1
“Well? What do you think?”
Shirleen Cobb is hovering behind me like Trump at a debate. Her presence makes my kitchen feel smaller for some reason.
“What’s the pun?” I ask.
“What?”
“What’s the pun? You wrote ‘pun intended.’ But I don’t get what the pun is.”
Shirleen folds her arms across her ample torso and arches one bushy eyebrow at me. I can tell she thinks I’m kidding.
“I’m serious!” I start laughing.
“‘Branching out’! From the environmentally challenged club. Branch. Tree. Environment.” She is exasperated. “Jennifer, I swear, I thought you were clever.”
Aaaannd this is what I get for agreeing to help Shirleen write her first-ever Class Mom email.
“Okay, well, sure. Now I see it.” I don’t.
Hell must have frozen over, because Shirleen, after years of judging from the cheap seats, is now dipping her toe into the class mom swamp. This year is the first time her son Graydon and my son, Max, are not in the same class, and apparently no one else wanted the job in Graydon’s class—shocking, I know, what with all the fame and fortune that come with it. So, I guess the PTA president, Sylvie Pike, started pulling names out of a hat until she found someone who caved to her wily intimidation. I should know—she snagged me again with a combination of flattery and threats. That woman could talk a virgin into a threesome. I’m hoping Shirleen leaves soon so I can get my own email out to my class before the end of the day.
“Why did you address it to caregivers?” I ask her.
“The PTA sent out a note saying we shouldn’t use the word ‘parents’ anymore.”
This is news to me. I really shouldn’t delete every PTA email sight unseen. It’s just habit at this point.
“Why not?” I ask her.
“I guess not everyone is a parent.” She shrugs. “They don’t want to offend anyone.”
In my mind I wonder just how far this PC thing is going to go before we all just give up talking. But then I’m cheered up thinking about all the things I can call my class besides parents.
“The inspirational thought is a nice touch,” I say to Shirleen.
She beams. “Well, I thought so too. I just hope I can keep it up. I really started with my best one.”
“Are they all going to be Disney themed?” I ask this because “Hakuna Matata” seems like low-hanging fruit to me.
“I’m really going to try.” She says this as though it’s the most important task she’s taken on since motherhood.
I get up from the kitchen counter office and walk to the fridge to grab a LaCroix lime seltzer water—my new crack.
“Want one?” I ask my guest.
“No thanks. I don’t drink anything I can’t pronounce. But I was hoping to see that baby before I go.”
Ah yes, “that baby”—also known as the light of my life and the bane of my existence, all rolled into one perfect almost-two-year-old package.
“I don’t think she’s going to be up for another half hour. Italian for Toddlers really took it out of her this morning.”
Shirleen nods solemnly. “I get it. Learning a new language is hard.” She has clearly missed the sarcasm in my voice. “Well, I’ll just have to see her some other time.” She grabs her bright-red purse and slings it over her shoulder. “Thanks for the help. See you at the PTA breakfast.”
Oh no you won’t, I think as I watch her lumber out my back door and onto the streets of Overland Park, Kansas. As luck would have it, I have my annual Pap smear that morning, so I won’t be able to make it yet again, much to the annoyance of PTA president Sylvie Pike. I think it speaks volumes that I’d rather have my vagina scraped than break bread with my fellow class parents.
Just as I sit back down at my computer, fully intending to start my own class email, I hear Maude on the monitor. Yes, you read that right: Maude. The name my eldest daughter, Vivs, decided to saddle her baby with despite pleas from just about everyone not to (except my mother, whose middle name is—you guessed it!—Maude).
“Sweetie, please think about what you’re setting her up for,” I said to her more than once in the last month of her pregnancy. “‘Maude smells like a cod,’ ‘Maude is odd’—plus, she’s going to have a lifetime of people singing ‘And then there’s Maude’ to her.”
“Mom, only people your age remember that show, and you’ll all be dead soon. I love the name, and I want to do it for Nana. End of discussion.”
