EPISODE 3 EPISODE 3“Do you want a boy or girl?” I asked, lazing in bed, seven months pregnant on a Saturday morning in 1995. Francis and I gazed languidly through the lace sheers billowing over our bedroom window at the sun-soaked cypress tree in our little Fort Ord, California, back yard.
Without the early morning responsibilities a baby would soon bring to our weekends, we were free to lie around, listen to the chirping birds, and wonder what our life might bring.
On sunny weekends, we might hike in Big Sur, stop at a local restaurant for fresh Monterey Bay squid steaks, or visit our friends’ house near Lovers Point for cookouts. On rainy Saturdays and Sundays, we rolled from our bed to the living room couch, watching old movies late into the afternoon in sweatpants and slippers, only running out for popcorn and take out.
We believed working all week entitled us to self-indulgent weekends. Little did we know—after less than two years of marriage—having a baby would strip us of that luxury for good.
“Well,” Francis responded after a pause to imagine our future as parents, “I think I’d look good carrying a girl around.”
How odd, I thought.
I had assumed my question would prompt him to compare and contrast the experiences he might have raising a son or daughter. Would he want to fish with his son? Throw baseballs in the yard? Or would he prefer to be called into his daughter’s room for tea parties? Instead, Francis expressed his preference for a boy or a girl based solely upon which one might complement his physical appearance.
“What do you mean, you’d look good carrying a girl around?” I hoped this man with his arm draped possessively over my swollen belly was not a closet narcissist intent on using his offspring as a wardrobe accessory.
“You know what I mean,” he retorted, clearly assuming anyone when asked the same question would think first of his appearance. “When I imagine being a father, I see myself walking around with a little girl wearing pink booties and a lace bonnet and all that.” He went on to describe how other people might see him in public and think, “Oh, look how cute that dad is over there, carrying his sweet little baby girl.”
I listened, trying desperately to understand Francis’s point of view, but I was worried. Are we too selfish to be parents?
“It’s a boy!” the obstetrician announced two months later. Hayden Clark Molinari entered our world on a rainy spring evening in 1995 weighing in at nine pounds. Selfish or not, ready or not, Francis and I became parents.
In an instant, our priorities were forever reordered. We lost ourselves in a blur of diapers, bottles, blankets, booties, thermometers, teensy nail clippers, and early morning feedings. Francis didn’t notice I looked like I’d been hit by a Mack truck, and I couldn’t have cared less he was wearing the same spit-up-stained sweatshirt for three days in a row. We were too caught up in the sheer wonder of the little bundle of ten toes and ten fingers we’d created.
The rest of the world simply melted away.
Francis eventually got his baby girls. Anna—who came out with an inordinate number of dimples in her chin, cheeks, knees, knuckles, and tush—was born under the stern but gentle direction of an Irish midwife while we were stationed in Molesworth, England, in 1998. Anna would become our talker, driven to create and implement her own ideas, which usually involved bossing her little sister around.
Lilly came during our next tour in Virginia and was the quintessential third child: happy-go-lucky, resigned to being bossed around by her older siblings, and content to tag along.
Although Francis no longer mused about how his children made him look, he never completely gave up his interest in his own appearance. Parenthood didn’t cure him of checking himself out in shop windows, even sneaking a peek at his backside, or demanding to be photographed when feeling particularly dapper. On the dance floor, he still played to the crowd, forgetting he was supposed to be dancing with me.
But, when we became parents, Francis’s responsibility to our family became his main concern. To me, there’s nothing more attractive.