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My husband, Jim, greeted us at the front door with a finger to his lips.
I kissed him and whispered, “I didn’t know you were home.”
“I just got here and relieved Kenny, but I have to say, he didn’t seem to want to go. Between playing with the kitten and eating pizza, he seemed pretty happy,” Jim said.
Paula made a beeline to the pizza box sitting on my coffee table. “I’m starved,” she said, flipping the box open. She let out a little shriek, loud enough to illicit a cry from Chloe in the other room.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“It’s empty!” she said.
Jim looked guilty. “Oh, I’m sorry...” He shrugged. “I didn’t know I was supposed to save you some.”
Paula socked Jim in the arm. “What did you think? Two nursing mothers who spent the day at the spa—”
Jim rubbed his arm. “I thought you ladies were getting brunch.”
“We got sidetracked by a crime—” Paula said.
“We don’t know it’s a crime, exactly,” I said. “Not yet anyway.”
Paula waved a hand at me. “Well, their décor is a crime at the very least,” she said over her shoulder as she left the living room to go to the nursery.
I started to trail her to peek in on Laurie, but Jim grabbed my arm. “What does she mean a crime?”
“Let me check on Laurie and I’ll fill you in.”
Jim nodded and retreated toward the couch.
I entered the nursery and found Laurie fast asleep in her crib. Chloe was in Paula’s arms and Danny was still napping in his Spiderman sleeping bag. Our kitten, Whiskers, was snuggled next to Danny, but she pried a sleepy eye open when she heard us, then sat up and stretched.
Paula winked at me as she settled Chloe into her portable car seat.
“I’ll get Jim,” I whispered. “He’ll carry Danny to your car.”
Paula nodded and mouthed to me. “We’ll talk tomorrow.”
While Jim helped Paula loaded her kids into the car, I opened a can of food for Whiskers.
When Jim returned, I said, “I’m starved, and my breasts are killing me. I really need to...” I glanced toward Laurie’s room. I always hated waking her from a nap.
Jim shook his head. “Let’s enjoy the quiet time. Why don’t you pump and I’ll order some food. How about Indian take-out?”
My mouth watered at the thought.
“Yes,” I squealed, then covered my mouth, waiting for Laurie’s inevitable wake up cry.
Jim froze and we both waited, but only silence greeted us.
He gave me a thumbs-up and motioned for me to get on with pumping, while he dug out his cell phone and ordered our take-out in sotto voce.
Once I finished, I felt a lot better. I changed into some comfy clothes and as soon as the food arrived, we dug in.
“I can’t believe you’re hungry after eating my pizza,” I said, poking him in the ribs.
He shoveled a forkful of curry chicken into his mouth, then shrugged. “Honestly, Kenny didn’t leave that much.”
While we ate I filled Jim in on the events at the spa. He peppered me with questions I couldn’t answer until I finally said. “I’ll know more when we hear back from the M.E.”
He snuggled up to me. “Okay, I’ll stop with the questions. How about a movie?”
I glanced at the clock. I couldn’t believe evening was setting in. “I should wake Laurie or she’ll never sleep tonight,” I said.
“In a minute,” Jim said.
“Impromptu date night?” I asked.
He squeezed closer to me. “Uh hum,” he said, “Check this out.” He pulled up a video on his phone and hit play.
An image of Laurie propped on her tummy filled the screen. Her little voice chimed quietly through the speakers on his phone. “Daba daba daba!”
“Is this from today?” I asked.
Jim nodded. “Kenny took it and sent it to me. Watch this part.”
The video went on for several minutes with Laurie experimenting with her voice. Then the kitten ran across the screen and Laurie reached for her saying, “Kaaa, Kaaa.”
“Wow...”I said. “I’ve never heard her talk like that. Is she trying to say cat?”
Jim looked offended. “And dada!”
Now it was my turn to be offended. “What about mama?”
Jim laughed, but something inside me hollowed out. I hadn’t realized she was so close to saying her first word, and I’d almost missed it.
I’m home with her most every day, and the one day I have a date with a girlfriend she becomes a little chatter box! That didn’t seem fair.
“Kate?” Jim beckoned. “You all right?”
“It’s fine,” I said. “I guess, well, I just don’t like feeling like I missed anything.”
“Believe me, beautiful, I know how that feels. She’s developing so fast that you feel like you have to be on top of her not to miss something. But it’s okay. We have so many things to look forward to with her.”
“You’re right,” I said. “But, honestly, I feel like I’ve gotten behind.”
He frowned. “Behind on what? I take care of all the bills.”
I laughed. “No, I know. I meant behind parental duties.”
“Like what?” he asked.
“Everything,” I said. “I dunno... should I already have Laurie on a wait list for a pre-school?”
“She’s five months old,” he retorted with a slight snort.
“But if we want to get her in a good one, shouldn’t that be something we’re looking into?” I questioned. “Should we have already started a college fund? What if she gets into some smarty-pants school, do we have to tell her no because we can’t afford it?”
“That’s eighteen years away,” he said.
“But college is so expensive!” I exclaimed. “And we only have eighteen years to save for it.”
Suddenly Whiskers scooted across the floor, and I nearly shrieked in surprise, biting my lip to keep from doing so. The little kitten had been hiding under the couch while we chowed down on take out, and she’d suddenly decided to make her presence known. She ran down the hall and stopped right outside of Laurie’s room.
“That was weird,” Jim said, and almost immediately we heard Laurie start whaling.
“Awe, Whiskers knew she was up before we did,” I said. “Hold on, I’ll go get her. I missed my little sweetie today!”
I jumped up and scurried down the hall, opening up the door. Whiskers hurried past me and sat herself down under Laurie’s crib. Whiskers hated it whenever Laurie cried and always wanted to curl up with her to make her feel better. I had been a little hesitant about adopting a kitten with a little baby at home, but Laurie took to the little thing. They were best buddies now.
I picked Laurie up and took her to the changing table. “Hey, baby girl,” I sang as I pulled down her little fluffy white shorts. Laurie cooed and rubbed her sleepy eyes. “Mama, mama,” I prompted.
But Laurie only cooed.
I retrieved a clean diaper from the dispenser. We had a cute little fluffy bunny diaper dispenser – one of the slightly less bizarre gifts my mother had gotten Laurie. You pressed the little bunny’s head, and it shot out a clean diaper from its belly. Apparently it was good up until size three diapers.
I quickly finished changing her, then brought her out to the living room to snuggle with Jim and I. Whiskers followed suit and jumped on Jim’s lap, curling up to enjoy a relaxing evening.
Jim found a movie for us to watch and I tried to forget the horrors of the day, and enjoy the love that surrounded me. I even managed to get my to-do list updated before falling asleep that night:
To Do:
