Left Out

"I'm an island."

"I'm a nonessential part of this family."

"It's like we were a team before, and now you can do it all on your own."

(Bear in mind he's been back to work two days - just two days. It's not as though I have figured out this whole parenting thing - let alone single parenting thing - in just two days.)

"It's like you don't even need me. Like you know already how to do everything right."

(I'm suspicious he began feeling this way after Francie was fussing - which she does every night around the 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. hours - and when he couldn't calm her down with the swaddle and the Soothie, I put her on the boob. Which quieted her immediately. Obviously.)

My husband played a tiny tune on his tiny violin tonight before bed. I think he's feeling a bit left out - and thus a bit sorry for himself - that he has to go to work every day and I get to stay home and play with the baby. We had such a fabulous time together, the three of us, this last month, and we both wanted to go on like that forever. But alas, real life had to come knockin' at some time.

"Most other guys wouldn't even think like this, let alone talk about it," he says, a hint of shame in his voice, maybe embarrassed that sometimes he'd rather be Mr. Mom than Mr. Breadwinner.

This is one of the things I love so very much about Alex. One of the reasons I chose him, really. I knew he'd make a great partner - for life in general, but especially for parenting. We approached this whole having-a-baby thing in a tag-team sort of way. Co-parenting in the truest sense. Yes, I'd be doing the pregnancy, labor and delivery, and the breastfeeding. But we'd both do the nurturing. We'd both do the diaper changing. We'd both do the snuggling. We'd both do the housework. And we'd both do employment. For the next few months,  I get to stay home, bond with my baby girl, and shirk all professional responsibilities. Then come the first of July, I'm back to work fulltime (choke, tear), and Alex gets to stay home for three months (summer months at that) to walk in the park, garden, and read outside with our little Bean.

I happen to love watching him in this new role. Father. And try to tell him so.

"You are absolutely an essential part of this family."

"We miss you all day when you're gone at work."

"Francie loves her daddy."

"I'd go crazy if you didn't come home in the evening and hold her and stare at her and change her diaper and swaddle her" (and give me a few uninterrupted minutes of having two free hands).

He's not digging this reactive reassurance.

"I don't want you to feel sorry for me. I'm not looking for praise," he says, resistant of the flattery, as though afraid I might think he was fishing for it.

I try a different approach.

"Babe, truth is, we need you. We're a wolf pack. And without you, we just wouldn't be a pack. You know, three of us wolves, runnin' around the desert together, looking for strippers and cocaine."

He seems to accept this. At least for now.