November 25th,
"Vibrant young woman struck dead by toddler armed with soiled diaper...news at eleven."
I don't know how I did it, but I successfully avoided all contact with anything less than 10 years of age all day yesterday, thus preventing any embarrassing situations or awkward questions regarding my complete ignorance of all things 'child'.
I should have known it wouldn't last.
Day two at Faireborn central was spent almost exclusively with the women of the family, for as I was to discover, there is a good reason Rose holds the annual reunion the day before Thanksgiving rather than on the holiday itself.
Two words.
College Football.
By the time the first game had started every living thing in the household who sported the ol' 'Y' chromosome (including the dogs) had disappeared, heading off convoy style to Dash's Uncle Frank's to watch the games on his new wide screen TV...leaving those of us of the fairer sex to our own devices.
Any other time I would have reveled in the opportunity for a little female bonding. Spending most of my time among testosterone charged soldiers makes me long for a little girly chitchat. Problem was, in this case the women came complete with their brood!
I didn't stand a chance.
In fact, despite my degrees, my travels, the battles fought and won...I might as well have been a doddering idiot for all I could contribute in their company! If it weren't for Carole and...if you would believe it...Betty, I probably would have retreated to some dark corner never to emerge again.
It's not the fear of children and all they imply that got to me, although that did play a part. No...this time the discomfort came from being among women who are so completely at ease around kids, so skilled and patient...who possess the mothering instinct in wholly unnatural abundance...that I stand a veritable pariah amongst them.
There are choices one makes in life, paths chosen while others are abandoned. All my life I have been driven by career, whether it came in the form of academia, the stage...or eventually the army...my drive to succeed shut out everything. GIJOE especially requires the type of all encompassing commitment that precludes all else.
People will tell you that you can do both...be a good mother and successful in your career. While I don't doubt that there are women who do, from my own experience I have come to the conclusion that the career mom is a myth...that it is impossible to reach the pinnacle of both without something having to give.
Most of the time its your career that suffers...I mean, how many woman have been looked over for a CEO position despite their qualifications precisely because they couldn't work the long, hard hours the men did due to having child at home waiting for them. Laws and anti- discrimination rules aside, it DOES HAPPEN. It isn't overt...but never doubt it exists.
Of course, you always have the option of establishing yourself in your career BEFORE starting that family. Many, many women opt for that route. But guess what? By the time you have reached the top you are already in your late thirties and, as my mother keeps reminding me...its very, very difficult to get pregnant when you pass thirty five!
Oh...my mother. The other end of the spectrum. Just look at how I grew up. Sure, I had everything I ever wanted, but unfortunately my mother was...indifferent. Her priorities lay elsewhere...the business, the social scene...I was secondary and I knew it. My mother is a powerful woman...successful beyond reckoning. But as a maternal figure she comes up lacking every time.
...and guess who I learned from? Guess who guided me despite my struggle to break away?
I am my mother's child in more ways than I like to admit. She shaped me in those early years...set me on the path I tread today even if she hates my choice of career. My drive to succeed is pure Katherine Hart.
As a result of her early influence, the women I ended up choosing as friends and mentors were all like-minded...it was a rare thing indeed for a friend of mine to talk of children, families, minivans and little league. Even Shana and Courtney seldom speak of it, knowing full well that to make that choice would be mean the end of their careers with GIJOE. How can one continue to throw oneself into harm's way when there is a small life waiting at home that needs you?
Need...therein lies the clincher. No longer can you live for the moment, no longer can you run around without a care in the world...the only person to answer to yourself. Once you become a parent, there is no turning back. You loose your freedom...you...you...
Hell. Who am I kidding? I AM scared!
These little...beings...they need you. They NEED you in a way that no other thing on the planet will ever possibly come close. One wrong move and WHAM...they resent you for the rest of their lives!
The whole thing terrifies me.
