Mary Anne + 2 Many Babies

  Well, of all things. Alan Gray has been Kristy’s enemy (okay, her pest) for as long as I can remember. And who does she wind up marrying in her Modern Living class? Alan. How unfair.

  How unfortunate. Kristy had a cow.

  But that was on the day they got married. On the day they became parents, Kristy changed her mind about Alan. He turned out to be a pretty good father. First of all, he named Izzy.

  “A son called Izzy,” he had said dreamily to Kristy as he’d held his child for the first time.

  “Izzy?” repeated Kristy. “What kind of name is that? Especially for a boy. I never heard of a boy named Izzy.”

  “It’s short for, um …”

  “It’s short for Isabelle or Isadora or Elizabeth,” said Kristy.

  “Oh, it must be short for some boy’s name,” said Alan offhandedly. “Anyway, don’t you think it’s a nice name?”

  “It is sort of cute,” Kristy had agreed, pleased that Alan was at least taking an interest in the project.

  By Tuesday, the day of Kristy’s job at the Papadakises’, both she and Alan were taking more than a little interest in Izzy. They had fixed this elaborate “environment” for him in a shoe box. The box was lined with pieces of flannel so Izzy would always be comfortable. The sides of the box were covered with felt so Izzy wouldn’t hurt himself if he bumped into a wall. Alan had placed a tiny music box in the environment so Izzy would feel comforted and develop an appreciation for music. And Kristy had stuck tiny charts and pictures on the felt so Izzy’s learning cells would be stimulated. She claimed she read aloud to him at night, but I don’t know.

  Also, unlike a lot of the couples in Modern Living, Kristy and Alan fought over who got to take their child home after school (as opposed to who got stuck with him after school). They were conscientious parents. Which is why Kristy never even considered leaving Izzy at her house while she went to the Papadakises’. Of course he went along with her.

  The Papadakis kids are good friends of Kristy’s younger brothers and sisters. Linny, who’s nine, plays with David Michael. Hannie, who’s seven, is one of Karen’s two best friends. And Sari, the little one, sometimes plays with Emily. Kristy and the kids are pals. So Kristy decided that her first order of baby-sitting business should be to explain Izzy to them.

  As Mrs. Papadakis backed down the driveway, Kristy sat at the kitchen table with Linny and Hannie. Sari, who had just woken up from a nap, was sitting sleepily in her high chair.

  Kristy placed Izzy’s environment on the table. She pointed to her son. “This,” she said, “is Izzy Thomas-Gray.”

  “That egg?” replied Linny, after a moment’s hesitation.

  “Well, yes,” answered Kristy. “Only he isn’t —”

  “He?” interrupted Linny.

  “— he isn’t just an egg,” Kristy continued. “He’s my son.”

  “You mean your pretend son … don’t you?” asked Hannie. She peered into the shoe box and stared at Izzy.

  “Well, yes. My pretend son,” Kristy agreed. Then she tried to explain Mrs. Boyden’s Modern Living project to the kids.

  “Okay, so you’re pretend-married,” said Linny, “and this egg is your pretend son. And you’re baby-sitting for him, plus us. Right?”

  “Right.”

  “Where is Izzy’s food?” asked Hannie.

  “The food is pretend, too,” Kristy answered. “I just have to spend time with Izzy as if I were feeding him. Kind of like when you play with your dolls. You don’t give them real food. Only with Izzy I have to remember to feed him every day, as often as —”

  Ring, ring!

  Linny bounded to his feet and made a grab for the phone. “I’ll get it!” he cried. He picked up the receiver and said politely, “Hello, Papadakises’ residence. Who’s calling, please? … For Kristy? … Okay.” Linny held the phone toward Kristy. “For you. I think it’s your pretend husband.”

  “Hello?” said Kristy. “Alan? What’s up?”

  “I’m just checking on Izzy,” he replied. “I was sitting here thinking about him, and … Is everything okay?”

  “Oh, sure. Fine. Izzy’s napping.”

  “Napping? Shouldn’t he be eating? I don’t think he eats enough. We don’t want him to get scrawny.”

  “Alan, trust me. He’s fine,” said Kristy. “Um, except for —”

  “WHAT?” exclaimed Alan. “Except for what?”

  “He seems kind of nervous here.”

  “I thought he was asleep.”

