Erica
May 2004
Chandler stepped out of the bathroom and stealthily padded his way through the dimly lit apartment, being careful not to make the floorboards creak under his weight. He tip-toed about the living room as he imagined himself becoming light as a feather in his attempt to creep quietly past his sleeping twins. Silently admonishing himself for any sound he made as he tried to manifest the ability to float over to his bedroom like the particles of dust in the air that were only visible amid the light and shadows that painted the apartment at this time of night.
He stopped halfway to look around. Everything had already been packed up in boxes and labeled in Monica's nearly authoritarian handwriting. Clothes. Books. CDs. Kitchen. Bathroom. Linens. It was all there, neatly organized and ready for the movers to start bringing them down to their truck in the morning. Even the ceramic white dog had been brought inside from the balcony and most of the furniture wrapped in packing plastic and prepared for the long ride out to the suburbs.
He stood there for a while, soaking in what the apartment looked like, with its naked purple walls bathed in moonlight. Now that it was nearly empty, it seemed smaller somehow. As if all the pictures and wall hangings and throw pillows had stretched the space when it was decorated. Now that it was bare, it snapped back into its original size. Something that no longer looked like the vast playground he had spent so many years occupying. It was something much more ordinary now.
He started to feel a constricting tightness between these walls several months ago when he and Monica first discussed buying a house after learning that they would indeed, finally become parents. For more than ten years, the floor of this building, and the two apartments he had lived in, was his entire world. But now his world was bigger. Too big for this place. This home that was large enough to contain a decade of adventures and hijinks from six adults, now much too small for two little babies.
Still, even though his resolve over their decision to leave this apartment was as strong as ever, there was a strange sense of grief he felt as he turned to the kitchen and let his eyes fall upon the front door. Almost as if he were in mourning. He was never one to romanticize inanimate objects, and he had moved out of a home before without any trepidations or sentimentality, yet he could tell, this was very different. Something that was so much more apparent now then it was at any other point during this entire endeavor to move out of Manhattan and raise his family in the suburbs.
He could swear that he heard the walls beating like a pumping telltale heart hidden beneath the floorboards. The entire apartment was breathing heavily in his ears. Compelling him to finally let his guard down and confess his conflicted emotions about leaving this place. Suddenly, it felt as if the weight of the building began to press down on his chest as he realized how monumental tomorrow was going to be. How hard closing that door for the last time would hit his wife once she took a moment to look around. The power in recognizing what they were about to do. The significance struck him like a ton of bricks.
He was leaving his first real home.
Sure, he lived in a spacious Upper East Side apartment with his mother and shared a dorm room with Ross in college, but they were not the same. They did not have an ounce of the substance that the spaces between the walls of these two apartments had. They were eternally connected to every milestone that he held in high regard. He swore that he could almost see every memory wandering through this space like phantoms of the past. All those years living across the hall as he wrestled with becoming an adult. Five years here, in this apartment with Monica, growing into the man he was today. His first week as a father, learning to be a parent. All the best moments of his life now packed up into so many cardboard boxes. Tightly packaged in bubble-wrap, old newspapers and cellophane. Waiting to travel with him to Westchester and see who he will become as he begins the next chapter of his life.
Yet, like every other meaningful change in his life that occurred here in this apartment, this one was no different. Not once did he second guess their decision. It was an easy call to make. It felt right to leave. It was time.
Chandler looked down at the basinet as a light gurgle from below broke his reverie and snapped him back to reality. He waited for a moment before gently placing his hand on the baby that began to stir. A week in and he had already figured out that less is more when it came to a fussy sleeping baby. He recalled how on the first night, they were both quick to snatch up one of their children if they made even the most imperceptible of noises while they slept, but they soon learned quickly to let the twins soothe themselves for a few minutes before disturbing their slumber. That lesson still seemed to bear fruit as his gentle touch quieted the restless infant.
He peered in closely and smiled when he recognized that it was his daughter who had declared she had enough of her navel-gazing father. It was time for him to leave his melancholy trance and come back to reality. Chandler didn't mind. He liked this new reality very much.