I really thought she’d have an eleventh-hour turnaround, but I was proven wrong when she took her newborn into her arms for the first time, smiled exhaustedly, and said, “Hi, Maude.”
So Maude she is, and Maude she will remain until she asks a judge to legally change it, which I really think is just a matter of time. As I run up to get her, I can’t help but sing the TV theme song to the rhythm of my feet hitting the steps. “Uncompromising, enterprising, anything but tranquilizing. Right on, Maude!”
I open the door to Vivs’s old bedroom, and Maude is standing in her Pack ’n Play, her dark curls damp with sweat and a smile on her face that I’m sure will be the death of me.
“Who’s that? Who’s that girl?” I needlessly ask. I have become a complete parody of a doting grandmother. I can’t help myself—something about this kid turns me to mush. I pick her up and take her to the changing table for a much-needed diaper swap.
“Did you have a good sleepy-bye, bunny?” I blow raspberries on her stomach, and she giggles. “My little Maudey mush!”
“Mom, please stop talking baby talk to her” is how Vivs announces her presence in the doorway. She is in her work attire of a blue shirt and black pants, and her long, dark hair is in a loose braid.
“She is a baby,” I mumble as I do up the snaps on Maude’s green onesie.
Vivs comes to the changing table and scoops her daughter into her arms. “Ciao, amore mio. Hai fame?”
I roll my eyes. “I see your Babbel lessons are coming along.”
Vivs sticks out her tongue, then marches downstairs to the kitchen. “Do you have any mango-carrot-cauliflower puffs?” she asks over her shoulder, her butt sticking out of the snack cupboard.
“Yes, they’re right beside the spelt-and-spirulina pretzels,” I say dryly. Vivs and I are in a constant tug of war about what is considered appropriate snack food for Maude because, apparently, I don’t understand her definition of eating clean. “There should be some Cheerios,” I offer.
“Cheerios are why I have asthma.”
Oh God, I can’t have this conversation again. According to my eldest daughter, everything I did for her as child has caused adult-onset you-name-it.
I sigh. “How about some homemade applesauce?”
She smiles. “Now you’re talking!” She tickles Maude. “Nonna è così divertente a volte!” To me she says, “I just told her how funny you are sometimes.”
Yes, I’m hilarious. In fact, these past two years have been a yuk a minute as I have endeavored to understand Vivs’s unique parenting style, which can best be described as a cross between Mary Poppins and the surgeon general.
I wasn’t supposed to be this involved. The plan was for Vivs and her younger sister, Laura, to live together and raise the baby. I, on the other hand, had planned to sashay in a few times a week and turn their chaos into order with my vast knowledge of parenting and life skills.
But three very unexpected things happened after Maude was born. The first was that Laura followed her culinary aspirations and took a job as a chef at a nursing home. Unfortunately, this forced her to renege on her promise to be home during the day to help Vivs raise her baby.
The second was that Maude came out looking so much like Raj, Vivs’s on-again, off-again boyfriend and one of four potential baby daddies, that there was absolutely no question who the father was.
And the third was that Vivs decided to let Raj know he had a daughter. She made it clear this was an FYI situation and she wasn’t looking for support of any kind. She was the only one who was surprised when Raj jumped in with both feet and now comes from Brooklyn every weekend to see her.
“Well, what did you expect?” I wanted to know. “Of course he wants to be involved. You’re lucky he’s even civil to you after you kept this from him.”
Vivs resisted the visits at first, but it’s been over a year now, and I think she is resigned to Raj being a part of Maude’s life. There is no sign they will rekindle their own romance, but at least they are united in their love for their daughter.
But with Laura working all day, Vivs needed someone to watch Maude. Before she was born, I would have been all for just putting the kid in full-time day care, but that changed as soon as I laid eyes on her. Have I mentioned the smile? She’s with me three days a week, and although it’s freaking exhausting, I love every minute of it. Thus my constant battle with Vivs over what is good for the baby.
