I spend a lot of time these days thinking about how much has changed in just six months. Clementine has gone from being a yowling little creature too an actual baby (OK, she was a baby before, but she more closely resembled a newborn woodland creature than anything from a Gerber ad), crawling and laughing and throwing little hissy fits when I won't allow her to chew on electrical cords. And while I am totally preoccupied with the ways in which Clementine is changing daily, I hardly ever think about how much I’ve changed since having her. Yes, it’s true: I’ve become infinitely less cool, less spontaneous and less mobile, and happily so. Hanging out with my girl is way more fun than all that cavorting I used to do every day, though I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss it sometimes. And, yeah, I miss the crazy road trips, too, but they’re coming back little by little as we negotiate the car terrors and pick destinations we can drive our tired butts to between her bedtime and sun-up.
And even though I’m no longer happy-hour-ready without lots of preplanning and babysitters, the dramatic changes aren’t really in my lifestyle so much as in my outlook on life. Before becoming a parent I had a whole list of principles I thought I’d always live my life by, a whole set of compromises I didn’t want to make, a way of doing things. I started sentences with declarations and absolutes, many of them boldly proclaiming that “I’d never” do this or that. I think it took all of five minutes of having Clementine in my life to throw all that shit out the window. I’d never give her a pacifier has become I must have three with me any time I leave the house, for example. My friends have stood by watching me become the hypocrite I swore I wouldn’t be, and I don’t regret a single way I’ve thrown my pre-baby self overboard for this new mama self.
A funny little twist to this story of change and transformation is the big news (now officially out in wide release) that my friend Karen is engaged to her boyfriend Dave. How is that related to my mama transformation? Well, her relationship is just about as old as Clementine. No joke. One of her early dates with Dave--I don't say first date here because they had known each other almost two weeks at that point and had been together EVERY SINGLE DAY--was the night they came down for dinner and to play cards just before I went into labor. They left to go meet some other friends at a bar, and I left to go have a baby. Just as my whole world was rocked, so was Karen's. Sure, she didn't get a creature, but her 180 was just as dramatic as mine.
Had you told me this time last year that Karen would be engaged now, I would have laughed so hard I would have peed. Had you told me Karen would be engaged within even three years, I would have been just as surprised. And yet here we are, and Karen is as changed in love as I am in motherhood. My pragmatic, practical friend Karen, who once convinced a boyfriend not to touch her in front of me because I would feel uncomfortable (umm...no), who used to get annoyed by another boyfriend wanting to see her more than three times a week, who would get passive aggressive with her last boyfriend and talk about moving away whenever he talked about how much he liked her, is now head-over-heels in love. And her turnaround was just as instantaneous as having a baby. One minute she was hard-nosed and not all that in to relationships, and the next she couldn't eat or sleep, so giddy in love was she.
And although I poke fun, it really is a delight to see. She beams all the time, and I even caught her in a meeting the other day extending her arm and gazing admiringly at her ring. It's a hoot--of all the things I thought I'd never see! People have been generally supportive, but a few of our less generous colleagues have pointed out that it seems quick or "rash." Maybe I would have thought that once, but two things convince me otherwise. For one, it's not all that different from having a kid. Something happens and all the sudden your whole life is different--the way you see things, the stuff you want to do, the goals you set for your life. For me it was Clementine; for Karen it's Dave. You can't control that kind of stuff. The other thing that convinces me is that Karen has been my window into the world outside kid-dom for the last six months. As I've lived vicariously through her, it's been impossible to ignore how big an impact this relationship has made on her life and her being. In many ways, it's as if she was waiting for this to come along. Why would you wait in the face of that kind of connection? Oh, yeah, and she's 31. Tick tock, my friend.
Now all that's left is for Karen to declare Clementine her flower girl. So what if C. can't walk? And so what if Dave has a neice who can? Karen's planning a small, simple wedding with not many guests, and since she will likely avoid much of the bridezilla, $24,o00 madness, I'm doing the best I can to give her a taste of what she's missing. She has already rejected my offer to officiate (she thinks I'll cry but clearly has no sense of my poetic self), she isn't having bridesmaids, so what's left? I'm thinking I'll teach Clementine to play the drums and insist they book our family band for the reception. Can you think of any good band names?
Here's the happy couple with my darling girl:
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