"You're going to keep me in check, aren't you? Already taking after your mom."
He never thought about the panicked moment he had when they first found out about Erica's unexpected arrival. The abject fear that consumed him over how ill prepared he felt to care for two babies. It was as if he erased the entire scene from his memory. That man he was for that brief moment in time in the delivery room never reared his ugly head again. And now, as he looked down at Erica, he could not imagine a world where he could not see her face. She was now a part of him.
Every time he looked at her, his heart swelled with an intoxicating mix of nervous, protective adoration. He had never felt anything like this before. It was a new kind of love for him to experience. It was not greater or better than the love he felt for his friends or his wife. It was just different. Raw. Untamed. Unconditional. Evolved.
"Hey, what are you still doing out here?"
Chandler lifted his head and smiled as Monica quietly approached him.
"Did I wake you?"
"No. I was up. I thought I heard something on the monitor. What are you doing?"
Chandler shrugged his shoulders and glance around the room. "I'm just, looking around."
Monica looked down at the twins and flashed a prideful smile at her husband. "Looking at the babies?"
"What? No. I mean, yeah, but not like that. Erica started moving around a bit, I just wanted to make sure she stayed asleep."
Monica nodded in an exaggerated manner, unsure if her husband was fibbing to cover some soft, sentimental part of himself in a misguided attempt to appear masculine. "Okay, sure."
"No. Really."
Monica looked around the room. "It's our last night."
"I know. It just kind of hit me."
"I feel like we should do something special to mark the occasion."
"I'm not cleaning the refrigerator again."
Monica chuckled and gestured playfully with her head towards the large window facing the street. "Oh, well I was going to suggest sex on the balcony…"
Chandler spun to face her and grabbed her hand as his eyes lit up. He turned and tried to lead her over to the window, but she rooted herself to the ground, becoming like an unmovable object.
Monica pulled him back, compelling him to face her, and allowed an impish smile to spread across her lips. "But, with the twins sleeping in here, I don't think that's a good idea."
"I'll handle it." He turned and looked down at the bassinet. "Kids, it's time we had a talk. You're both seven days old now and I think it's time you left the nest. I'm sure you can find a nice studio apartment to rent. I'll even give you a reference. Now scram."
Monica giggled quietly as she placed a kiss on his cheek. "What if I offer you sex in the bedroom with the lights off and you have to be finished before midnight because we have a long day ahead of us tomorrow."
"Wow. It's like I'm falling in love with you all over again."
Monica smiled as she turned around and dragged Chandler towards the bedroom. "Also, I'm keeping my top on."
September 2004
A high-pitched squeal echoed from the monitor on the bedside table, startling Chandler awake. He sat up straight, almost instantly and frightfully alert. From the sound of the scream that rang through the room, he half-expected to see some gruesome scene from a slasher flick playing out before him. Finding himself face-to-face with one of those fictional maniacs, like Jason, Michael Myers, or Freddie Krueger, as they dispatched of another poor hapless, nameless victim right there between the dresser and the armoire. Yet, finding the room to be empty, he sighed and rubbed his eyes as he realized the source of that ear-splitting howl was something even scarier than an unkillable murderous fiend.
"Erica."
He swung his legs over the side of the bed and flexed his toes, making small fists with them before stretching them outward. He looked over to the empty side of the bed. Normally, with his wife absent from his side while a baby was crying in the middle of the night, it meant she was already ten steps ahead of him. No doubt standing in the nursery and tending to whichever baby needed soothing.
But not tonight. Tonight he was on his own.
Anther whiny screech broke the silence in the room and Chandler shook his head. "Okay. All right. I'm coming."
He stumbled his way through the bedroom, scratching at his scalp as he lumbered into the nursery. He looked down into Erica's crib and winced as she appeared to be preparing for another loud cry. Her face became red as she closed her eyes tight. She made a tiny fist and stretched her arm out of the blanket that he had swaddled her in just a few hours ago before as he was putting her down to sleep. She looked like she was filling her lungs with as much air as she could in order to release one more blood-curdling shriek. Chandler quickly rushed over to the side of her crib and placed his hand on her stomach.