Yet...look at these women. Carole, Lynne, Joan...even Rose and Betty...they all did it, or are doing it. They don't flinch when they run wild in the house, they don't panic when they cry, wondering what they want...they know exactly what to do in all situations. Not only that...both Lynne and Joan are pretty successful in their own right. Joan is a nurse and Lynne teaches high school.
Carole doesn't work, but is hardly idle. She is currently working on her doctorate part time. She already has two kids...one of whom is ONLY eight months old AND to top it all off she is pregnant again! I don't know where she finds the energy.
"I told you breast feeding doesn't prevent ovulation..." Joan shook her head and laughed as she watched Carole suck back another three pickles, "...I thought you were a scientist."
"Shut up and pass the ice cream..."
At the word breastfeeding I think all color drained from my face. Grabbing a magazine, I politely excused myself and wandered out into the living room.
Only one problem...there is no escape in this household! The children, all of them curious about this new person who had come with their favorite uncle, followed me everywhere I went. I think the youngest bunch would have followed into the washroom had I let them! Then there were the stares...like they had never seen a single woman before.
"It's your accent dear...they're just curious..." Rose patted my hand as I sat stunned at the kitchen table earlier in the day, surrounded by silent, gaping children. "...I bet you they're a bit jealous too...they don't like sharing their Uncle Dash's attention."
"Oh great"...I thought...imagining a scene similar to something out of 'Lord of the Flies' "...they hate me. Typical."
Anyhow...there I sat, trying to flip through a rather battered copy of 'Vanity Fair', when I felt Carole ease down next to me. Handing me a bowl of ice cream with one hand while shooing of the children with the other, we sat in silence for a few moments enjoying the soothing taste of Ben and Jerry's 'Cherry Garcia'.
"You don't know much about kids, do you?" she asked quietly, as she took another spoonful in her mouth.
I didn't answer, merely shrugged. I certainly didn't want to reveal my weakness to Dash's family...despite any affection I feel toward the woman in question. I have known then for less than 24 hours, and on top of it all I wanted them to like me...not cast me out!
"Come on, Allie...its written all over your face..." she laughed "Every time they come near it looks as though you are going to jump out of your skin."
I frowned.
"Is it that obvious?"
"Yeah..." This from Joan, who had wandered into the room with Lynne close behind, "...You look just like Carole did when she held her first baby. Mind you...she dropped the poor thing..."
"Are you ever going to let me forget that?"
"NO!" They both answered in unison and broke out in laughter.
"What's so funny?" Rose and Betty had entered the room, along with Betty's three grown daughters and some other cousins. I began to pray to whatever god's were listening that the subject would turn to something more benign...like politics or religion!
"We were just remembering the time Carole dropped little Jamie..." Lynne giggled.
"HE WAS SLIPPERY!"
Ray's wife plowed on despite Carole's outburst "...it seems that Alison here knows even less about kids than Carole did...which is saying a lot."
At that they all turned to stare at me with looks of shock and astonishment on their faces. The silence in the room was deafening...the only sounds the muffled shouts of the children scattered around the house.
Kill me now.
"Ummm...well...you see...I don't really have much experience with young children..." I began, but was cut off before I could wheedle my way out of this rapidly worsening situation.
"Well..." huffed Betty, standing up suddenly, "...that will never do. Carole?"
The woman beside me smiled and nodded before getting up and exiting the room in a flash.
"I don't think..."
"Ah ah ah!" the infamous aunt held up a hand to silence me, "...I don't want to hear any excuses. God knows I have heard them all in my lifetime. You think you lack maternal instincts, don't you? Women today...career, career, career. They forget the simple things...oy...Don't narrow your eyes at me young lady! I wasn't born yesterday...I was a feminist before you were an idea in your parent's minds! Success mean finding a balance in life, not driving to the top of everything!"
I looked up to see Carole enter the room again, holding the baby who looked as though she had just woken up and was about to start wailing like an air raid siren. Now...if you think I was astounded by Aunt Betty's little outburst, I nearly had a coronary when Carole placed the infant on my lap before retreating to sit with Rose.
