Salon.com > Jennifer Bingham Hull

Reproductive as a rabbit, abstinent as a nun

Tue, 08 Aug 2000 18:00:00 +0000

It's a cool Florida winter night. My husband has always had a certain cold weather allure. A tall, lean fellow, Bill looks great in flannel pajamas and a terry cloth bathrobe. And there he lies in both, available, appealing -- and reading Penelope Leach on toilet training.

I'm reading about VBACs (short for vaginal birth after cesarean), trying to find a comfortable position for my bulging belly and feeling distracted. The next morning promises another wardrobe showdown with our 2-year-old, Isabelle, and the book "Toddler Taming" that's sitting on my bedside table may be just what I need to ensure peace and tranquillity. But it's 11:30 p.m. We turn off the lights and crash.

Maybe tomorrow night, I think, I'll get to "Toddler Taming."

My husband and I used to have sex on a regular, romantic basis. For years we weren't trying to make a baby. We would just be in the mood. One thing naturally led to another. I didn't even mark the event on my calendar.

My nanny, myself

Mon, 13 Sep 1999 16:00:00 +0000

Aspen, Colo., on vacation: The room is brightly decorated with red and yellow balloons. I've got presents and cards ready on the table. It's a Kodak moment when she walks in, eyes wide with surprise, smile stretching from ear to ear. Our 1-and-a-half-year-old, Isabelle, grabs the presents but they aren't for her. They're for our nanny, Ada, who is traveling with us. A good sport, my husband, Bill, joins in singing "Happy Birthday." I completely forgot his birthday this year.

Miami, 10 a.m.: The phone rings. Ada has had a car accident and can't come to work. Bill, a professor, has meetings all day and teaches in the evening. Suddenly I have 11 hours to fill with Isabelle. My adult voice echoes solo off the walls. I build blocks, read "Hop on Pop." Isabelle and I have our magical moments, but not 11 hours of them. Instead, my day unravels like a ball of string. I skip my shower, let the calls pile up on the answering machine. It starts to rain. Ada has some special technique for getting Isabelle to nap, but I don't know what it is and so she won't sleep. By late afternoon, I sit parked at Miami Beach in tears, baby finally dozing in the car seat. Will Ada return tomorrow? The next day? At all?

You can halve it all

Mon, 12 Jul 1999 16:00:00 +0000

My husband, Bill, can barely boil water. When I met him, he was living off of
shredded wheat and bread and whatever he could buy at the office cafeteria.
His default at home was to throw things on the floor -- not in the garbage,
but on the floor. He figured that if it was on the floor he could find it
again. Hoarders never know what they might need. It took several months of
dating before Bill showed me the room he was renting in a house in
Washington. "It's all over now," he said, hesitantly ushering me in.
For the next five days, I filled one garbage bag after another from that
room to help him move to Miami, where I would ultimately join him. There I
was, a nice little feminist cleaning up after her man. Where would it go
from there?

I began my campaign for an equal parenting arrangement with Bill soon after
seeing his room and long before we got married. Bill repeatedly agreed to
this arrangement. Still, I wasn't optimistic. In most couples we knew, women
were doing most of the domestic work. And some of them had husbands who liked to
cook. How was I going to get a guy who could barely operate the microwave
to boil baby bottles? The therapist I was seeing to deal with my fear of
motherhood suggested I read books on child development. Focusing largely on
a mother developing her child, they didn't help. I wanted a book on
marriage development. I wanted something that said: Yes, a guy who can't
boil water can share child care.

Damned to diaper duty

Fri, 16 Apr 1999 19:00:00 +0000

My husband and I had a fight recently while vacationing with our baby
daughter, Isabelle. He sounded reasonable and calm. I sounded like a shrew.

We were on our way to dinner, having left the baby with my mother, whom we
were visiting. I'd covered while Bill had dressed, then he'd left me 20 minutes
to get ready while he watched Isabelle. It hadn't been enough.
Scrambling, I'd showered, slapped on lipstick and steamed carrots for her
dinner. Whisking the baby from my husband's arms, I had run upstairs to
change her diaper (he offered but he's slow). Back down to the oven for the
carrots. Upstairs again for a few flips of the curling iron -- this was our
one evening out alone, after all. Down to the living room to talk to my
mother, who was setting up "Lawrence of Arabia" on the VCR. Barking
instructions at my husband: "Tell the restaurant we'll be late! Find her
sweater!" Now, in the car, I realized I'd given my mother almost no advice
about putting our active 1-year-old to bed. "Lawrence of Arabia"? I turned
to Bill angrily: "Did you ever find her sweater?"

Oh my God, I thought, I'm becoming one of those kind of women.

Mother Time

Fri, 26 Feb 1999 20:00:00 +0000

| Time used to be my ally, something I understood so well that I never thought about how it worked. I checked off tasks in my Franklin Planner. My life unfolded in neat blocks defined by where I lived, who I dated, what jobs I had. There were the schoolyears; the years spent living in Los Angeles, New York and Nicaragua. There was the year I dated my husband, the two years we lived together before getting married, the year and a half trying to get pregnant. Then, last January, Isabelle arrived, and Mother Time.
Isabelle obliterated the world of the Franklin Planner with one loud yelp. Since then I've often felt like a sailor whose trusty compass suddenly points every direction but north. A year later, the hours are reemerging in somewhat recognizable form. But they will never look the same again.