“I’m a horrible cook,” Naya said. “If Will had made them, they’d have turned out perfect. I’m going to be a horrible mom, too.” She sat beside me, leaned back, and began to whimper, her bottom lip quivering.
“You’re going to be a great mother!” I told her.
“It’s not true. I’m not built to take care of another person!”
From the kitchen, where he was still scraping a cookie down to nothing, Mike called, “I think you’re taking this a little too far over one failed cooking experiment. I can barely turn an oven on, and you don’t see me whining about it.”
“It’s not about the food!!!” Naya shouted.
“The burnt cookies are a metaphor for her future as a mother,” Sue noted with raised eyebrows.
Naya stormed off to her room, and I followed after her. Over the summer, Will had bought a bunch of stuff for the kid, and most of it was still in boxes. There were toys, a crib, and a high chair. He was clearly excited about the big day. I couldn’t help but smile, even if Naya was crying on the bed rubbing her belly.
“Naya, honey, what’s up?” I asked. “Do you need to talk?”
Looking down at her stomach, she replied, “I just don’t think I can do this.”
“Why?”
“It’s not like everyone says, Jen. I’m not excited, I’m not happy, I don’tfeel some maternal instinct welling up inside me… I thought it would be like a Lifetime movie, but the excitement just isn’t there. Every time I see one of those happy mothers hugging her kid at the park or something, I can’t stop telling myself, that just isn’t me.”
“Being a mom isn’t something you feel, Naya. It’s something you learn, something you grow into.”
“You think?” I saw something like grief in her eyes.
“I don’t think, I know. Do you really believe all the mothers out there were just born with the knowledge of how all this works? Give yourself a chance, Naya. You’re making a lot of progress, and uh…you’re getting better! You didn’t burn the cookies as bad as you burned the pizza you made that one time.”
“I just wish there was a webpage with some halfway decent advice.”
“Naya, there are a million webpages with more information about parenting than you could ever possibly need.”
I pulled out my phone and opened my browser.Google, save me now, I thought. I didn’t know what I’d do if I had to deal with Naya’s whining for the next three months. Of course, everything I found was stupid. Eventually, I settled on a list of questionable-lookingMommy Hacks. It was better than nothing. Or so I hoped.
“Here’s some stuff,” I said. “One, aromatherapy.”
“Pass.”
“Yoga?”
“Pass. My feet are so swollen, I can hardly stand. How am I supposed to do yoga?”
“OK, here’s one,” I said. “Scream therapy. Promises to relieve all the tension in your body. They say it’s best to do it into a pillow to keep your neighbors from worrying.”
This seemed to interest her. “I’ll skip the pillow, though,” she told me.
We stood, and she began to limber up as if for a workout. It was ludicrous,but I was in it to win it. The disciplinarian in me was coming out. Naya was no longer my friend, she was a grunt than needed to be whipped into shape.
“Ready?” I asked.
“Ready!”
“Set?”
“Set!”
“I can’t hear you, soldier. LOUDER!”
“READY!” Naya shouted.
