she's just sayin'

This past Monday I picked up what’s left of my dignity, threw it on the ground and promptly drove over it in my new suburban mom SUV. In other words, I took Drew to baby story time at the local library. The whole experience was only forty five minutes but, oh! Where do I begin?

Well, why don’t we start at the beginning. The library is two floors, and the children’s library is on the second floor (we won’t get into why I think this is a poor planning choice, seeing as many children sit in STROLLERS! That require an ELEVATOR ride!). I ASSumed that baby story time was in the children’s library. So I wheel Drew into the small elevator, and shove us into the corner so that a nanny and her charge can get into the elevator with us. We arrive at level two and as the door opens the nanny realizes that we are not where we are supposed to be.

“You’re here for baby story time?” the nanny asks.
“Yup,” I reply.
“Oh, yes, story time is down,” she says and points below us. I look at the elevator buttons and see an “LL”.
“Oh!” I say. “On the lower level?” Then awkwardly mutter something about how this is my first time. (Isn’t your first time always awkward?)

We get to the ‘lower level’ and as we roll our strollers down the hall I suddenly see where baby story time takes place. “Oh!” I say brightly to the nanny. “It’s in the audiTORium!” Meanwhile, I’m thinking, this library has an AUDITORIUM? Where am I? The seats are all wood, polished to a bright shine. The nanny deftly pulls over to the side of the hallway and pulls her charge out of her stroller. I ask if we are to leave our strollers outside of the auditorium and she tells me yes. Of course. We wouldn’t want to mar the impeccably spit and polished auditorium! Oh well, when in Rome…

Drew and I get into the auditorium and while I am trying to play it cool, trying to look like I know exactly what goes on at baby story time I look around for a friendly face – another mom who looks equally confused or in a state of disbelief that she, too, has ended up here – sitting on a giant rug featuring cartoon animals and waiting eagerly to begin reading a story that is likely no more than twenty-five words long.

Except, no such luck. First, I am one of maybe three moms in the place. The other fifteen or so women are nannies. A nagging SAHM insecurity creeps in: are the moms of these other children too important to attend an activity such as this? Are they all on critical conference calls, talking about important issues, shaping the geo-political landscape? Are the other moms busy trying to stop the oil leak in the Gulf? All while I sit on the animal rug, staring at the yellow duck, pondering whether we’re going to read The Very Hungry Caterpillar or Goodnight Moon?

My wonderings are interrupted by the arrival of the children’s librarian. She’s blonde and slightly overweight and very nervous. It seems today’s turnout is much larger than usual. I feel slightly sorry for this woman who keeps brushing her bangs out of her face and trying to raise her voice to an octave not usually acceptable in a library setting. I don’t imagine she’s a fan of public speaking. She’s a librarian after all; she chose a career in books. But there we are, fifteen women (and one man) and sixteen babies of varying ages, all waiting for something magical to happen.

The librarian starts off by waving hello to all of us with her stuffed tiger hand puppet. We then begin a round of nursery rhymes. Drew is whimpering, a tragic frown on his face and a lone, fat tear resting underneath his left eye. I don’t know if it’s all the babies or the unfamiliar environment or the suspicious brown tiger who can clap his paws together. I turn Drew to face me, shushing him and telling him that it’s ok, but on the inside even I kind of want to weep. We blow kisses at our babies, take pony rides to Boston, and all the while Drew is one cry away from a full-blown meltdown. We sing Baa Baa Black Sheep and a stuffed black sheep comes out of the librarian’s bag of tricks, jumping up and down and encouraging us all to sing along. When we get to the nursery rhymes he recognizes he calms down a little, but he’s still not comfortable. I don’t blame him.

The whole event ends with a rousing rendition of Ring Around The Roses. We all have to get up and ‘dance’ with our babies around the circle. I bounce Drew in my arms and continue to whisper ‘it’s ok, it’s ok’. We drop down to the animal rug at the chorus ‘ashes, ashes, we all fall DOWN!’ and with that, I see the very last shred of my dignity disappear into the rarified air of the auditorium.

Oh, baby story time. I’ll see you next month.

I know I’m supposed to ‘enjoy every moment’ with my son and ‘treasure it all’ because it ‘all goes by so fast’ but can I confess that I’m a little bit eager for Drew to get to an older stage? There are so many fun places we could go to around here, so many fun activities we could do together. I want to take him into Manhattan on the train. I want to take him to the aquarium. I want to take him to a simple playground, for chrissake. But it’s too soon.

Drew is nearly five months and yes, this past month has been one of incredible leaps in his development. It’s blowing my mind how fast he has morphed from a sleeping, shitting blob to something that more closely resembles a human. There are things he LIKES. Granted, they are nothing more than funny voices, silly faces, and tickling motions, but all of a sudden I know what to do to make him smile, or even laugh. It’s great. But I’m greedy. And like anything else that’s good, rather than revel in the goodness, I find myself wanting more. More, more, more.

I’ve been looking up various activities to do with Drew. I’m open to anything. Music, sports, outdoors, indoors, I really don’t care what it is. I just want to Do Things with him. But I haven’t really found much that you can do with a baby under six months old. It’s like you’re in a holding pattern from birth to six months. Just make it through parents, then we’ll talk.

I know six, eight, ten months, even a year isn’t far off. And before I know it we’ll be so busy that I’ll be longing for the days when I could just pop Drew in the stroller and go out to lunch somewhere without having to tell him to sit still, be quiet, hands off the table. But right now? I’m a little bored. A little lonely. I want a little more out of my sidekick.