My growing library of baby manuals conflicted widely about when you should first give a baby solid food. One book said that if Sarah had anything other than milk for her first six months, she would have a much greater likelihood of being obese later.
Talk about a guilt trip. As well as worrying about turning my child into a responsible, non-drug-taking adult, now it seemed her waist size was my problem too.
Flicking to the end of the second book in the pile on the coffee table, I ran my finger down the index. ‘Feet, inward turning’, ‘Follicles, clogging’. I shook my head, convinced that these books could turn a well-balanced and confident mother into a paranoid stress ball.
Locating ‘Food, when to’ I turned to page 252 as directed but the commentary was vague and I couldn’t find any enlightenment about exactly when I should start.
Snapping the book shut, I decided to consult my most reliable reference material – Karen.
‘Karen,’ I pleaded as soon as she answered the phone, ‘I need some adult contact and some advice. Could I drop around?’
‘Sure,’ she replied. ‘As long as you can live with some minor pandemonium. Emily has two friends over and they’re charging around the house like demons.’
As I’d spent the morning in the house with Sarah, pandemonium sounded like a welcome change.
Swinging my ‘MacGyver Bag’ (as Debbie insisted on calling it, given that she was convinced I could pull something out of it to cover any eventuality) onto my shoulder and sticking my sunglasses on my head, I picked up Sarah and headed out.
As Karen opened her front door, three figures darted out from behind her and raced past me.
‘Sorry, Sophie,’ she apologised as I blinked in surprise. ‘Sam took Emily to the movies on the weekend and every time I walk around a corner I come across her pointing a gun at me and yelling, “Freeze!” Anyway, come in.’
Once we were inside, Karen reached over and took Sarah from me. ‘Hello, sweetheart,’ she said, balancing Sarah in the crook of her arm in a way I still hadn’t mastered. Sarah rewarded Karen with a smile as I followed them into the kitchen, which was the nerve centre of the Jackson household.
It took up the entire front corner of the house and the morning sun streamed in the big windows, lighting up the marble benchtops and forming puddles of light on the huge pine table.
Pat, Karen’s youngest, was in a highchair at the end of the table and with great concentration was smearing his piece of Vegemite-coated bread across the armrests. Kissing him on the head (about the only part of his body not covered in black paste), I seated myself beside him.
Karen propped Sarah in a corner of the big yellow armchair next to the window and gave her a rattle. ‘Emily and co shouldn’t be able to stomp on her there,’ she said. ‘Right, coffee?’
I nodded vigorously and Karen moved across to turn on the chrome coffee machine on the corner of the bench. When she had finally accepted that the pain factor of taking Emily to a coffee shop far outweighed the enjoyment she got from the experience, she had bought a top-of-the-range coffee machine and tried to grab at least ten minutes to herself each day to sit in the yellow armchair, read the newspaper and drink her coffee.
While I still loved the time I spent with my childless friends, I definitely felt more relaxed in Karen’s busy house where a crying baby or a leaking nappy weren’t even worth mentioning. Karen twisted the knob on the side of the coffee machine and it made a comforting hissing noise as she began steaming the milk.
‘So what was the advice you needed?’ she asked.
‘I’m trying to figure out when I should start giving Sarah solid food,’ I said.
‘Oh, damn. Is that all?’ she replied, obviously disappointed. ‘You know that as a happily married woman I need to live through you. I was hoping you had a torrid sexual dilemma for me.’
‘Okay, okay,’ she continued on seeing my expression. ‘You’ve probably been stressed out by the books telling you that you can cause all kinds of lifelong problems for your children if you start feeding them at the wrong time or feed them the wrong foods.’
‘Exactly,’ I nodded.
‘Well, forget it,’ Karen said as she put the coffee cups under the machine and pressed the button to half fill them with coffee. ‘As far as I can see from my tireless research at years of playgroups, it doesn’t matter a bit. Just do it when you feel like it, although, trust me, the novelty wears off very quickly,’ she added, nodding at Pat who was now pulling his bread into pieces and dropping them over the side of his chair. ‘But on to more interesting topics. How was your weekend?’
I’d been trying to put Max out of my mind but it was no use. While my situation probably didn’t qualify as a ‘torrid sexual dilemma’, it was certainly something I needed to talk to someone about.
‘I saw Max yesterday,’ I said, spooning sugar into the coffee she had set in front of me and stirring it absently. ‘We had a picnic at Bondi and it was just like old times. He brought loads of great food and a nice bottle of wine and we sat and talked for a couple of hours.’
‘And?’ Karen pressed, sensing there was more.
‘He kissed me.’
Karen breathed out in a soundless whistle and looked intently at me. ‘And?’ she asked again.
‘And I kissed him back,’ I said. ‘God, Karen, I don’t know what to think. I was starting to convince myself that I was getting over him, but now I don’t know.’
‘How was he with Sarah?’
‘He seemed really taken with her. He kept looking at her and talking to her. But nothing has changed. The only reason he’s over here is because of work. Kissing me doesn’t change the fact that he doesn’t want a proper relationship and doesn’t want to be a father.’
‘Is he enjoying San Francisco?’ Karen asked.
‘I think so,’ I said. ‘His work is going well and it sounds like he’s living life pretty hard socially.’
Now that I’d started talking about Max, I didn’t seem able to stop.
‘I’ve thought about it a lot,’ I continued, ‘and I figure that even if Max vowed undying love to me now and said he wanted Sarah too, it still wouldn’t work. He’s lived happily without me for a year and didn’t even know what Sarah looked like or what we were doing until he arrived in town for his pitch three weeks ago.’
‘Are you going to see him again?’
I shrugged and went to pick up Sarah, who had grown bored with looking around the kitchen.
‘Who knows. I don’t think even Max knows what he wants. It’ll probably be best for all of us when he goes home. Although he’s talking about moving back here to buy a farm.’
‘That’s something the two of you talked about from time to time, isn’t it?’ Karen recalled.
‘Yes,’ I answered miserably.
‘Back to food,’ said the ever-sensitive Karen, changing the subject. ‘I’ll bet you’ve been given at least one book of recipes for babies.’
‘Yeeess . . .’ I answered cautiously, not sure where she was leading.
‘Let me save you hours in the kitchen,’ she said. ‘I guarantee that whatever book you’ve been given was written by a woman who was a gourmet cook and determined that her child wouldn’t eat boring food. So she adapted her recipes to suit her children and serves them things like asparagus and chicken risotto and Mediterranean couscous. But she’ll promise you that it takes no time at all and that the recipes will produce enough to feed your child for a week.’
Karen paused and then narrowed her eyes. ‘Don’t believe a word of it. I got the guilts after months of feeding Emily various combinations of mushed vegetables, and so tried a couple of those recipes. They took me hours and I managed to use every pan in the house, and to add insult to injury, Emily wouldn’t have a bar of them. So I went back to the boring basics and now I have trouble keeping Emily away from all the olives, anchovies and capers in the fridge.’
‘Potato and pumpkin it is,’ I laughed, once again comforted by Karen’s practicality.
Later, as I turned back to wave goodbye to Karen, who was standing in the doorway watching me leave, her eyes suddenly widened in surprise. She smiled ruefully as she raised her hands in surrender and turned back into the house, trailed by three little girls with their guns pressed firmly in her back.