"Shh. Shh. You don't want to wake Jack, now do you?"
He picked Erica up, her legs kicking their way out of the blanket, loosening it and causing it to fall back down into the crib. Her face went still as she grabbed for his pajama top. The two of them glanced down at the discarded blanket and then Chandler turned to face her.
"Okay, I know I don't do the burrito thing as well as mom does, but you don't have to rub it in my face."
He walked her over to the changing table and gave her a tickle under her chin to try and suppress any more tearful bawling.
"I don't know why you get so bent out of shape. It's not like we weren't going to come in here. We always come. Do you think we don't hear you? Because we do. You're kind of loud."
Monica would at times playfully chastise her husband for being so blunt to his children with his mild criticisms, yet even she agreed, their daughter was loud. Ever since finding out she could make noise deliberately, the volume of her shrieks, yelps and chatter had increased exponentially. Never more apparent than when she would use that voice in the middle of the night. While during the day she was an easy baby to care for, and surprisingly self-sufficient, Erica was a terrible sleeper. Nights were usually never complete without two or three outbursts that rattled the walls of their home.
As he started to remove her onesie so he could check her diaper, he noticed what he could only describe as a disappointed frown on her face.
"I know. You were expecting mom. I'm not exactly thrilled about this either by the smell of what's going on in there. Normally I can pretend not to hear you, and your mother comes running in here right away. That's why you're so used to seeing her first, but she's sick."
Erica started to suck in air quickly. Chandler always found it odd, but it was usually followed by incessant babbling of broken sounds that were almost words. As if she were filling herself up to full capacity so she could babble out a long, endless stream of vowels and consonants.
"What are you winding up to say?"
"Pfft. Muh, muh, thhppp."
"Yeah?" Chandler quickly slipped off Erica's diaper and began to clean her with a wipe from the dispenser on the changing table. He nodded as if he could understand exactly what she was trying to say.
"Muhmuhmuhmuhbuh."
"Well, Mom is sleeping in the den. We opened up the bed down there for her and set her up. You know why she is all the way down there?"
"Buh."
"Close."
"Buh."
"Warmer."
"Muh."
"Okay. Enough guessing. We could be here all day. It's because you are so loud. Yes, you are. You're the loudest baby ever to walk the Earth. They will tell stories about you in the distant future. A cautionary tale for people who are thinking about having a baby."
Chandler gave Erica another tickle, eliciting a smile from her as he put her pajamas back on.
"You're smiling because you know it's true. I'm probably going to have permanent hearing damage before you turn two."
He carried her back to the crib and Erica gripped the collar of his shirt tightly as they both glanced down again at the blanket that was discarded on the mattress. Erica then looked at him.
"Buh."
"Look, you might as well face it, I am not going to wrap you up as tight as your mother does."
"Muh?"
"It's not entirely my fault. You wiggle around like crazy before I can tuck the last flap in."
"Buhmuh?"
Chandler nodded slowly. "You do make a good point."
Chandler laid Erica back down and used his other hand to stretch the blanket out. He tugged on her arm, finding her grip on his clothes to be tight, as if her fingers were made of steel.
"How are you this strong? I'm a grown man! You are a baby. I'm supposed to be stronger than you!"
He finally worked her fingers loose and then quickly wrapped her back up in the blanket. He allowed a few images to run through his head; memories of the three or four dozen times Monica taught him how to swaddle. He nodded with determination and pulled the blanket tight as he tucked the last flap in and smiled.
"I think we did it."
Erica smiled up at him and Chandler stepped back for a moment.
"Aww. Are you proud of me?"
Erica began to squirm and then yanked her arm free and reached up, almost as if she were taunting him with a mischievous smirk.
"No. You were mocking me. I'll remember this when you're a teenager."
Erica kept reaching and twisting her arm up at her father and he let out an exaggerated sigh.