"What...I...wait...NO...I don't think..." I fumbled around, shifting my weight as I tried to get a handle on the kid on my lap, completely clueless as to what to do. My only consolation at that point was that the baby looked about as stunned as I did.
"Oh boy...I see now why my nephew herds the kids away from you. Men! They are so clueless! You will never learn if you don't get your hands dirty."
"But..." It was no use, Betty was on a roll.
"Welcome to maternal instinct boot camp!" Betty barked...bloody hell the woman missed her calling...she should have been a drill sergeant, "...lesson number one, how to hold a baby..."
For the next four or five hours (it might as well have been days for all I know) I was dragged through the most horrendous, difficult, grueling, back breaking training sessions I think I had ever experienced. Beachhead has NOTHING on Aunt Betty.
I changed diapers, heated bottles, burped, soothed, ran with after toddlers trying to get them dressed...or undressed...or to sit still for two seconds. I fed a baby, pulled a three year old out of the rafters (these things climb better than mountain goats...you can't turn your head for a second before one of them is swinging from the chandelier), read to the twins (who I am sure are going to be the next Siskel and Ebert...everyone's a critic! Master storyteller or no, I can only be so creative with dinosaurs...), helped a tweenager with her French homework and tried to explain to a five year old why pulling his cousin's hair was not the proper way to get a girl's attention.
Hell...I was even vomited on!
"Betty..." I overheard Dash's mother in the kitchen as Carole and I tried to break up a fight between two of the boys, "...don't you think you are being a little hard on the girl? I do want more grandchildren at some point. At this rate she is going to give herself a hysterectomy before she leaves here."
"They aren't married, Rosie..." she answered sharply "...and I know what I'm doing..."
I would like to be able to tell you that I breezed through all of it, that I finally found my rhythm and became something of a super-mom. Truth is, it was hard as all hell and I made a lot of mistakes. A LOT...but the other women were behind me every step of the way, encouraging, guiding...laughing too.
Who knew you can put a diaper on backwards?
Nevertheless, by the time things began to quiet down I was feeling discouraged. I had done everything that was asked of me and all I had gotten out of it was a bad headache and a sense of failure. I was more convinced than ever that I lacked the instinct.
"You ok?" Rose came into the room where I sat alone, watching the rainfall through the widow. She handed me little eight-month-old Emily along with her bottle and sat down on the chair across from me. "Betty isn't pushing you too hard is she. She tends to go overboard sometimes."
"Nah...I just needed a break."
"It's hard work isn't it?"
I nodded, too tired to respond. As far as I could tell this was the end of my 'life as a Faireborn'...over before it even began. There was no way that this woman would allow her son to see someone so obviously lacking the all important 'child rearing' skills. Hart's don't do 'domestic'...
"Hard, hard work..." she continued "...but well worth it."
"You know the only way to learn is through example, and of course getting down an dirty yourself. The mothering instinct isn't something you are born with...its something that develops over time. From what I see...yours is just a little late in coming..."
"I doubt it." I harrumphed. I had had it up to my eyeballs with this. Where the heck was Dash? When the football game was over I was going to have him take me to the airport.
Rose merely smiled at me and leaned over to whisper in my ear.
"I think your wrong, dear...very wrong..."
With that she stood up, winked at me, pointed to the baby, and left.
I sat there for a good few minutes before I realized what she was trying to tell me...to show me.
Incredible!
While she and I had been talking I had taken the little one expertly in my arms and bottle-fed her without even knowing it! I didn't flinch...I didn't tense up...I just did it!
I looked down into her bright blue eyes and she stared back up at me in silence before I felt her little hand wrap around my finger. She smiled then, and I felt this strange fluttering in my heart...something I had never felt before. I smiled back down at her and tickled her stomach, which made her giggle.
I think that is how Dash found me. I looked up and found him frozen in the doorway, staring at me as though he had just seen a ghost. Our eyes met and I smiled at him quickly before turning my attention back to the baby, who was obviously still hungry.
