2+1=Big, Excerpt #1

Returning home from the hospital with a new baby, for these veteran parents at least, was like returning to the bridge and resuming command after being unjustly bucked down to private by the cogs in the medical industrial complex who had no idea that they were in the presence of decorated war heroes (brimming confidence is just as crucial to effective parenting as it is to every other avenue in life; plus Jen tells me I need to cut the false modesty crap). The proper order of things had now been restored at the Gaither household where, to steal a line from Woody Allen, I’m the boss and Jen is the decision-maker.

Samara, in her infinite wisdom, had arranged for the return home to occur in stages, as she had come down with a fever just as Yael prepared to enter the domestic scene. So when Jen and I came home with Yael it was just the three of us as Jessie Pearl and Samara split time between Bubbie and Grampy’s and Pop-Pop and Grandma’s, to prevent Yael from encountering any feverish germs. Our double-team, man-to-man defense was, however briefly, still intact.

This respite allowed me to focus on another seismic lifestyle shift, my return to the marriage bed. As practitioners of attachment parenting, from day one of the Jessie Pearl era forward, our marriage bed had transformed into the family bed, the site for one of the pillars of attachment parenting, co-sleeping. In theory, mommy, daddy, and baby snuggle up nightly for a long winter’s nap. But I soon learned that the term “sleeping” is used rather loosely next to the “co-.” And so I decamped for the guest bedroom, which began a series of fluid sleeping arrangements that included, sequentially, each of the following:
• Jen and Jessie Pearl in the king-size bed in Room A, me on a double bed in Room B.
• Jen, Samara, and Jessie Pearl on the king in Room A, me on the double in Room B.
• Jen and Samara on the king in Room A, me and Jessie Pearl on the double in room B.
• Jen and Samara on the king in Room A, me on the double in Room B, Jessie Pearl on a twin in Room C for half the night, until the moment when she would yell “Snuggle!” and then spend the rest of the night with me on the double in Room B.
• Then, after a disruptive move of house, back to Jen and Samara on the king in Room A, and Jessie Pearl and me on the double in Room B.
• Finally, in our last pre-Yael arrangement, Jessie Pearl moved back in with Jen and Samara on the king in Room A, and I was left to my own devices on the double in Room B.

Notice that Jen and I never shared a bed in any of the sleeping varietals. When I described these sleeping arrangements at work there were those who stated that they were surprised Yael had even been conceived. Yael’s presence in Jen’s womb being self-evident, I did not feel the need to describe to the audience the Sexual Support Network, i.e. babysitting, provided by Bubbie and Grampy on Sunday mornings. I had also received encouragement to have sex with Jen to bring on labor when Jen was so uncomfortably full term, at which point I declined to elaborate on the No Vacancy sign. Work Friends don’t get to know my sexual schedule, lest I feel the need to tell them how often I’ve been pleasuring myself since Yael put the kibosh on my weekly marital Mitzvah, which, of course, is supposed to take place on Shabbos, but since we are an interfaith couple our Sunday rolls in the hay are part of our effort to keep the spirit, if not the letter, of the law. This approach to religious observation is sometimes given to a bit of laxity, as reflected by Jessie Pearl’s comment that there is no Shabbos in the summer.