"I know what you want. I'm not doing it. You already got a story when you went to bed."
Erica continued to beckon him with wiggling fingers that were stretching out towards him.
"Fine. But just for a few minutes, then you're going to sleep."
Chandler reached over and dragged the chair to the side of the crib. He sat down and placed his hand on Erica's chest. He lightly rubbed his thumb up and down her stomach and she let her tiny hand rest on his. He shook his head and smiled.
Erica was loud. She could be fussy, demanding and very particular with what she wanted. And she was freakishly strong.
She was Monica.
"All right. Where did we leave off in the story…oh yeah…so…then Joey had a very unfortunate poster done with his face on it. Do you know what V.D. is?"
2005
"What the heck happened?"
Chandler stood in the doorway, holding Erica at arm's length. Almost every part of her was covered in clumpy, wet mud. Her clothes were dripping with filth and dirt started to dry and cake in her hair and on her cheeks.
Monica covered her eyes as her mouth opened wide in horrified shock.
Chandler shrugged his shoulders slightly and forced out a reassuring smile. "Well, funny story. If you find stories about mud funny."
Monica tilted her head down, took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Chandler recognized that she needed a moment to adjust to the image that was on display before her and waited until she composed herself.
Erica reached two muddy hands out towards her mother. 'Ma-ma."
Chandler nodded and looked down. "That's right, butter her up."
Monica snapped her head up and narrowed her eyes at Chandler.
He offered her a defensive, crooked smile. "Ma-ma?"
"Don't even."
"But look how cute we are."
Monica gasped. "My daughter is covered, head-to-toe in mud. How is that cute?"
"But when you hear how it happened, I'm sure you'll find it hilarious."
Monica eyed her husband with waning patience.
"See, we were outside, and I heard a plane, so I looked up, and then I started to think about how many times I was on a plane, and then I thought about that time I had the layover in Cleveland….you remember, when I was working in Tulsa. Anyway…"
"Can you wrap this up? You're dripping mud on the floor."
"Oh, yeah, anyway, when I looked back down, she was in the mud."
"How is that hilarious?"
Chandler wilted under her glare and them gave her one more weak smile. "Ma-ma?"
"Ugh. Wait here. I'll be right back with a towel or something."
Chandler turned Erica around and then nodded. "Okay, I think that worked."
Erica offered him an oblivious smile as she simply reacted with contented joy at hearing her father's voice. There was a connection she made with him whenever she could sense he was speaking directly to her that always left her with an amused smile on her face.
"We just need to stay strong and stick to the story, because if your mom knew I was letting you jump off the swing into the mud we might actually be in real trouble. You know she tried to ground me once?"
Erica wrinkled her brow as she tried to repeat one of the sounds she heard come from his mouth. "bull."
"Right. Now I might get in more trouble than you, but that's just because you're a kid. Which really isn't fair if you ask me."
Erica squirmed a bit in Chandler's hands as she let her eyes bounce around the room. She reached her arm towards the wall. Chandler's eyes went wide as he realized what she was about to do. He tried to lean away, but he was too late to stop her from making a large, muddy handprint on the wall just under last year's family photo.
"Oh. That's not going to go over well."
Chandler leaned over slightly to inspect the mark and held her to the side. Erica giggled and reached her other hand to the opposite wall, quickly leaving a dirty handprint there. Chandler spun around as his eyes opened wide.
"What are you doing? Do you want your mom to kill me? Because this is how you get your mom to kill me."
Erica looked up and laughed. She quickly slapped both hand against the wall again, leaving more dirty prints. Chandler leaned forward and stretched his arms out to hold her in front of him and out of range from the two walls she had been vandalizing with her muddy hands.
"Why would you think this was a good idea? Have you not met your mother?"
Monica walked back into the hallway with a few towels tucked under her arm. She stepped towards the door and looked down as she unfolded one of the towels. "I don't know why you would bring her in here and not wait outside instead of tracking mud in the house. At least you haven't made a big mess yet." She then looked up "Okay, we have to get these clothes off…" she stopped and arched an aggravated eyebrow upon seeing the streaks of mud on the walls.
