“Wow,
baby, that had to be at least five feet!”
“How big is that, Daddy?”
“Bigger than you!”
Jeremy, Rosie, and I are sitting in
the backyard eating watermelon and spitting the seeds everywhere.
“I heard that if you swallow the
seeds, a watermelon will grow inside you,” Rosie tells us in between sputtering
the seeds out of her mouth. “Did you swallow a watermelon seed, Mommy?” She
fixes her eyes in wonder at my protruding belly, watermelon seeds still stuck
on her cheeks and lips.
“There’s something much more special
growing in Mommy’s tummy,” Jeremy tells her mysteriously.
“Gummy bears?” she asks me, in
wide-eyed awe like I’m Willy Wonka or something.
Jeremy frowns. “It’s not edible,
baby,” he tells her.
“Oh,” she says, and spits another
seed.
He meets my eyes and finally catches
sight of my cheeks.
“Laurie, what are you doing?” he
asks.
“You look like a squirrel,” Rosie
giggles.
I wink at her and start spitting the
seeds I have stored up.
There are a few things a husband
shouldn’t know about his wife. How loud she can burp, how much she spent on
this season’s Louis Vuitton handbag, how much she weighs, for instance. Jeremy
knows all of these things about me. He does not, however, know how far I can
spit watermelon seeds. This is also something he could do without knowing. But
I figured if he knew the other facts, he could deal with this one as well.
His mouth is agape as I hock the
last seed. This is the norm when he finds out things he probably shouldn’t
about me. Except for when he heard me belch for the first time. Most people
don’t want to hang around with their mouths open when someone burps. Especially
when that someone happens to be me.
Rosie, on the other hand, is
clapping and giggling wildly.
“Again!” she shrieks. “Again!”
I take another bite of watermelon and shoot a seed at Jeremy’s
nose.
He shakes out of his stupor and frowns at me.
“Were you impressed?” I ask.
“Because you spit seeds like a machine gun? Yes,” he
replies. “Because, aside from your monster burp, that was the most un-ladylike
thing you’ve ever done? No.”
Great. So he still remembers.
On the other side of Jeremy, Rosie is attempting to recreate
my fantastic spitting spree. She ends up choking on a seed.
“Nice,” Jeremy grumbles, while shooting me a dirty look and
handing Rosie a glass of water.
I shrug. “Well, at least someone
appreciates my talents.”
“Nice to know it’s someone who doesn’t know the meaning of
dignity yet,” he shoots back under his breath.
“What’s ‘dignity’?” Rosie interrupts, looking up at her
father, a strand of drool dangling from her mouth.
* * *
“Mommy look,” Rosie breathes. “It’s perfect.”
She pops out from behind a rounder filled with baby clothes
and shows me a white romper embroidered with watermelons.
“I think it would look very beautiful in this thing,” she
says admiringly, patting my tummy.
“Sweetheart, it’s not a watermelon,” I tell her.
“I know,” she
says, hands on her hips, rolling her eyes. “It’s two baby boys who will be my
younger brothers, and I will love them,” she recites. “But what if it’s a false
alarm?” she adds hopefully.
“You would rather me give birth to a watermelon than two
baby boys?”
“Watermelons are delicious,” she informs me.
I think about it. A watermelon just might be easier to give
birth to than twin boys. Certainly more easy to take care of. We’d just have to
leave enough room for it in the fridge. Although, that would put Jeremy out a
little. I mean less space for food and—no. Stop. I am having two baby boys. Not a delicious, juicy watermelon.
“You’ve seen the ultrasounds,” I remind her. “They clearly
look like two babies, not a watermelon.”
Rosie wrinkles her nose. “They do? And besides, they could
be wrong.”
“Who, the doctors?”
She nods, matter-of-factly.
I’m silent for a while, letting the absurdity of this claim
sink in.
She stands there and stares right back at me, like a
director watching an actor forget his lines.
It’s not sinking in.
“You think the doctors are wrong,” I repeat. “The doctors.
Who went to medical school. For eight years. Those doctors?”
She nods again.
“They’re not,” I say simply, and continue my walk through
the department store.
“But how do you know?
It could be anything in the world!”
I exhale sharply. “Based on everything I know about biology
and what your father and I did last Valentine’s Day, I’m pretty certain there’s
a baby growing inside me.”
She blinks a few times. “What does Valentine’s Day have to
do—”
“Never mind,” I cut her off and continue moving onward.
Rosie trails dutifully behind me, and eventually, we’ve
gathered enough clothes to make any associate’s sales goal.
