Teamwork

6:14 a.m. -- 3 mos., 8 days old

Baby A is a remarkably good-natured baby. Last night we took her to an M-work-related function at a crowded Chinatown restaurant. (Given that I've only visited the Lower East Side by subway, I've never seen Manhattan from the Williamsburg Bridge. Nice.)

I've taken Baby A for a neighborhood stroll around 4:30 p.m., and she's still enjoying her post-perambulation slumber when we put her in the car at 5:45. Given her inclination toward the unconscious in any mode of transport, she remains conked out until we walk off an elevator into a cacophany of clattering plates and clinking bottles and shouted conversations.

We coat-check the car seat and transfer her to the Baby Bjorn, which she's ridden in just once. She wakes up as we navigate the room, face against my chest, blinking into bright lights and a dozen curious faces. (She's hardly immune to the Law of Baby Attraction.) She's actively curious -- what is all this? Only when she realizes she's peed, about 10 minutes later, does she fuss and send M and me into action.

M and I have created a functional babycare team, which is put to the test in social situations. Tonight has unique challenges. Baby A hasn't pooped since Wednesday and is clearly uncomfortable by now (Poopless Day 3), so before leaving for Chinatown we followed my sister's advice and had M drink prune juice. Now we discover the restaurant bathrooms have no diaper-changing areas, so we find an empty table in the back corner, line up a couple of chairs, and conduct a quick change: M handles baby while I unzip diaper bag, grab changing pad and waterproof lining and covering cloth and lay them all down; M lays down Baby A and unsnaps garments while I unzip front compartment and grab wipes and new diaper; M rips open offending garment (still only pee -- sigh) and wipes while I rip open new diaper; I place offending garment in ziplock bag while M arranges new diaper; I reorder diaper bag while M rearranges clothes. Voila: the smiling child is ready to greet her public.

But, no -- now she realizes she's starving. More fussy-child transfers as I take Baby A while M unfastens one side of her undergarment and removes a breast pad and tentatively arranges a modesty scarf, then takes and turns Baby A sideways while I fumble to keep the scarf between inquiring eyes and a nippled breast while trying not to occlude M's view of the baby.

By now dinner is about to be served, and people have begun to join our table. M used to worry about public breastfeeding, but she's become more comfortable blowing off the occasional gaze of moral condemnation, and this crowd evidences nothing but admiration for the madonna-and-child tableau. Feeding over, we take turns dandling baby and manipulating chopsticks.

About an hour later, Baby A looses three brief blasts, which cause all eyes at the table to turn but which we hear as three cheers for prunce juice: Poop poop, hurray! (Can juice metabolize so fast?) Diaper change, Part II. That we're in mid-meal causes us mild consternation, and bending over the chairs is a pain. But either no one cares or they're too polite to object. (Later, M wonders why we didn't commandeer the lazy susan: "Just move those soup spoons, will you?") Besides, it's true that the shit of breastfed babies doesn't stink.

M and I agree that the teamwork forced upon couples by a baby cannot compare to anything that life has yet required. OK, we planned our wedding together, and that took some cooperation. But it was little more than a series of discussions and a couple of editing sessions where we hashed out our vows. And we've traveled together, which means picking itineraries and navigating airports and maneuvering rental cars in foreign cities.

But helping helpless Baby A requires cooperation of a different order of magnitude: dozens of tiny decisions and maneuverings to negotiate, every new environment a different set of variables. And almost from the start we've plunged Baby A into lots of new environments. At Day 6, less than four days after M and Baby A returned from the hospital, we rode trains (Long Island Railroad, Amtrak) from New York to Washington, D.C., then hired a car to enable M to attend a vital work event. It proved harder on M than on Baby A, who mostly slept (let's hear it for gently rocking trains) and took every bump with equanimity. A colleague of M commented at how smooth the two of us seemed in feeding and changing her. It hadn't felt smooth; primarily it had felt terrifying, trying to anticipate all the potential mishaps. But by now, four cross-country flights and another D.C. trip and several parties and meals and whatnot later, it's no longer terrifying. And indeed, I feel a new closeness with M, similar to that of a valued double-play partner who one knows will be in the perfect spot to receive the throw, and who will bail you out if the toss is errant.

By 9 p.m., though the dinner and speeches are continuing, we three have had enough and get in the car for home. Another night navigated.