Chandler gestured innocently with his head at the offending filth. "Isn't this cute? It's like we have a uh keepsake. We always talked about getting one of those at home kits where we could get handprints. Now we don't have to."
Monica rolled her eyes as she stepped over to wrap her daughter in a towel. "You know what else is a keepsake? A clean house that doesn't have mud everywhere!"
2006
Chandler turned on the light in the kitchen and led his daughter into the room. She teetered a bit on her feet as her face lit up with excited anticipation. Chandler yawned as he lifted her up and into her chair. He glanced at the clock on the oven and shuddered.
"I'm starting to think you might actually be Joey's kid. It's not even five o'clock in the morning. Are you really that hungry?"
"Pancakes."
Chandler dropped his head as he clicked the tray in place on her chair. Erica looked around the room, her eyes as big as saucers as she relished in this early morning adventure with her father. He glanced over at her and forced out a tired smile.
"You sure you don't want to go back to sleep? Sleep is good."
She tilted her head and pointed. "Pancakes."
"I heard you. You know, we still serve breakfast at nine, if you ever want to sleep in."
Erica giggled as Chandler reached into the refrigerator and removed a container of pancake batter. Monica had gotten into the habit of preparing batter the night before to make the mornings easier now that it seemed their daughter had decided to forego sleeping through the night. Ever since they had switched her from the crib to a toddler bed, Erica had been waking up earlier and earlier, full of energy and ready to start her day, much to the displeasure of her parents. Each morning one of them would volunteer to check in on her and try to get her to go back to sleep, knowing full well that they would fail. Every time they opened her bedroom door, she would be wide awake, standing there, ready to go downstairs and start her day.
"Juice."
Chandler scoffed as he looked over his shoulder. "Do I look like a waiter to you?"
"Juice."
Chandler spooned some of the batter into the pan he had warmed up and then stepped over to the refrigerator. "You're lucky. I was going to get you some juice anyway."
He poured a small amount of juice into a plastic sippy-cup and handed it to his daughter. He then walked back over to the stove so he could flip the pancake.
"You know, we have to figure out why you keep waking up. Because I don't know if you realized it yet, but daddy is not a morning person."
Erica sipped at her drink and placed the cup down, letting out an exaggerated "ahhh" as she smacked her lips.
"Also, I thought we were working on please and thank you."
Erica smiled and started to shake her head side-to-side.
"No? Well, maybe then Daddy will just eat this pancake."
Erica giggled and started to shake her head again.
Chandler placed the pancake on a plate and cut it up, instinctively blowing on it to cool it. He walked back over and slid the plate onto her tray as he sat down beside her.
"What do you say?"
Erica stabbed a cut piece with her round, plastic fork and shoved it in her mouth. "Pancake."
"You really are Joey."
Chandler leaned on his hand as he looked out the kitchen window. The darkness that greeted him left him depressed as it was a stark reminder of how early it was. He looked down and glanced at the table, noting the stack of mail. He mindlessly fiddled his fingers through the envelopes, shoving them around as if he was looking for something instead of just fidgeting to pass the time as he waited for his daughter to finish eating. He turned to look at her and smiled as he watched her eat with a sense of glee that he had only ever seen from one other person. How one simple pancake could make someone so happy was beyond him.
He let his eyes fall back down to the papers and envelopes that he had made a mess of on the table. He silently chuckled, knowing how his wife would react if she were greeted by an untidy stack of mail when she woke up. He reached over to organize everything, stacking each piece neatly. He lazily read the return addresses, barely letting the words register in his mind. Another distraction for him while he stood vigil over his daughter's breakfast.
He paused when he recognized the oversized letter they had received this morning. Jack's evaluation from the child phycologist. He frowned, still unsure how to process all the information that was included in the small packet.