He didn't say a word, merely came over to kiss me on the forehead, and then slowly walked out of the room. His expression was something I had never seen before...shock and...something else. Who knows? I wasn't paying attention anyways. I was too in awe of what I had just done.
I had taken care of a baby...I had done it right...and the kid SMILED at me!
SMILED!
In fact, as I looked back over the day...I realized how much I had accomplished despite the wrong turns I took along the way. Had any of this happened to me as little as a year ago I would have been out the door before you could say 'pampers', but somehow this time I managed to control my fear and stick it out. I am not quite sure what is going on with me lately, but I can't say I'm that upset about it...a little confused...but not upset.
Anyhow...turns out the guys brought back Chinese food. Apparently this is an after Thanksgiving tradition in the household. Thank god for that...I don't want to know what would have happened if Betty found out I couldn't cook!
I ate way too much again...it seems like the Faireborn clan are determined to fatten me up for the slaughter. I am not a big eater, and as a result am very lethargic right now as I sit up in bed watching Dash rifle through his closet.
He's been quiet tonight. Too quiet, really. Its not like him...he is usually such a big mouth. When I brought it up he laughed and said he had shouted himself hoarse while watching the game and couldn't find the energy to even talk. I don't believe him, of course. I have seen him bark at recruits for 10 hours straight and still manage to brag about himself at the bar later that evening.
No. Something is bothering him...and I have a feeling it has something to do with the fact that he spent the day with his father. I don't know what it is with those two...but call it women's intuition, I have a feeling it has something to do with me. The 'Colonel' has been nothing but polite since I arrived...but that's about it. Just polite. I catch him watching me every so often, studying me...as if trying to figure out what I am all about. It's disconcerting, but I'll live.
Dash, on the other hand, seems to be getting more and more...discouraged? I guess that's how I would describe it. He hides it well, but I've known him too long to be fooled by his smoke and mirrors act.
Oh...he's found what he's looking for and is excitedly trying to get my attention. I guess I had better wrap this up.
"Vibrant young woman struck dead by toddler armed with soiled diaper...news at eleven."
I don't know how I did it, but I successfully avoided all contact with anything less than 10 years of age all day yesterday, thus preventing any embarrassing situations or awkward questions regarding my complete ignorance of all things 'child'.
I should have known it wouldn't last.
Day two at Faireborn central was spent almost exclusively with the women of the family, for as I was to discover, there is a good reason Rose holds the annual reunion the day before Thanksgiving rather than on the holiday itself.
Two words.
College Football.
By the time the first game had started every living thing in the household who sported the ol' 'Y' chromosome (including the dogs) had disappeared, heading off convoy style to Dash's Uncle Frank's to watch the games on his new wide screen TV...leaving those of us of the fairer sex to our own devices.
Any other time I would have reveled in the opportunity for a little female bonding. Spending most of my time among testosterone charged soldiers makes me long for a little girly chitchat. Problem was, in this case the women came complete with their brood!
I didn't stand a chance.
In fact, despite my degrees, my travels, the battles fought and won...I might as well have been a doddering idiot for all I could contribute in their company! If it weren't for Carole and...if you would believe it...Betty, I probably would have retreated to some dark corner never to emerge again.
It's not the fear of children and all they imply that got to me, although that did play a part. No...this time the discomfort came from being among women who are so completely at ease around kids, so skilled and patient...who possess the mothering instinct in wholly unnatural abundance...that I stand a veritable pariah amongst them.
There are choices one makes in life, paths chosen while others are abandoned. All my life I have been driven by career, whether it came in the form of academia, the stage...or eventually the army...my drive to succeed shut out everything. GIJOE especially requires the type of all encompassing commitment that precludes all else.
People will tell you that you can do both...be a good mother and successful in your career. While I don't doubt that there are women who do, from my own experience I have come to the conclusion that the career mom is a myth...that it is impossible to reach the pinnacle of both without something having to give.
