From time to time I open my big mouth and say something that should prove once and for all that (a) my parents dropped me on my head when I was born or (b) I am starting to crack.
What happened is that two months ago Daughter Number One and her hubby had a baby girl who turned out to be Gracie, my first grandchild. Drunk with joy over being a “Grammy” at last, I stretched my high-flying happiness into a proposal to care for Gracie during the day when my daughter returned to her teaching job in the fall. Why should strangers care for my granddaughter when I am so perfectly capable? I mean, how hard is it to take care of a baby? Coincidentally, both of my daughters started out life as babies so I must know virtually everything there is to know about babies. Right? Furthermore, I did a pretty dang good job of rearing my own girls seeing as how they are functioning members of society who have never, to my knowledge, attended rock concerts in order to hurl pieces of flimsy underwear onstage.
So I was stunned to learn that practically overnight everyday baby items had transformed from simple, low-tech things to massively educational “smart” infant essentials, each comprised of several thousand moving plastic parts. Furthermore, these necessities require enough batteries to power New York City’s subway system. Everything jumps, jiggles, vibrates, hums, warms, whirs, plays songs and lights up like a Broadway musical to stimulate today’s babies into major sensory-induced frenzies. Warning: don’t let anyone tell you that you can raise a well-adjusted child without enough baby stuff to fill an airplane hangar. And in today’s baby gear market, “educational” equates to “severely expensive.”
Back in the real world, the assigned day arrived, and I reported for “Granny-Nanny” duty able to change a diaper faster than a rodeo cowboy could rope a calf. I knew how to pull a warm diaper wipe out of the caddy, swab the “diaper area” in the most competent fashion (stopping short of waving a blow dryer over baby’s bottom post-wipe) and finish with a smooth coat of “Butt Paste.” I’m not making up the name of this product. I was ready for action. Piece of cake.
- 7:30am. Baby Gracie is sound asleep when I arrive; I prop up my feet to enjoy a hot cup of coffee. OK, what’s this? Two garbage trucks are making their way down the street. The racket sounds like machine gun fire only machine guns wouldn’t make this much noise. One of them must be backing up because a persistent “beep-beep-beep” blasts deafeningly. Watching her on the closed-circuit monitor I see Gracie stir and shoot a small fist into the air. If those trucks don’t wrap it up I’m calling the mayor to demand they be brought to a halt until a decent hour such as when her parents come home.
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8:15am. I take a bottle of milk out of the fridge, which my daughter efficiently obtained last night with the helpful (severely expensive) electric pump so Gracie can take advantage of Nature’s Best even when Mommy’s away. I am only slightly troubled that she may notice that the milk’s, ummm … “container” is not quite the same as when Mommy does breakfast, but she obligingly latches onto the bottle and downs two ounces. Except Gracie still has three ounces left in the bottle and is now sound asleep on my left arm. I notice a slight “eruption” leaking down her chin. I also notice her “burp cloth” is on the other side of the room but I am unable to move without waking her. Educational note: We moms in the Neanderthal ’70s and ’80s used burp cloths, too. We referred to them as “dish towels.”
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10:15am. My left arm has no feeling and my fingers have turned blue. Gracie stirs, so now I’ll feed her the remaining three ounces of milk. Oops! This doesn’t seem to be on Gracie’s agenda. Her plan is pitching a major fit because (a) I am not Mommy and (b) I am attempting to put a foreign object into her mouth, which is normally peachy because babies think stuffing everything including the family pet into their mouths is neat – but only when it’s the baby’s idea. Since this was not, in fact, Gracie’s idea, she launches into a major meltdown, engaging in the kind of screaming reserved for special occasions such as when your pastor makes a surprise visit to welcome the new baby.
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10:45am. To placate me because I’m on the edge of having a massive stroke, Gracie calmly finishes her bottle. Another Vesuvius-like eruption heads down her chin but the burp cloth is still several feet away. I am loath to disturb her peaceful mood by retrieving it, so I will grab something handy to mop her up with such as the drapes.
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11:45am. Is it still only Monday? I’m lying on the floor with Gracie and I’m not sure I can get up without the aid of heavy machinery. We’re here having “tummy time,” and I’m entertaining her by singing my entire repertoire of nursery rhymes that unfortunately consists exclusively of “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall.” OK, this is not, technically, a nursery rhyme and probably not on the approved list of baby songs but – hey! We’ve gotten to beer number 47 without a hitch.
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1:30pm. The dog has vanished, no doubt hiding under the bed until this nonsense blows over. I think I scared him when I mistakenly beckoned to him in baby talk. Meanwhile, we’re at beer number 12, and my singing voice has veered from slightly off-key to somewhere in the cracks.
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3pm. I’m staring vacantly into space. There’s a new twitch in my left eye. My daughter arrives, scoops up Gracie, plants a kiss on her chubby cheek and asks me how our first day together went. What I meant to say was, “Great! No problem-o. Piece of cake!”
What I think I said was, “Phhhwmmphhhggghllmmmph.”
Gale Hammond is a writer and freelance photographer who has lived in Morgan Hill
24 years. Reach her at [email protected].
