“I’m totally surprised,” I promised him. “What is this?”
“Your baby shower,” Mom said, coming in for a hug of her own.
I blinked, my eyes going around the room. “Wow, that’s really… wow,” I said, taking in the decorations. My living room had been entirely transformed into a sea of pink and blue streamers. Cardboard baby bottles, pacifiers and carriages had been plastered on every square inch of wall space. And in the center of the room stood a six foot tall, plastic stork.
I turned to find Dana grinning behind me.
“Did you know about this?” I asked.
She nodded, pure white teeth smiling from ear to ear.
“And you didn’t warn me?”
She shrugged. “It was surprise.”
“I’m totally interviewing for a new best friend,” I mumbled to her as Marco grabbed my right hand, Mom grabbed my left, and together they dragged me to a chair set under the stork.
“Presents,” Mom instructed my cousin, Molly. “She’s in shock. She needs a present!”
A second later a package wrapped in yellow paper was thrust into my lap, fifteen eager eyes turned my way, as Mom instructed, “Open it.”
“This one’s from me,” Molly said. Molly had four kids, short brown hair cut into a Tipper Gore bob, and a mini-van with at least a box and a half of Cheerios shoved down the seats. Molly was all my greatest fears about motherhood wrapped into one loafer-wearing package.
I carefully pulled the paper back, lifted the lid of the cardboard box beneath, and pulled out a cone-shaped thing covered in little blue teddy bears.
I held it up, raising an eyebrow at Molly.
“It’s a Peepee Teepee!” she proudly exclaimed.
“A what?”
“You put it on a baby boy’s wee-wee so that he doesn’t shoot you in the eye with pee-pee while you’re changing his diaper,” she explained.
I looked down at the cone. “Does that actually happen?”
Molly laughed. “All the time.”
Another great reason to cross my fingers for a girl.
“Mine next,” Mom said, thrusting a package at me covered in little green boats.
I pulled at the tissue, digging around inside the bag, and came out with what looked like a tiny, blue straightjacket.
“What’s this?” I asked, that familiar bubble of panic settling in as I realized I didn’t know what any of this stuff was.
“A baby carrier!” my mom announced, taking it from my hands and proceeding to wrap it around my middle. “Now you can have your baby strapped to you wherever you go.”
“Actually, I’m really kind of looking forward to not carrying a baby around on my belly,” I protested as she continued to strap me in.
“You’ll love this,” she said, completely ignoring me. “You can have you hands free this way.”
“Can’t I just put the baby down and have my hands free?”
Mom stopped strapping and looked at me in horror.
“I’d put her down gently,” I promised.
But she just clucked her tongue at me.
About a hundred straps later, Mom was done, and I had what looked like a kangaroo pouch strapped to my front.
Mom reached into my Santana bag, grabbed Baby-So-Lifelike, and shoved the vinyl doll into the pouch. “There! A perfect fit!”
I opened my mouth to protest, but didn’t get a chance.
“The games are ready!” Marco announced, clapping his hands together. “Everyone come out to the backyard. We have some fabu party games ready!”
Reluctantly, I followed, trying (without much luck) to wiggle out from the straightjacket’s grasp as I made my way into the backyard.
California real estate being worth what it was, yards in L.A. were generally small patches of semi-green (thanks to our perpetual droughts) grass. But Ramirez had made the best use possible of our small outdoor space, building a stone patio to one side of the lawn, which was at present filled with rows of tables clad in bright yellow tablecloths. Covered in yellow ducks. Wearing yellow baby bonnets. In the center of each one was a metal baby carriage overflowing with pink and blue flowers.
“Maddie, you sit here,” Marco said, indicating a spot at the head of one table. “We’re going to play Name That Food.”
Okay, now we were getting somewhere. Food was good. I didn’t dare hope he was bringing out burgers, but my growling stomach wasn’t in the mood to be too picky right about now.
“Everyone take a seat,” Marco instructed. “I’m handing out plates of baby food. Your mission is to taste each one, then guess as many flavors correctly as you can.”
Mom took a spot next to me, Gunnar taking the one on the other side and Molly sitting beside him as Marco set down paper plates with several little piles of colorful mush on each.
I sniffed at the plate. Okay, whoever called this “food” had a loose interpretation of the word. I gingerly stuck my finger in a pile of purple mush and tasted it on the tip of my tongue.
Huh, not so bad, actually. Plum if I had to guess. I wrote my answer down on the yellow notepad Marco had provided, then moved on to the next pile.
This one was orange. I stuck my finger in and gave it a lick.
Then immediately regretted it.
I wrote “chicken vomit” on my pad.
I hesitantly tried the next pile, a pale green one. It was a cross between cold pea soup and kindergarten paste.
I made a mental note to never feed my child this. It was tantamount to child abuse.
After completely failing at the baby food test (the answers were Prunes, Chicken and Rice, and Peas and Carrots), Marco brought out the next game.
“Baby Jeopardy!” he announced. “I’ll call out a question, and the first person to shout out the answer, in the form of a question,” he added, “wins. Everyone ready?”
I sat up straighter in my chair. I had read What to Expect When You’re Expecting at least three times, cover to cover. I’d even memorized the first two chapters of What to Expect the First Year. This one I could do.
“What,” Marco asked, reading off of a little yellow index card, “is the age at which babies first learn to crawl?”
“What is two!” I shouted out.
Mom turned to me. “Years?”
I bit my lip. “Um… months?” I said, though it came out more of a question.
Mom looked down at Baby-So-Lifelike with something akin to sympathy in her eyes.
“Sorry, that’s incorrect,” Marco said shaking his head. “Anyone else?”
My cousin, Molly, raised her hand. “According to the American Academy of Pediatricians, most babies hit that developmental milestone between the ages of six and ten months. So, what is six to ten months?”
“Correct!” Marco said. “Very impressive honey. One point for the woman with the fabu bob.”
Molly preened in her seat.
“No fair,” I mumbled under my breath. “I haven’t gotten to that chapter yet.”
“Next question,” Marco announced. “At what age do babies get their first tooth?”
I wisely stayed silent on this one, letting my cousin, Molly, shout out an answer again. “Most pediatricians agree that children will get their first deciduous tooth between the ages of four and seven months.”
“Correct!” Marco said. “But you didn’t phrase it in the form of a question.”
Molly’s face fell.
“Okay, next question. How long do most pediatricians recommend you breastfeed your baby?”
“What is twelve months!” Mrs. Rosenblatt shouted out this time.
“Correct!” Marco said. “One point for the lady in the fashionable muumuu!”
“Wait,” I said, leaning toward my mom. “Didn’t he just say that babies get their first teeth at four months?”
Mom nodded.
“And then we breastfeed for another eight months?”
She nodded again.
My nipples cringed. Suddenly feeding The Bump pea-puke baby food didn’t sound like such a bad idea after all.