Panic alert: Babygirl is mobile. Stealth army crawl mobile and speedy hands-and-knees mobile. (Unless she gets tangled in the legs of her pajamas. Then she’s just cranky.)
Now, those of you with one child will recall how exciting this moment is. They can crawl! And soon they’ll walk! And then someday they’ll go to college! They’re growing! Sniff sniff, wipe away a tear.
Not wanting to detract from that excitement, I have to tell you: this second child’s mobility is freaking frightening. There are two of them, and now they can both move. At the same time. In opposite directions. What the hell am I supposed to do now? What is going on here???
This two-child model may not have been a good idea, in retrospect.
Back in the day, when Babyman would take off running, laughing like a hysterical little madman in his Rocky-style sweatshirt-on-sweatpants combo, I could feel somewhat secure knowing that — between my legs being longer than he is tall, and my God-given maternal instinct to leap cars and mailboxes, parkour-style, in defense of his safety — I would eventually catch him. But now, I have Babygirl to consider. At least half the time she is dangling off my chest in the Ergo carrier, and the rest of the time she is bundled into the Bugaboo, neither of which makes for very efficient parkour. So when my little sprinter gains too much ground for me to make up, I do the next best thing to chasing him. I start screaming: “Someone please grab that child! I am his mother and you have my permission to GRAB HIM!”
Which is not freakish at all.
You are of course familiar with the Bystander Effect. Once upon a time, Babyman and I were loading up the car for a weekend trip to Tahoe. Because we are parents, and that means we had a kid, and that kid comes with more stuff than I ever dreamed possible, a weekend trip to Tahoe involved transferring what felt like the entire contents of our apartment down to the car, with an approximately 22-month-old in tow, and trapping him in the front seat while I tried to stuff the trunk closed. This job took many trips back and forth between our apartment and the street.
The final trip, mercifully, consisted of my purse and our laptop. We were off! And suddenly, so was Babyman, off like a rocket towards the intersection. I was shouting “Babyman, stop! Stop means stop! Red light! RED LIGHT!” And Babyman, of course, was putting as much distance as possible between himself and the hysterical, sweaty, cliche-spewing woman behind him.
Somewhere along the block I shed the purse and the laptop. About four people were sitting at a Starbucks on the corner, watching this scene unfold. As Babyman streaked past them, closing in on the street (did I mention he was about to go into the street?), one of the coffee drinkers (one!) stood up and reached for — wait for it — my purse and my laptop.
Babyman was off the curb and a few steps into the intersection when I reached him and did that sobbing, hug-shake-“I would kill you on the spot if I didn’t love you so much and I wasn’t so relieved right now” thing that moms do when their children have imperiled themselves. And all the Starbucks people were just sippin’ on lattes, enjoying the show, and the guy who had rescued my laptop and purse was all “Here are your bags, ma’am,” and all I could do was clutch Babyman and stare back at them and swallow the urge to shout “Screw the bags! Did you not see the BABY IN THE INTERSECTION????”
It is, in fact, a minor miracle I did not utter those words out loud. Instead, I bundled Babyman into the car, repeating “Stop means stop, Babyman. Stop means stop!” like some kind of shock victim.
So now I have two of them. Two little beings who will run from me and, each time, shave minutes off my life and youth from my face. And I will scream and beg for help and tell you to grab them because I am counting on you, Joe Q. Public, to help me keep them alive.
In exchange, I will pick up your daughter when she has gotten too far away from you on her bike and she falls off. I will watch your toddler as he fumbles towards the top of the escalator at the airport, and I will stop him before he goes down it alone. If I see your preschooler lost in Macy’s, I will help her find a staff person to page you. I’ll look out for yours, if you look out for mine. Deal?
Okay. Good.
Love it! It takes a village.