Suddenly, he flashed back to that first day in the hospital when he found out that they were going to be having twins. His mind snagged on the sensations of panic and fear as he worried that he was not up to the task of being a parent. He could feel the rapid beating of his heart as he desperately tried to figure out how they were going to handle two babies. It was strange to let his thoughts fall back on that memory.
He felt foolish about how he panicked now as he looked back on those first few months with the twins. Babies were easy. Feed them. Bathe them. Naps. Dirty diapers. They were low maintenance compared to toddlers. There were no five a.m. wake up calls with a little girl ready to start the day. No cuts and bumps and scrapes. No researching pre-schools and worrying about if his children would be better at making friends than he was when he was a kid. No phycologists. No neurologists. No specialists poking and prodding his son. Just warm, dozing babies wrapped tight in a soft blanket.
Now, it seemed every day there was some new problem to solve. Some riddle or puzzle to work out. Only, it was infinite. This wasn't a Rubik's Cube you could spend a few hours on and be done with; this was an endless trail of obstacles, each more treacherous than the next.
He found himself sitting there staring at the envelope and wondering if perhaps he could will himself back to that magical first week in the apartment when they brought the twins home from the hospital. When the most difficult thing he had to do was warm up a bottle in the kitchen in middle of the night.
"Done."
Chandler looked over at Erica and forced out another smile. "Done?"
Erica nodded emphatically. "More?"
"Another one?"
"Yes."
Chandler took her plate and made his way back over to the kitchen counter. He turned on the flame under the pan to warm it up.
"We are going to have to figure out this no sleeping thing kiddo. Mom and dad aren't that young anymore. We can't party all night with pancakes and juice like we used to."
He turned to look at Erica as he leaned against the counter.
"Do you just like having the house to yourself?"
Erica shook her head.
"Is it my awesome pancakes?"
"No."
Chandler feigned a wounded ego. "That was pretty quick." He then smiled smugly. "You just want to spend quality time with your favorite parent. I won't tell mom. I think she knows I'm your favorite anyway."
"No."
"That's kind of hurtful. Well, what is it?"
Erica started to reach her hands out towards the refrigerator. "Bruh-uh."
"I don't know what that is."
She leaned forward with more purpose, her fingers stretched as far as they could go as she grunted out another frustrated. "Bruh-uh."
Chandler turned to look at the front of the refrigerator and tilted his head. He reached over, took off a magnet, and grabbed the thin piece of paper that was underneath.
He held it out to her. "Do you want this?"
She nodded and he carried it over and Erica quickly snatched it up, eyeing it carefully and tracing her fingers over the black and white images.
"Bru-uh."
Chandler sat down. He felt a slight sting in his eye, and blinked quickly, forcing back the tear that was forming there. He felt a wave of embarrassment as he found himself choking up while his daughter stared lovingly at the sonogram. Monica and Chandler had shown it to Jack and Erica a few weeks after they received it from the adoption agency, and while they had read a few books about it, they still wrestled with how to explain everything to their children in a way that they could understand. That soon, they would have a new baby brother. He did not think it fully registered with his children and they tacked the picture up on the refrigerator with plans to revisit the topic closer to the due date. He searched his memory quickly, and realized that Erica's new sleeping habits coincided with the day they showed her the sonogram and not the day they switched out her bed.
"Is this why you wake up so early? To see your new baby brother?"
Erica nodded and Chandler turned away quickly to cover his face. He wiped under his eyes and laughed at himself for getting emotional. He was overwhelmed with this sense of pride that somehow he was raising this intuitive, empathetic, funny little girl. Maybe babies were easier and toddlers more work. Perhaps it was tempting to entertain this fleeting fantasy of turning the clock back to when they were infants and leaving the problems and complications of today behind. But watching his children grow into two little people with their own feelings and motivations was a priceless gift he would never get to enjoy if he went back in time and relived that first week over-and-over again like some television rerun.
"You're still keeping me in check, aren't you?"
Erica reached up and grabbed as his cheek, confused as to why he looked sad. Chandler smiled and chuckled as he finished wiping the tears from his face.
"Don't tell your mom about this. I'll never hear the end of it."