never called anyone at work, or cancelled appointments, or anything of consequence in the real world. I could not, on a literal rather than metaphoric level, care less. We arrive at the hospital and wait for the social worker.

Things happened. People were met. The wishes of the birth family were respected as far as possible in terms of contact, things of that sort. I try harder than I ever have in my entire life to do things exactly as another woman wishes. If her wish was for the adoptive family to receive the baby in a gold-plated canoe while a brass band plays national anthem of Azerbaijan then by God, it would be so.

But it wasn’t. It was me, and my husband, standing in a hospital room with our social worker, as they wheeled in a 7 lb, 2 oz baby boy. There were probably nurses, or workers, or somebody else in there as well. Hell, maybe there was a brass band. I honestly don’t remember. There were two crying cynics who never dared to believe this was happening, and they were holding the world’s single most wanted child.

Other things may have happened, but frankly, they just weren’t very fucking important.

Tune in next time for custodial farce, Wal-Mart at midnight two days before Christmas, and how it takes two people who teach for a living to diaper an infant.