My Baby Ate My Blackberry
I left it on the sofa, and it was stupidstupidstupid. Coming back from a fast run to the kitchen for a refill of coffee, I re-entered the living room and saw it. My beautiful baby boy happily sucking away on my Blackberry like an ice-cold teething ring. Grinning. Pleased with his ingenuity. Innocent and guilty and loving it.
It was a scenario so fraught with symbolism I laughed out loud. Probably for the first time since I started staying home with my son roughly a month before. I thought in my head: Message received, son. I get it. It’s your time now.
Let me be clear I loved my Blackberry. It was one of the last remnants of cool left from my life as a successful working girl, and it was an identity I was having a hard time giving up. Until that point, when people asked what I did for a living, I still answered, “Copywriter.” Somehow I just couldn’t bring myself to admit, “Stay at home mom.”
The job of full-time mother is nothing like my former career-woman self pictured. I imagined the Gerber commercial, with lots of dappled sunlight, twinkling baby laughter, and cutesy accidents. I also pictured finally settling into all those domestic activities I never had time for – cultivating a killer herb garden, getting more involved in my community, finally and stylishly redecorating the guest room.
But the job of staying home is nothing like what I imagined. It’s hard. It’s much harder than going into a private office every day, first and foremostly because you have no privacy. I wasn’t prepared for bathroom visits with a screaming tyke sitting outside, begging for entrance. I wasn’t prepared to share every cup of my morning coffee with Dora and Elmo. I certainly could never have imagined the elaborate planning it would take to crave out 20 minutes for a shower.
Interestingly, although you are never alone, staying home can be lonely at times. However engaging your baby is, the poor kid has no idea what’s going on with the economy or what happened on The Bachelor last night. He doesn’t share your love of cooking (yet) and doesn’t care to swap recipes. My personal low-point was out on a walk one morning. Pushing the stroller along our neighborhood sidewalks, one of my neighbors gave a friendly wave. I turned the stroller around, accosted the poor soul with small talk, and watched her squirm and conclude I was crazy before I finally released her.
The last big adjustment, for me, was time. As in, there is none. It turns out that babies require your total and complete attention, and they can be pretty vocal about getting it. You can try to divert their attention, but babies know a contrived distraction like they know they hate broccoli. It’s innate knowledge mother nature blesses them with at birth. The only entertainment that will do is you, and they have it a very extensive book of tricks to keep you dancing all day long.
What happened in the end though was I found another job I loved, and, while I still have days when I daydream about catered meetings and adult conversation, I know I made the right choice. It came to me like this: It was afternoon in sun-dappled park, and my son is laughing himself silly watching a family of squirrels. He spills all his crackers. A squirrel takes off with one. And, as I hand him a replacement, he learns over and gives me my first big, sloppy baby kiss. Oh Gerber, eat your heart out.
Robin is a writer who happens to stay at home with her son.
