My son’s first love affair

It has happened. My first-born son is in love. And I am jealous. I am second best. I am devastated. He is 16 months old and the object of his obsessive affection is….his father.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m thrilled my husband and son have a good relationship. I just wish I had some of the fairy dust that causes my son to erupt into an ecstatic frenzy at the very sight of me.

But no. This emotion is reserved for dada alone. Dada dadadadadadadadadadada!

Why is it so? Is it because dada is all fun and mama is all business? My husband changes his share of diapers, administers vegetables, declares bedtime before it is welcome and uses a firm tone when necessary. Less than I do, perhaps, but he can still play the bad guy. Yet he remains the Brad Pitt to my reliable Sam Waterston.

My son’s eyes light up and burst from his head at the site of his father in his room in the morning. I feed him, change him, offer him water and hugs and kisses and educational toys and books and an endless parade of funny faces and noises – but the moment his father is in view I simply cease to exist. Dada!

Dada can be a hundred yards away, working on the front lawn, and my son’s sixth sense kicks in. Dada! He exclaims, running to the window and pointing. My heart falls. Mama! I whimper, eyes brimming.

Whatever, his look says. Where’s my sippy cup full of Pepperidge Farm goldfish?

Pasting pictures of myself along the sides of his crib did nothing. Ditto for recording my voice singing and playing it every night as he goes to bed. Emblazoning the image of my face onto stickers that were then applied to all his cars and trains was also ineffective.

I tried playing hard to get, handing my son over to my husband for a whole Saturday. I figured when I came home I’d be greeted with joy and appreciation. Instead, they were both asleep on the couch in front of the game, an empty bowl of ice cream sticking to the coffee table. And I thought, these are men. And I am not.

I woke them and tucked them both in. Then I waited for my son to awake in the night, when I would go to him and rub his back until he fell asleep.

Are You Tired?

This essay is featured today on www.skirt.com - where I am guest blogging for the month of April. Check out skirt, a cool women's magazine, and enjoy:

It has happened. I’ve only been married two years…and I have become obsessed with another. And I have had this other. Repeatedly. Constantly. I am committed as one consumed by dementia. My passion knows no limits, my hunger, no satisfaction.

I am in love with my bed.

I dream of it when we are not together. Like a pimply teenager on the cusp of hormonal greatness, I fantasize. I count the minutes until our next assignation, I yearn desperately, fiercely for more of the disastrous affair. While driving in traffic I imagine the sweet burn of our two halves uniting. I long for the evenings I slip away, my husband blessedly distracted in his own rituals. No one knows.

I am in love with my bed.

I do not know when we first discovered each other. Sure, we were acquaintances; we saw each other daily in the course of our own routines. Perhaps we had always taken the relationship for granted. The fixation came upon me slowly, then devoured me like a fever. Had I never noticed the softness, the inexplicable and unconditional comfort my bed provided, night after night, lonely morning after lonely morning? Its delicious sheets and pillows, warm blankets and fluffy throws, all blended into one rollicking tangle of deep relaxation and bliss? The lust I had never known! How had I overlooked the dizzying escape that our togetherness provided?

I could stay with you forever, I thought, and it became a dangerous habit. When we parted it was like being torn in half. We know each other, sharing our most private and revealing secrets. In my bed I am me. It has seen me at my worst, clipping toenails and blowing my nose, unflattering pajamas and sick days. Through it all, my bed has stood by me.

Each morning as my eyes open to the cruel daylight, I bound from my bed and make it - quickly, efficiently; straightening its comforter, flattening its sheets, fluffing and positioning its pillows. Sometimes I slap the mattress, though I know this is cruel. Then I leave the room without looking back.

If I don’t make my bed immediately, I will simply get back in. And we’d spend the whole day together, isolated, keeping the world at bay. I work hard to ignore its whimpers of protest, its cries for my return. Instead, I murmur to its silky creases and 400 thread count depths….Ah….there are but sixteen hours between us my darling! And I rush to my husband’s side at the breakfast table, giving away nothing.

Sometimes, we risk being together during the day. If I am “working at home” and my husband is away with obligations, I creep to the top of the stairs and open the bedroom door. My lover’s joy is palpable as I rip the covers from its body and plunge into the trembling core….and hour goes by, maybe more….and the phone rings, or the dog barks, or guilt washes over me at the incredible number of dishes in the sink.

I smooth the covers, pat the innocence back into the pillows, and go about my day…dreaming of our next reunion.

Once we were almost discovered. A neighbor knocked, carrying a Fedex package meant for me. My car was in the driveway; of course she thought me home, a dutiful wife, perhaps making stew. I rushed from the room, deep creases of evidence covering my cheek and forehead, mascara scandalously smudged, drool recently dried to white flakes on my chin. I tried to iron out my cheeks, arrange my hair, but the door opened and -- I saw the disgust on her face, the envious disapproval in her eyes. Would she tell?

The event shook me and I stayed away for almost ten hours after that. But it is an affair I cannot end. I have no solution.

I’ve tried to end it, of course. But being in the same house together, seeing each other every day…it’s complicated. Sure I know what you’re thinking. Just get rid of it. Sell it on ebay, go away for a while or at least sleep in another room. You don’t understand. Obviously you’ve never been in love like this, for real.

I just had to tell someone.