  “He is now. But when we first got to the Papadakises’, he was really shy.”

  “Well, you know, new faces.”

  “Yeah, but I’m concerned that he’s not socializing right.”

  Kristy and Alan discussed Izzy’s social development. They talked for quite awhile. They talked for so long that the kids became bored, and Linny lifted Sari out of her high chair, nudged Kristy, and whispered loudly, “We’re going to the playroom.”

  “Okay,” Kristy answered distractedly. Ten minutes later, she finished her conversation with Alan, hung up the phone, and headed for the kids’ playroom. Halfway there she realized she was without Izzy, and she dashed back to the kitchen. The table was empty. Had Izzy been in the kitchen when Kristy finished her phone conversation? She couldn’t remember. She glanced around the room, decided he wasn’t in it, and headed for the playroom again, calling, “Linny? Hannie?”

  “Yeah?” Linny called back.

  “Do you have Izzy?”

  “Huh?”

  “I said, ‘Do you have Izzy?’ ” By then, Kristy had reached the playroom. The first thing she saw was Izzy’s environment. The box was on Hannie’s small coloring table. “Never mind,” said Kristy. She ran for the box.

  It was empty.

  I mean, it was empty of Izzy. Everything else was there — the flannel, the cell-stimulating pictures, the music box. Only Izzy was missing.

  “Where is he? Where’s Izzy?” cried Kristy with a gasp.

  “Hey, funny!” exclaimed Linny. “Good joke. Get it? Where is he? Where’s Izzy?” He laughed loudly.

  Hannie began to laugh, too. “Where Izzy? Where Izzy?” she sang.

  Even Sari laughed and joined in.

  “This isn’t funny, you guys,” said Kristy, her heart pounding. “Izzy is like my baby. Remember? I’m responsible for him. Who brought his box in here? Linny?”

  Linny’s smile had faded. “Yeah, I did,” he answered. “You were busy talking on the phone, and I thought Izzy might want to see the playroom.”

  “Okay.” Kristy tried to calm down. “You brought his box in here? Then what? Did you take Izzy out of it?”

  “Very, very gently,” Hannie answered for her brother. Then she added, “Very gently. Honest. Cross my heart.”

  “I believe you,” said Kristy. “Just tell me where you put Izzy.”

  Hannie frowned. She looked at Linny, who was frowning, too. “Linny was holding onto Izzy tightly and he walked —”

  “How tightly?” Kristy interrupted.

  “Not that tightly,” said Linny.

  “Linny showed Izzy around the playroom,” Hannie continued. “He showed him the bookshelf and Sari’s rocking horse and the art cupboard and the trucks and cars, and then …”

  “Yeah?” prompted Kristy.

  “I think he stopped to look at his collection of bottle caps.”

  “Oh, that’s right,” agreed Linny. “So I put Izzy on the floor and, um, that’s all I remember. Until you came in.”

  “Everybody, spread out and search!” yelped Kristy.

  “Hmm. If I were an egg, where would I go?” muttered Linny.

  “How about the refrigerator?” suggested Hannie.

  She and Linny got the giggles. While Kristy tossed aside books and toys and sweaters, looking for her missing son, Hannie and Linny cracked jokes and laughed helplessly.

  “Maybe Izzy is off looking for Humpty Dumpty,” said Hannie.

  “Egg-sactly!” cried Linny. “Or
maybe he had a great fall.”

  “Egg-cellent,” said Hannie.

  “I hope nobody found Izzy and then … cooked him and ate him,” added Linny. “That would set a bad egg-zample.”

  By that time, Kristy was no longer listening to Hannie and Linny. “Come on, Sari. You’ll help me, won’t — Hey, Sari, what are you doing?” Kristy knelt beside Sari, who was squatting on the floor. At her feet was a doll’s blanket. Sari was patting it and saying, “Baby, baby.”

  Kristy poked the blanket. Then she pulled at it. Inside was Izzy. “Oh, thank heaven! You’re safe!” cried Kristy. “It’s okay, Linny, Hannie. I found him. Guess what. Sari was taking care of Izzy for us.”

  “Darn. No more egg-citement,” said Linny.

  Even Kristy couldn’t help laughing. “Linny!” she exclaimed.

