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Disgruntled Baby on Aisle Seven by Angel Rutledge
It's a rookie mom's mistake. Choosing which check-out lane to stand in at the grocery store merely by determining which has the shortest line. If it isn't listed in some parenting book yet, it ought to be...
Rule #1 of Shopping: Never stand in a line behind a woman who is more than ten years older than you and has a kind face. Inevitably, she will notice you…and worse, she will notice your baby.
Now, don’t get me wrong. At first, that will seem like a wonderful thing. The woman, who most likely will have thin, streaks of gray through her perfectly styled strawberry blonde hair will say, “Just look at that sweet child. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more beautiful baby,” and she will give you such a sincere smile through her coral lipstick that you will think about asking her to be your son’s godmother.
“Thank you,” you will say, and for a second you will forget that your adorable bundle spent three solid hours screaming himself silly before you left for this little jaunt today (never mind the fact that it’s not even noon yet), and you and the woman will spend a moment looking at him with great awe and admiration.
And that’s when the well-meaning soul with fingernails painted to match her blouse will ask the dreaded question, “Is he a good baby?”
Note to self: If you’re ever in a court of law and get asked a question like this, it is absolutely essential that you plead the fifth. I mean, let’s be honest, any way you respond could either be constituted as outright perjury or as undeniable proof that you are one of those mothers, the ones who are outwardly pitied but secretly labeled as a failure for having a difficult infant.
Much to your shame the only time you could truthfully answer yes to the question, “Is he a good baby?” was the first two days of your son’s life…the two days you spent in the hospital. Once you came home and Junior displayed his true colors by working himself into a red-faced rage that tended to last the majority of each day (and sometimes night), you decided he was in reality a con-artist. A bald, toothless con-artist who had duped you into bringing him home to wait on hand and foot for eighteen plus years. (Call it sleep deprivation if you will.)
So thrusting a pacifier in your two-month-old’s mouth, which has begun to scrunch up into what you’ve come to recognize as the precursor to a long, steady wail, you pull the old “look over there” trick on Miss Well-Meaning. “I think you’re next,” you say, nodding politely to the open space between the woman and the check out clerk.
If you’re lucky this will buy you ten to twenty seconds to collect your thoughts because, let’s be honest, you can’t tell this woman – someone who’s obviously never been exposed to a “colicky,” “difficult,” “strong-willed” or whatever other label you want to slap on a kid like this – that you wouldn’t exactly say he’s a “good baby.” And when she turns back, you will be prepared to lie through your teeth. “Oh, yes, definitely. Such a good baby. Amazing really. Never gives me a minute’s trouble.”
And she will inevitably ask the follow up question, “So he sleeps well?”
Now this is the part that can trip you up. Because internally, you’re going, Does he sleep well? Let’s see. He wakes up five times a night. If I’m lucky, takes three twenty minute power naps during the day, one of which I have to rock him through while he’s attached to my breast. And the other two he cries for thirty minutes before finally passing out. But after a slight pause, you say, “Yes. I think he sleeps pretty well.”
And that will be the extent of your conversation. The woman will pay for her groceries, and turn to give you a smile that acknowledges your success at motherhood before making her way gracefully out of the store.
You, on the other hand, will be soaked in sweat, partly due to the adrenaline coursing through your body after telling such a pack of lies, and partly due to the fact that you have been swaying from side to side for several minutes with the little guy in your arms hoping to make him too dizzy to cry. And finally, after waiting the excruciating last minutes as your groceries are scanned and bagged, and your baby does indeed begin to wail, you will be free to go, having navigated a successful morning out.
On your way to the parking lot you will vow to:
Afterall, even rookie moms know the value of comfort food.
Angel Rutledge is a novelist and freelance writer who masquerades as a slightly off-the-wall stay at home mom. The pair of rambunctious children often seen hanging from her every limb screaming obscenities like, “Mine! Mine! Mine!” are the impetus for much of her writing.
A former creative writing and English teacher, Angel taught at a magnet school for gifted students in Virginia Beach, VA for several years. While there, she developed and published curriculum, wrote winning grant proposals and lead the faculty in its two year school accreditation process. As a bonus, she also picked up cool phrases from her students like, “He’s all that and a bag of chips.”
After having her daughter and moving to Los Angeles, CA in 1999, Angel pursued her second passion of writing. She took classes through the UCLA Extension Program with instructors Lynne Hightower, Aimee Liu and Claire Carmichael. At this time she is working on her third fiction novel, a mommy lit. story entitled P.I. Mom: The Homeland Assignment.
In addition to writing novels, Angel is compiling a nonfiction book, Real Moms Speak: Wisdom from the Trenches, in which the true experts on motherhood voice their parenting insights. For more information on the book and to contribute your writing go to www.RealMomsSpeak.com.
Angel is also a freelance writer. Most recently, she wrote the discussion guide for the award winning video The Sparky Chronicles and published Good Kindling Wood and other Uses for Parenting Books on Charlottemommies.com
Three months ago she moved with her husband and two children to Charlotte, NC where they are learning to drink sweet tea and wave to all their neighbors.
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