November 2008
If You Think I'm Strange You Should Meet My Parents
Before Alexandra was even born, Ducky and I discussed stay-at-home vs. working parenthood long and hard—for both Mom and Dad. There's a big advantage to owning your own business, particularly something as casual as a bookstore: you get to make the rules. (Well… most of them.) It was a snap to take Alexandra to work, set up a corner of the office as a baby's room and set her there while she was asleep and carry her around the store when she wasn't. Couldn't pull that off at 'thank you for calling customer service, how would you like to verbally bash me?' now could I? As for Ducky taking her to work—ha! (Though I think there would be plenty of sitters around.)
He more than made up for his daytime lack of hours by taking care of the baby a lot once we got home. He was even very good about changing diapers—and not the slapdash way I've seen some fathers do. (At Toys R Us I saw one poor kid sporting a disposable diaper that had been screwed up—the sticky tab had stuck to the wrong place and tore a big hole out the outside plastic. Dad had fixed it with—how MacGyverish!—duct tape.) Ducky came into fatherhood late in life, but he could sure give lessons to a lot of those 'baby daddies' out there.
To make things easy on all of us, we parked a portacrib in the living room so we didn't have to run up and down the stairs all evening and Alexandra was able to stay in the thick of things. (We did move the Oriental rugs to the attic until she was a little older.) We swapped out dinner duty—since I got home first, I did it about 50% of the time, Ducky another 35% and the remaining 15% was divvied between Lily and Suzy. Whoever was cooking could easily run back and forth between kitchen and living room—but there was usually a responsible person with the baby at all times. (I'd say responsible adult, but I want to include Charlie… and sometimes exclude Mother.)
Even knowing someone was with Alexandra, I ducked in and out regularly. With the girls—of all ages—I had to get a little demanding that she be allowed to sleep if that was what she wanted to do. Ducky was no problem; frequently he'd put her in the front sling, plop into his favorite chair, put his feet up and they'd both take a nap. (I managed to sneak a picture one time. Guess what he's getting on a mug for Father's Day?)
So early one evening while the meatloaf and baked potatoes were finishing up their visit to the kitchen dry sauna, I popped into the living room and wasn't surprised to find Ducky there, arms resting on the top edge of the cribette, staring down at our daughter with a funny smile on his face.
I slipped up next to him and draped an arm across his back. "Whatcha thinking about?"
He was silent for a long moment, and then laughed. "She looks like Pyewacket."
I was expecting something just a bit more heartwarming. I straightened up, put my hands on my hips and gave him a dirty look. Alexandra has his eyes, his nose (I think so anyway—at least the potential is there), reddish blonde curls that look like she stole them from my baby pictures, my mother's cheekbones (glad someone finally got them), and Dr. Lester thinks she'll grow up to be a tall drink o' water. "You think our child looks like a Siamese cat?"
He realized—belatedly—how bad it sounded. "No! Oh, no, no—I just—" He indicated the sleeping lump of baby. "It looks like she was trying to crawl and suddenly decided a nap was in order." She lay facedown and at an angle one would associate with a street racecar—butt up in the air, face down low, hunched together in a pile. I hated to admit it, but I'd seen Pye in that pose all over the store; he'd be walking from point A to point B, cross a sunbeam and fall down in mid-step. Her thumb had popped out of her mouth and her tiny starfish hand was half-curled over her nose the way Pye's paw often was, too. "Well… I see what you mean." She opened her eyes and blinked sleepily at us—and I realized there was the faintest lavender tint to her irises—just like Pye. "But if she suddenly sports a tail, that's your damn DNA!"