Most of the time its your career that suffers...I mean, how many woman have been looked over for a CEO position despite their qualifications precisely because they couldn't work the long, hard hours the men did due to having child at home waiting for them. Laws and anti- discrimination rules aside, it DOES HAPPEN. It isn't overt...but never doubt it exists.
Of course, you always have the option of establishing yourself in your career BEFORE starting that family. Many, many women opt for that route. But guess what? By the time you have reached the top you are already in your late thirties and, as my mother keeps reminding me...its very, very difficult to get pregnant when you pass thirty five!
Oh...my mother. The other end of the spectrum. Just look at how I grew up. Sure, I had everything I ever wanted, but unfortunately my mother was...indifferent. Her priorities lay elsewhere...the business, the social scene...I was secondary and I knew it. My mother is a powerful woman...successful beyond reckoning. But as a maternal figure she comes up lacking every time.
...and guess who I learned from? Guess who guided me despite my struggle to break away?
I am my mother's child in more ways than I like to admit. She shaped me in those early years...set me on the path I tread today even if she hates my choice of career. My drive to succeed is pure Katherine Hart.
As a result of her early influence, the women I ended up choosing as friends and mentors were all like-minded...it was a rare thing indeed for a friend of mine to talk of children, families, minivans and little league. Even Shana and Courtney seldom speak of it, knowing full well that to make that choice would be mean the end of their careers with GIJOE. How can one continue to throw oneself into harm's way when there is a small life waiting at home that needs you?
Need...therein lies the clincher. No longer can you live for the moment, no longer can you run around without a care in the world...the only person to answer to yourself. Once you become a parent, there is no turning back. You loose your freedom...you...you...
Hell. Who am I kidding? I AM scared!
These little...beings...they need you. They NEED you in a way that no other thing on the planet will ever possibly come close. One wrong move and WHAM...they resent you for the rest of their lives!
The whole thing terrifies me.
Yet...look at these women. Carole, Lynne, Joan...even Rose and Betty...they all did it, or are doing it. They don't flinch when they run wild in the house, they don't panic when they cry, wondering what they want...they know exactly what to do in all situations. Not only that...both Lynne and Joan are pretty successful in their own right. Joan is a nurse and Lynne teaches high school.
Carole doesn't work, but is hardly idle. She is currently working on her doctorate part time. She already has two kids...one of whom is ONLY eight months old AND to top it all off she is pregnant again! I don't know where she finds the energy.
"I told you breast feeding doesn't prevent ovulation..." Joan shook her head and laughed as she watched Carole suck back another three pickles, "...I thought you were a scientist."
"Shut up and pass the ice cream..."
At the word breastfeeding I think all color drained from my face. Grabbing a magazine, I politely excused myself and wandered out into the living room.
Only one problem...there is no escape in this household! The children, all of them curious about this new person who had come with their favorite uncle, followed me everywhere I went. I think the youngest bunch would have followed into the washroom had I let them! Then there were the stares...like they had never seen a single woman before.
"It's your accent dear...they're just curious..." Rose patted my hand as I sat stunned at the kitchen table earlier in the day, surrounded by silent, gaping children. "...I bet you they're a bit jealous too...they don't like sharing their Uncle Dash's attention."
"Oh great"...I thought...imagining a scene similar to something out of 'Lord of the Flies' "...they hate me. Typical."
Anyhow...there I sat, trying to flip through a rather battered copy of 'Vanity Fair', when I felt Carole ease down next to me. Handing me a bowl of ice cream with one hand while shooing of the children with the other, we sat in silence for a few moments enjoying the soothing taste of Ben and Jerry's 'Cherry Garcia'.
"You don't know much about kids, do you?" she asked quietly, as she took another spoonful in her mouth.
I didn't answer, merely shrugged. I certainly didn't want to reveal my weakness to Dash's family...despite any affection I feel toward the woman in question. I have known then for less than 24 hours, and on top of it all I wanted them to like me...not cast me out!
"Come on, Allie...its written all over your face..." she laughed "Every time they come near it looks as though you are going to jump out of your skin."