  “Sorry,” he said. “It’s just … I don’t know. Your son? An egg named Izzy? I never heard of anything like that.”

  “Egg-straordinary, isn’t it?” said Kristy. And then she replaced Izzy in his safe environment.

  She decided not to tell Alan what had happened.

  Our daughter had a name. She went without one for four days while Logan and I argued over what to call her. I was holding out for Tara, but Logan didn’t like the name. He wanted to call her Sally, which I thought was much too plain. Finally we compromised.

  We named our child Samantha.

  I thought Samantha was almost as beautiful as Tara, and that Sammie was an adorable nickname. Logan liked Sammie, too, because it sounded like Sally.

  We fixed a wicker basket for Sammie and lined it with scraps of pink fabric. The day we had been given Sammie, we had painted pink flowers on her with food coloring. The day we named her, we added this:

  “Now we’ll always be able to recognize her,” said Logan.

  “And she’s beautiful,” I added. “Our beautiful daughter.”

  As soon as Sammie’s basket was prepared, Logan took on more than his share of the work in caring for our daughter. He took her home with him almost every afternoon. He carried her around school as often as possible.

  He was a natural father.

  Of course, he couldn’t care for Sammie all the time, though. And one morning he met me in school, basket in hand, and said, “Just as I was leaving the house, Hunter reminded me that I promised to take him and Kerry to the playground this afternoon. I’m worried about taking Sammie with me. I don’t want her to get too much sun.”

  “I’ll take her,” I said. “I’m baby-sitting for Rose and Ricky after school, but that shouldn’t be a problem. It’ll probably be easier for me to take care of three infants than for you to take care of one infant and two active kids. I mean, the twins can’t walk yet. How much harder could three babies be than two?”

  I found out at the Salems’ house. Three could be plenty harder than two, and even two could be … a nightmare.

  The bad dream began shortly after Mrs. Salem left the house, when Ricky woke up from his nap.

  He woke up crying.

  I had been sitting in the kitchen with Sammie’s basket in my lap (while supposedly I gave Sammie a bottle), when I heard snuffles and tears from the twins’ bedroom.

  “I’m coming!” I called gently, so as not to wake the other twin.

  I stood up. “Sorry, Sammie,” I said. “You’ll have to finish your bottle later.” I knew that wasn’t quite fair. If Sammie had been a real infant, I would have had to figure out how to feed her and rush upstairs. As it was, I had to bring her with me.

  I entered the babies’ room and found a very unhappy Ricky. He was sitting at one end of the crib, wailing, tears streaming down his face.

  “Shh, Ricky, shh,” I whispered. “What’s the matter?”

  I set Sammie on the changing table and picked up Ricky. I rocked him and walked him around the room until I realized that Rose was stirring. Then I took him into the hallway — and realized I’d left Sammie behind. An infant should never be left on a changing table unattended. So I went back to retrieve her, and Ricky’s cries woke Rose, who also began to cry.

  “Hey, come on, you guys. I can’t hold both of you,” I said, remembering at the same time that I hadn’t finished feeding Sammie. Then the thought occurred to me that the twins were probably hungry. Also, that they could hold their own bottles. So I settled the babies in their high chairs and handed each one a bottle. Perfect. They could feed themselves while I fed Sammie.

  Well, that worked in theory. In reality, Rose continued to fuss, so I held Sammie in my lap and fed Rose myself. This arrangement lasted until Ricky threw his bottle on the floor.

  I stopped what I was doing, picked it up, handed it to him, and returned to Rose. Ricky threw down the bottle again. I decided Sammie had eaten enough and stood between the twins, holding Rose’s bottle with my right hand and Ricky’s with my left.

  When the bottles were empty, I stepped back and examined the babies.

  “You guys look simply delightful,” I told them. (I didn’t mean it.)

  They were far from the beautiful babies I’d dressed on my last sitting job. They were wearing rumpled T-shirts and damp diapers. Their cheeks were tearstained and their chins were milk-covered.

  “Time to fix you up,” I said decisively.

  With difficulty, I returned Sammie, Rose, and Ricky to the twins’ room. I set Rose in her crib, Sammie on the windowsill, and Ricky on the changing table. I removed Ricky’s wet diaper.

  “Wah!” he wailed.

  He cried the entire time I changed him.

