Janet had had the baby six weeks earlier, and we felt ourselves getting a bit evaporated in Mommy-and-Daddyness. So when Memorial Day came around, we accepted an invitation to party. Truth be told, I had disappeared many months before, like a small moon eclipsed by the majestic planet of Janet’s pregnant belly. I peaked occasionally from around that human globe, but, really, I was gone. Even when people talked to me directly—pregnant-Janet miles away—I was still nobody. I was at best, a checklist: ticking down facts, purchases, and clichéd fears.

She had her moments of majestic beauty and great monstrosity during her pregnancy. She is back to beauty now, more and more each day. And I saw some stuff. The brutality of pitocin, and the nirvana of stadol. A bloody little head where one had not been before. The glistening rainbow of the umbilical cord. When it was over, and he was breathing and screaming and pinking up, Janet said to me, “I’ve never done anything like that before.”

But we were getting bored with our vibrating baby chair, and our swinging baby chair. Our Technicolor rattles. Our Diaper Genie had no more wishes for us. Our son, too, was bored. Even breastfeeding had lost its thrill; the experience was painful and unsatisfying for both him and Janet. He stared at us over his bottle of powdered formula like, Is this why you brought me here? It was settled: we would leave the house. . . . Read More.