I frowned.
"Is it that obvious?"
"Yeah..." This from Joan, who had wandered into the room with Lynne close behind, "...You look just like Carole did when she held her first baby. Mind you...she dropped the poor thing..."
"Are you ever going to let me forget that?"
"NO!" They both answered in unison and broke out in laughter.
"What's so funny?" Rose and Betty had entered the room, along with Betty's three grown daughters and some other cousins. I began to pray to whatever god's were listening that the subject would turn to something more benign...like politics or religion!
"We were just remembering the time Carole dropped little Jamie..." Lynne giggled.
"HE WAS SLIPPERY!"
Ray's wife plowed on despite Carole's outburst "...it seems that Alison here knows even less about kids than Carole did...which is saying a lot."
At that they all turned to stare at me with looks of shock and astonishment on their faces. The silence in the room was deafening...the only sounds the muffled shouts of the children scattered around the house.
Kill me now.
"Ummm...well...you see...I don't really have much experience with young children..." I began, but was cut off before I could wheedle my way out of this rapidly worsening situation.
"Well..." huffed Betty, standing up suddenly, "...that will never do. Carole?"
The woman beside me smiled and nodded before getting up and exiting the room in a flash.
"I don't think..."
"Ah ah ah!" the infamous aunt held up a hand to silence me, "...I don't want to hear any excuses. God knows I have heard them all in my lifetime. You think you lack maternal instincts, don't you? Women today...career, career, career. They forget the simple things...oy...Don't narrow your eyes at me young lady! I wasn't born yesterday...I was a feminist before you were an idea in your parent's minds! Success mean finding a balance in life, not driving to the top of everything!"
I looked up to see Carole enter the room again, holding the baby who looked as though she had just woken up and was about to start wailing like an air raid siren. Now...if you think I was astounded by Aunt Betty's little outburst, I nearly had a coronary when Carole placed the infant on my lap before retreating to sit with Rose.
"What...I...wait...NO...I don't think..." I fumbled around, shifting my weight as I tried to get a handle on the kid on my lap, completely clueless as to what to do. My only consolation at that point was that the baby looked about as stunned as I did.
"Oh boy...I see now why my nephew herds the kids away from you. Men! They are so clueless! You will never learn if you don't get your hands dirty."
"But..." It was no use, Betty was on a roll.
"Welcome to maternal instinct boot camp!" Betty barked...bloody hell the woman missed her calling...she should have been a drill sergeant, "...lesson number one, how to hold a baby..."
For the next four or five hours (it might as well have been days for all I know) I was dragged through the most horrendous, difficult, grueling, back breaking training sessions I think I had ever experienced. Beachhead has NOTHING on Aunt Betty.
I changed diapers, heated bottles, burped, soothed, ran with after toddlers trying to get them dressed...or undressed...or to sit still for two seconds. I fed a baby, pulled a three year old out of the rafters (these things climb better than mountain goats...you can't turn your head for a second before one of them is swinging from the chandelier), read to the twins (who I am sure are going to be the next Siskel and Ebert...everyone's a critic! Master storyteller or no, I can only be so creative with dinosaurs...), helped a tweenager with her French homework and tried to explain to a five year old why pulling his cousin's hair was not the proper way to get a girl's attention.
Hell...I was even vomited on!
"Betty..." I overheard Dash's mother in the kitchen as Carole and I tried to break up a fight between two of the boys, "...don't you think you are being a little hard on the girl? I do want more grandchildren at some point. At this rate she is going to give herself a hysterectomy before she leaves here."
"They aren't married, Rosie..." she answered sharply "...and I know what I'm doing..."
I would like to be able to tell you that I breezed through all of it, that I finally found my rhythm and became something of a super-mom. Truth is, it was hard as all hell and I made a lot of mistakes. A LOT...but the other women were behind me every step of the way, encouraging, guiding...laughing too.
Who knew you can put a diaper on backwards?
