She was when we left for New Mommy Pilates class--the most beautiful baby in the world. The stork bite marks and baby acne were temporary. Hopefully we've prevented future scratches on her by filing her nails while she nursed. When she smiles, she smiles more brightly than any other human. No one has as beautiful a smile as she.
It's Day Two of our 10-day Post-Natal Pilates series, meant to help Mommy from continuing to piss herself 20 minutes after drinking a glass of water, and to help put her back in her skinny jeans (or, at least her fat jeans). When people ask her why she's going to Pilates she says it's to get out of the house and to have some quality time with her baby girl. But really, it's to fit back into her jeans.
That doesn't mean she doesn't appreciate quality time, but she knows full-well that most quality time with the baby occurs when she's half naked with a breast pump on one boob, her baby girl on the other, not when she's laying with a yoga ball between her knees, tucking in her tummy and praying that she won't wet herself.
Liv isn't too excited about class today she prefers to keep sleeping; she screams when Mommy puts her into her carrier and locks her into the car seat. She screams when Mommy gets off the highway and finds herself stuck in traffic due to an accident ahead. She screams the whole time that Mommy lugs her 500-lb portable car seat into the Pilates studio, apologizing profusely when the seat accidentally dings a wall and hits a cactus.
Mommy is particularly proud of herself, because she's brought Liv to class early, as was requested, so she could nurse her screaming, hungry baby right before. The thinking makes sense: feed baby now and let her sleep for the next hour. One other woman is going to be in the class, though she hasn't yet showed. Mommy feels quite proud of herself for managing to get her baby to calm down and nurse peacefully.
As class is about to start, the other mom arrives, also lugging a "portable" car seat. She looks fairly calm; "she hides it well," Mommy thinks. She sets up next to the bouncy chair where Liv lies calm, peaceful, and beautiful.
She places her little boy, clad in a midnight blue velour jumper, into the bouncy chair, where the class baby sitter could play with him. I'm not sure if this is a proper word to use to describe this baby, who is Asian, perhaps Phillippino, like his mother, but darker, like gooey caramel, and his face as smooth as if his caramel skin was stretched taught over the most perfect, round apple. He is stunning.
Mommy figures he must be older than Liv.
"When was your Little Guy born?" I ask.
She tells me. After digging around for more specifics I glean that he's five hours older than Liv. Hah, he's had plenty of time to round himself out. Liv is still a newborn for God's sake.
As we start our stretches, the Little Guy coos and Liv sleeps.
"He's beautiful," the instructor says to the other woman, and not in that way that everyone is supposed to say it to new parents. She says it with a tinge of disbelief, as in "How in the world could a baby turn out to be THAT beautiful?" I smile and wait for a reciprocal comment about my sleeping beauty, but there isn't one.
"You must just look at your baby all the time," the instructor says to the other woman.
"I do," She and I both reply.
Near the end of the session, Little Guy has graduated from cooing to crying, and his mother has to stop to attend to him. I feel proud now to see Liv still conked out in her bouncy chair, nonethewiser.
I can't help but notice the Little Guy's cries--not exactly lusty, but more like little "wah's", almost polite.
"Liv will sleep though anything," I say.
"Uh oh," the Babysitter says ominously,"She's waking up."
I'm doing leg lifts and secretly mouthing to myself--"Please-let-me-get-to-my-left-side-please-let-me-get-to-my-left-side." I start picking up the pace, prompting the instructor to remind me to slow down.
"Didn't you nurse right before class?" I'm asked. I nod my head yes.
Then, it erupts. The babysitter provides 1.5 seconds of warning.
"Here she goes," she says.
"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
I know that cry. It says, "You thought that 10 minutes of nursing would cut it? You silly, silly woman. I hate you Mommy! I hate you!"
"She's got lungs," I say, somehow needing to explain why my child could be a military weapon.
"Let's stop here," the instructor says. I get up and go to Liv.
"And you'll want to change that diaper," the babysitter says, "she just made a big one." For a second I think she's talking about me.
"She's quite the pooper," I say, inexpicably acknowledging that my child has a digestive system.
While the instuctor and the babysitter leave the room, I opt for the triage process for when she's screaming that I've honed over the past six weeks: Left boob, diaper change, right boob.
The other woman and I nurse our little ones, sharing notes on feeding and sleeping. She neatly packs her boobs in and places the Little Guy, now cooing, into his carrier.
"Maybe I'll see you next time," she says on her way out.
I smile back, not realizing that Liv has unlatched and milk is spewing out onto her face. I've forgotten my burp cloth in the diaper bag across the room and elect to collect milk in one hand, attempting to drop it into Liv's mouth and missing.
The instructor comes back to find I'm still there and leaves me to finish up. "Just close the door on your way out," she says. I nod and wave with my elbow. She doesn't know what I know is about to happen, looking down at Liv writhing. She will not be soothed today with extra boobage. She's tense, and my nipple is just a finger in the dyke.
She stays attached to me for 20 minutes and I start to get nervous--will the instructor come back to teach another session and find me here, milk stained and helpless? I apologize to Liv and pack her screaming into the baby carrier, realizing I've forgotten the "diaper" portion of my process.
"F&*$ it," I say to myself and shuffle back to my car.
Liv screams most of the way back home. I try to make up for it by offering up more boobs. She'll nurse for a while, then fall asleep. And then H-band will come home and ask me what smells and ask me why I didn't change Liv's diaper. And I'll say I forgot and please don't lecture me. And he'll change his cooing daughter and remind me that she screams because she's wet.
But for now I'll look at her, and she'll take a break from nursing, look at me, and smile. It's the most beautiful smile in the world. From the most beautiful baby in the world.
