BlogMa (PB Rippey)

When he wakes up at 1:40am, 3, 4, 5, 6:45am for good and amazingly you feel not bad, ready for the morning walk, which you do amicably together with no stroller horror, a fun walk despite the guy sweeping steps in front of the post office who makes a rude comment about cell phone users as you pass with your cell phone glued to your ear and who won’t look at you when you stop and turn and glare at this nasty, pavement-sweeping stranger and grapple with whether or not to leave him in a bloody mess on the steps of the post office for someone else to clean up, then realize, watching him sweep and grumble that you should try the path of non-reaction and compassion, trying, taking that with you as you cart your baby into the condo to find you’re going to be late to Coffee Talk with the fabulous mommies-and-babies because the cats have pissed all over your baby’s room, I mean ALL over, hitting curtains, cushions, your treasured full length Boppy pregnancy pillow you wanted to keep forever, the spongy pads of your baby’s primary colored ABC’s rug and while your baby watches Elmo and totally misses naptime because you can’t put him in the room with the chemical smell of that ineffectual, cat-piss-odor-eating solution you’ve been scrubbing into the carpet on your hands and knees and that the stupid guy on the radio swears by, because of scrubbing, the morning nap is thrown off and that’s too bad because you were timing it so that the second your baby woke up you’d be off to Coffee Talk and now you’re just off to Coffee Talk with the reek of cat pee stinging your nostrils and a tired baby and at least you remembered to bring the pumpkin bread, but you hardly Talk because your baby obsesses on the doorstop in the home’s little hallway, away from the fabulous mommies-and-babies and you notice the tip is missing from the doorstop, but you don’t ask the hostess if there’s supposed to be a tip because he’s in the little ball pit crawling over a younger baby, smashing vital digits and then he’s pulling at your dress, ripping the ripped pocket and you realize he must nurse and you take him home but it still stinks in his bedroom so you nurse him on the living room couch and he knows something’s up and refuses to sleep so you put him in his chair and offer him spinach, but he refuses it, which is unheard of and you wonder if after all there was a tip on that doorstop and he ate it and you telephone the Coffee Talk hostess to ask, hoping that if your son has indeed eaten the doorstop tip you will nevertheless be invited back for future Coffee Talk and the hostess isn’t sure if there was a tip, but just in case wisely advises you to watch for it in your baby’s poop and as you’re examining your baby’s diaper your husband phones and says he’ll be home late for lunch and in the meantime the laundry remains on the front stairs waiting for cat-piss removal and feral-mama-cat who lives below the building and whose kittens you and your husband “rescued” by trapping and taking them away from her gives you dirty looks because she not only wants the food you’ve promised her, but her babies back and she makes this known by wailing endlessly outside your front stairs, wails that rip out your heart and now your baby is in the poisons cupboard which you forgot to close and he is just reaching for that useless solution stuff when you catch him and he scream-cries when he hears your NO, NO and you soothe him distractedly as you change his diaper again, looking for the tip of that doorstop and then your husband is home and he plays with your son while you slurp down some soup because you’ve started your new yogurt/string cheese/lowfat soup diet of all days and you can’t breathe you’re so hungry and 30 seconds later your husband is leaving and you nurse your baby and put him in his crib having decided the reek has aired, but he won’t go down for another two hours and sleeps for 45 minutes and wakes up scream-crying and won’t go back down until he’s screamed and hated you for half an hour and then when he’s suddenly quiet you get scared because what if the tip of that doorstop traveled from his stomach to his windpipe and you peek around the door and he sees you and screams and you leave, humiliated, and tired, and finally he sleeps, but you can’t, you can’t, so you call your husband and tell him things have to change, you need more room, you need a herd of nannies, you are useless, a disgrace to mothers and by-the-way you want the cats euthanized and your husband listens even though you hear people clamoring for him and you disconnect and collapse and instantly your baby wakes up and you repent for the day of dubious mothering by staying down at his level of baby breath and drool and wild gibberish playing and playing and playing and playing as the sun sets behind the vacant lot next door and feral-mama-cat wails and your husband phones to tell you he will be late.