“How was work?” I ask.
“Slow. We spent most of the day cleaning out the storage room.”
A few months ago, Vivs was appointed temporary manager of the Jenny Craig where she works when her boss, Caroline, took a job at the corporate office. Since she took over, new enrollment has slowed down a bit, and Vivs seems to be taking it personally.
“You’ll pick up in the new year.”
“Tell me something I don’t know,” she grumbles as she spoons applesauce into Maude’s mouth and then some into her own. “Mmmm. This is good. È buono, Nonna!”
“Your grandmother made it,” I inform her. “Something she never did for me—or for you, I might add.”
“Well, you should have named me Maude. How’s she doing, anyway?”
I shrug. “The same.”
The back door opens, and my husband, Ron, storms in—soccer cleats in hand—looks at me, and says, “You deal with him.”
By “him” he means our ten-year-old son, Max, who comes skulking in about ten seconds later, also carrying his cleats.
“What happened?” Vivs and I ask at the same time.
Max comes over and buries his face in my chest. I look at Ron.
“We were having a great time, playing soccer with all his friends and their dads, and all of a sudden he took a swing at Zach.”
“Which Zach?” I ask, for clarification. Max is best friends with Zach T. and Zach B. but not so much with Zach E.
“Zach E.”
I figured as much. I gently pull Max’s head away from my chest and cup his cheeks in my hands.
“Why, sweetie?” I ask kindly. Ron’s look tells me he doesn’t approve of the velvet-glove approach.
“I don’t want to talk about it right now,” Max says quietly. “Can I go to my room?”
I furrow my brow. “Okay. But we’re not done with this.”
Max kisses Maude’s head, then tramps up the stairs. I give Ron a curious look. “Were you trying to be Coach Ron again?” Ron has been pushing Max toward sports since the day he came out of my womb, with little success. God knows what he had to promise him to get him to play soccer today.
“No! I wasn’t even on the field. I was talking to Buddy when it happened.”
“Buddy was there?” I’m surprised. My friend Peetsa’s ex-husband doesn’t come around much anymore—not since he knocked up his twenty-four-year-old girlfriend and announced he’s getting married again.
“I was surprised too.”
“Anything newsworthy to report?”
“He got an earring.”
“Douche,” Vivs chimes in. She isn’t a fan.
“So, what did Max say happened?”
“He told me Zach E. said something to him that made him mad, but he wouldn’t tell me what.”
“Was Dean there?” That’s Zach E.’s father.
Ron shakes his head. “I guess he got deployed again. It’s his third tour.” He sniffs himself—“I’m going to take a shower”—and heads for the stairs.
“Don’t use my razor!” I yell after him.
As I’m finishing my sentence Laura glides in the back door, carrying a shopping bag. I can’t help but smile. I really am happiest when all my chicks are home … even for a few minutes.
“Free Vaseline samples, courtesy of Chateau Geezer.” She plops the bag on the kitchen table.
Vivs lunges for it and looks inside. “Really? What’s wrong with them?”
“Nothing! Bianca gave them to me ’cause they’re kind of a useless size for her.” Bianca is the head nurse at Riverview Assisted Living, the retirement home where Laura works.
Laura grabs a coconut water from the fridge and sits beside Maude and Vivs. “Hello, Maude Squad!” Maude squeals with delight as Laura loudly kisses her cheek.
“Why don’t you all stay for dinner?”
They look at each other. “What are you making?” Vivs asks.
“Bees’ knees and snake eyebrows.” It’s the answer I always gave them when they were little.
“I’m in,” Laura chirps. “It can’t be any worse than the crap I had to feed my old people today.”
“I thought they were going to let you create your own menu?”
“They are. But I’m still working through all the dietary restrictions. Until then, it’s creamed beef on toast.”
Copyright © 2021 by Laurie Gelman
