Last night we were cooing over the baby and I asked, in a sort of a hushed whisper, "Do you think we're delusional? Or is she really a cute baby? As cute as we think she is?"
"Defintely" declared AH. He would say that, she looks not a whit like me, except maybe her eyes. She's got this round little head and his lips (thank god) and her complexion is olive to say the least, speaking up loud and proud about her Dads Spanish and Hispanic relatives. And she's hit that point where their cheeks get all round and satiny and their thighs are biteable and before they drool all the time. I took her to see (yet another) daycare today to get on (yet another) waitlist - the woman ahead of me was 5 months pregnant, really planning in advance, maybe freakily so - hey, why don't we wait for the baby to be born and declared healthy before putting them on school and daycare waitlists? But I guess I'm the only one who thinks that's jinxing things. Anyway, we've largely been living in an isolated cave of Just Us for the last three months so I wasn't prepared for the sheer amount of fuss and attention she got.
"She's just like a little doll baby!" the teachers said over and over, as Simone obligingly smiled and wiggled. "Some babies are real ugly" one teacher confided "and then I have to say - oh nice rattle that baby has - rather than having to lie about the baby being cute! But you don't have that problem. She's just a doll."
This was all more gratifying than I thought it would be. One, it proved that AH and I aren't wearing "parent goggles" when we look at her (similar to beer goggles but less fun). Also, it is nice when people think your progeny is cute because you did have some part in it after all and there's this weird feeling of pride that you've never had before where I don't have to self-deprecate or play it down (no really, she's not that cute, it's just a good hair day for her) the way I would for myself.
But on the other hand, we're already in the kind of creepy trap of calling her pretty and beautiful and all those other girlicious things that I'm not entirely comfortable with. Which is overreacting but still...
No one is rushing to tell me how awesome I look these days because the truth is I don't. She hit three months old on the weekend and the excess baggage of flesh I picked up in making her shows no signs of just melting away the way nursing advocates claimed it would. It's gotten so bad, I won't have my picture taken with her because I can't stand to see it. Appearance-wise, everything is in the crapper right now. I feel genuinely heavy for the first time, though I have never been a lightweight. The thing about sagging bosoms is all true true true. I'm waxing every few weeks to keep up with my overachieving body hair. Meanwhile, my head hair has completely changed. I got my signature haircut on the weekend, hoping it would cheer me up about my appearance but the haircut I spent my whole life pursuing, one that could deal with my ultra-thick, wavy, flipped out hair, is apparently no longer applicable. My hair is now straight and flat and largely red. It's bizarre. So my hair sucks too.
The things I want - a membership to the gym, an eyebrow wax, a new lipstick and above all - new clothes! - are all out of the question because it has become apparent that with one income the money is tiiiiiiggght. Uncomfortably tight, like my old clothes. It's not that I'm not thrity, lord I am thrifty. I do buy second hand but dang, I pine for a sweet little spring jacket and some flats. A teensy hit of retail therapy to spur me to feeling better about myself. Because trust me, I like my insides fine but my insides can't manufacture me a pair of pants that fit. I have tried running because it is free but I have never ever liked running. Fitness tapes at home are okay but usually interrupted by baby and hard to get excited about doing over and over. I already walk everywhere everyday and it doesn't seem to be doing much. My yoga tapes are more meditation than hard work.
And food - ah, food. I love to cook, I love good food and right now it's my primary entertainment. I try to be and largely am sensible. But when I got some new asparagus and eggs and sage from the farmers market, can you blame me for steaming the asparagus, poaching the eggs and covering everything in a brown butter sauce with sage? And I got strawberries so why not make a pavlova, complete with whipped cream? Except the first time I made the whipped cream it had been sitting in the car for an hour or two so I inadvertently made butter, which was kind of thrilling in itself. So now that I had fresh, homemade butter, why not make some maple hazelnut bread to put it on?
And I wonder how I ended up this way.