  “You aren’t getting sick, are you?” I asked. I felt his forehead. No temperature. And his appetite had seemed fine. When he was dry and powdered, I returned him to his crib and placed Rose on the table. She cried mightily while I changed her.

  “Having a bad day?” I said to the twins.

  They stared at me from tear-filled eyes.

  At least their bottoms were dry.

  “How about a walk?” I suggested. Walks are good for stopping tears.

  I removed two lovely outfits from the closet. For Rose, a white ruffled dress with matching panties and a hat, and her pink shoes. For Ricky, a frog jumpsuit with a matching shirt and hat, and his tiny high-topped sneakers.

  The babies eyed all those clothes warily. They turned on the tears before I’d even so much as lifted Ricky’s arms. In the end, they left the house wearing clean T-shirts, fresh pants, and socks. No earrings or frills for Rose. No hat for either of them. Not even shoes. At least they’d whittled down their crying to sniffles and hiccups. They weren’t happy, but they were quiet.

  I hung Sammie’s basket over a handle of the double stroller. Then I set out with the three babies. For awhile, they were quiet. They seemed content. I managed to convince myself that Sammie had had enough to eat and I hadn’t neglected her too badly. I relaxed.

  And Rose began bumping back and forth in her seat and making these awful whiny noises. She wasn’t exactly crying, but —

  Time for a distraction technique. “What a beautiful day!” I exclaimed. I pointed to the sky. “Look, I see a bird. Bird.”

  “Ba!” said Rose.

  “That’s right. Bird. And there’s a cloud.”

  We stopped next to a garden. “Ooh, pretty flowers,” I said.

  Ricky reached for a tulip, got a grip on the stem, and pulled.

  The plant uprooted, sending dirt flying.

  “Ricky!” I cried. I whirled around and looked at the house beyond the garden. What if someone had seen us? “Ricky!” I said again. “No, no, no!” I took the flower from him and dropped it in the garden. I tried to bury it under some leaves and mulch. Then for good measure, I said “No!” to Ricky once more.

  Both babies, looking bewildered, burst into tears.

  Uh-oh. “Sorry, Ricky. I’m sorry,” I said. “Rose, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to shout. But Ricky, you can’t go around pulling up plants. That flower isn’t yours. It belongs to someone else.” (Like he could really understand me.)
/>
  I wheeled the stroller away quickly and hurried down the sidewalk with my cargo of crying babies. If Logan had been at home, I might have phoned him and asked him to come get Sammie. But I coped as well as I could.

  * * *

  “That was a nightmare, all right,” Dawn said that evening, when I described my job at the Salems’ to her.

  “Yeah. I guess it could have been worse, though.”

  “How? If the house had burned down?”

  “No, if, um, well, I’m not sure. I mean, this just wasn’t realistic, that’s all. I don’t usually baby-sit for three infants at once. I have to admit, I thought the job wouldn’t be bad since the babies can’t walk. I should have realized how silly that is. I still have only one pair of hands, and most people take care of just one baby at a time. Anyway, nothing bad actually happened this afternoon. The babies were fussy, but you have to expect that. I still want a little sister, don’t you? A real one, I mean. Not an egg one. Even a little brother would be okay.”

  “Yeah, I still want a sister or brother,” Dawn replied. “And you know what came in the mail today?”

  “What?”

  “The Kumbel catalog.”

  “The Kumbel catalog?” I shrieked. The Kumbel catalog sells everything. Dawn knows what my favorite section is. Baby supplies and furnishings. “Where is it?”

  “In my room. I’ll go get it.” Dawn dashed down the hallway, then returned to my bedroom, clutching the fat catalog.

  I found the baby section in about three seconds. “Aw, look!” I exclaimed. “Look at that crib. It would be perfect for a girl or a boy. White with yellow stars and a moon.”

  “It is adorable,” agreed Dawn. “And we could get that matching dresser and rocking chair. A yellow-and-white baby’s room would be so cute.”

  “If Dad and Sharon had a baby,” I said thoughtfully, “I guess you and I would end up sharing a room again.” (We had tried that once. It had not worked.) “My room would become the baby’s room.”

  “No, the baby could have Jeff’s room, I think.”

  “Oh, whatever. Hey, look at that! A baby’s lamp with a stars-and-moon shade. Tara would have to have that.”

  “Tara?” said three voices.