Nevertheless, by the time things began to quiet down I was feeling discouraged. I had done everything that was asked of me and all I had gotten out of it was a bad headache and a sense of failure. I was more convinced than ever that I lacked the instinct.
"You ok?" Rose came into the room where I sat alone, watching the rainfall through the widow. She handed me little eight-month-old Emily along with her bottle and sat down on the chair across from me. "Betty isn't pushing you too hard is she. She tends to go overboard sometimes."
"Nah...I just needed a break."
"It's hard work isn't it?"
I nodded, too tired to respond. As far as I could tell this was the end of my 'life as a Faireborn'...over before it even began. There was no way that this woman would allow her son to see someone so obviously lacking the all important 'child rearing' skills. Hart's don't do 'domestic'...
"Hard, hard work..." she continued "...but well worth it."
"You know the only way to learn is through example, and of course getting down an dirty yourself. The mothering instinct isn't something you are born with...its something that develops over time. From what I see...yours is just a little late in coming..."
"I doubt it." I harrumphed. I had had it up to my eyeballs with this. Where the heck was Dash? When the football game was over I was going to have him take me to the airport.
Rose merely smiled at me and leaned over to whisper in my ear.
"I think your wrong, dear...very wrong..."
With that she stood up, winked at me, pointed to the baby, and left.
I sat there for a good few minutes before I realized what she was trying to tell me...to show me.
Incredible!
While she and I had been talking I had taken the little one expertly in my arms and bottle-fed her without even knowing it! I didn't flinch...I didn't tense up...I just did it!
I looked down into her bright blue eyes and she stared back up at me in silence before I felt her little hand wrap around my finger. She smiled then, and I felt this strange fluttering in my heart...something I had never felt before. I smiled back down at her and tickled her stomach, which made her giggle.
I think that is how Dash found me. I looked up and found him frozen in the doorway, staring at me as though he had just seen a ghost. Our eyes met and I smiled at him quickly before turning my attention back to the baby, who was obviously still hungry.
He didn't say a word, merely came over to kiss me on the forehead, and then slowly walked out of the room. His expression was something I had never seen before...shock and...something else. Who knows? I wasn't paying attention anyways. I was too in awe of what I had just done.
I had taken care of a baby...I had done it right...and the kid SMILED at me!
SMILED!
In fact, as I looked back over the day...I realized how much I had accomplished despite the wrong turns I took along the way. Had any of this happened to me as little as a year ago I would have been out the door before you could say 'pampers', but somehow this time I managed to control my fear and stick it out. I am not quite sure what is going on with me lately, but I can't say I'm that upset about it...a little confused...but not upset.
Anyhow...turns out the guys brought back Chinese food. Apparently this is an after Thanksgiving tradition in the household. Thank god for that...I don't want to know what would have happened if Betty found out I couldn't cook!
I ate way too much again...it seems like the Faireborn clan are determined to fatten me up for the slaughter. I am not a big eater, and as a result am very lethargic right now as I sit up in bed watching Dash rifle through his closet.
He's been quiet tonight. Too quiet, really. Its not like him...he is usually such a big mouth. When I brought it up he laughed and said he had shouted himself hoarse while watching the game and couldn't find the energy to even talk. I don't believe him, of course. I have seen him bark at recruits for 10 hours straight and still manage to brag about himself at the bar later that evening.
No. Something is bothering him...and I have a feeling it has something to do with the fact that he spent the day with his father. I don't know what it is with those two...but call it women's intuition, I have a feeling it has something to do with me. The 'Colonel' has been nothing but polite since I arrived...but that's about it. Just polite. I catch him watching me every so often, studying me...as if trying to figure out what I am all about. It's disconcerting, but I'll live.
Dash, on the other hand, seems to be getting more and more...discouraged? I guess that's how I would describe it. He hides it well, but I've known him too long to be fooled by his smoke and mirrors act.
Oh...he's found what he's looking for and is excitedly trying to get my attention. I guess I had better wrap this up.