“Do we have enough yet, Mommy?” Rosie groans. “They have
more clothes than me, and they’re not even people yet.”
I smile at her. “We just need one more thing.”
“Okay.”
I kneel down next to her with some effort. “Okay, love. I
want you to find something for yourself.”
She looks at me. “Seriously?” she asks.
“Seriously,” I laugh. “You’ve been a good shopper for Mommy
today, so you deserve something special for all your hard work.”
“But all I did was grab the same exact thing you did,” she
admits.
“And you saved Mommy half the work. Now go find something!”
And off she runs.
I sit down at the couch in front of the fitting room and
wait for her to come back. This pregnancy is a lot harder than Rosie’s was.
Everything from my knees down is swollen from the weight of these two boys.
Plus the process of going through childbirth twice in a row is a bit daunting,
especially since it took me seven years to get the courage to even think about having another child. Jeremy
says I was overdue, and that’s why I’m stuck with twins now. I think he devised
some maniacal plot to make me have twins. He was really adamant after Rosie was
born about having another baby. But I was more adamant about taking a break.
Childbirth creates ugly people. I have learned to control that ugly person and
use her to my advantage when needed. Together we make the perfect partners in
crime, fighting for abstinence for new mothers everywhere.
“I’ve found it!” Rosie races back to me, brandishing
something above her head.
“What did you find, baby?”
She proudly holds the prize out in front of her. It is a
bra. A gigantic bra.
“Is that really your size?” I ask.
She nods. “I asked the saleslady to help me,” she reports
proudly.
“And she gave you a 42 DDD nursing bra?” I ask, snatching a
glance at the tag.
“Yeah. I told her I wanted a bra and then I pointed at you
and said you told me to get it. Then she gave me this one. Look, it has
goldfishies on it!” she says, lovingly stroking one of the cups.
I glare at the lingerie saleslady. I want to tell her I’m a
34 C, when I remember that I’m pregnant. I look back at Rosie, who is excitedly
hopping from foot to foot, waiting for the moment to try on her new garment.
“That’s really what you want?” I ask.
“Yes, Mommy!” she
says impatiently.
“Alright,” I accede. “Go and try it on, then.”
She races into the fitting room.
“Are you doing alright?” the bra woman asks, approaching me.
“Just fine,” I tell her.
“What did you come in for today? Did you find what you’re
looking for?”
I blink a few times, look down at my heavily pregnant
stomach and then at the mountain of infant clothes keeping me company on the
fitting room couch. “Wine glasses,” I respond.
“Should you really be drinking in your—er—state?”
“No need to worry,” I say, patting my tummy. “I’m drinking
for three these days."
She quickly changes the subject. “How’s that nursing bra I
picked out for you?”
“It’s for my daughter,” I reply.
“Your daughter?” asks the lady. “Is—is she pregnant too?”
“Oh, no. She’s seven.”
“That’s a little young to be getting her first bra, don’t
you think?” she asks, feigning her judgment poorly.
“First?”
“Alright, then,” she says quickly. “My name is Marilynn. Let
me know if there’s anything else I can help you with.”
I tell her “thank you,” and she walks away.
“Finished!” Rosie says as she prances out of the dressing
room.
“Alright,” I say, heaving myself onto my feet. “Let’s go
pay.”
We walk to the register together. Out of the corner of my
eye, I see Marilynn speed-walking over to meet us.
“How’d everything work out?” she asks.
“They fit like a glove,” I reply, as she folds a set of
white onesies.
She gives a forced laugh and begins to ring up our items
without further attempts at conversation.
“One more thing,” Rosie says, as Marilynn bags the last
item. She places the nursing bra on the counter. Marilynn can’t help smiling.
“Ah, so you’re getting the nursing bra too,” she says to me.
“It fit correctly?”
“It fit like a glove!” Rosie interjects.
* * *
“Laurie?”
“Yes?”
“What’s this Rosie has on?”
I assume it’s the bra. “It’s a bra.”
“I see that. But why did you buy one for her?”
“Because she wanted it.”
“She wanted a 42 DDD nursing—”
“I already went over this with her,” I call.
From upstairs in the nursery, I hear Jeremy and Rosie
exchange whispers. Then I hear the fridge open. Then I hear Rosie’s giggles and
her clomping footsteps up the stairs.
“Mommy, look!” she says from the doorway. Her goldfish bra
is cradling two small watermelons. “I swallowed a seed and now I have twins
too,” she giggles.
