My Husband And I Are Competing For Our Baby’s Love, And I’m Winning

”You like me?! You really like me?!”

When contemplating motherhood, I never thought that Sally Field’s desperate voice would echo through my head 40 times a day. I did not expect that having a beautiful infant baby would hold me emotionally hostage. I did not realize that my biggest challenge as a mom would mean working through the same insecurities I thought I’d ditched back as a teenager, when I was wearing Umbros and listening to DMB.

Listen, I think I’m a pretty good mom. Actually I know I am, and you are too. I know this because you are reading about mothering instead of showering or eating”¦ or showering WHILE eating which is NOTHING TO BE ASHAMED OF, especially if what you are eating is Talenti Mediterranean Mint Gelato because that can get drippy and really you’re just multitasking.

I have made it through colic, eczema, elimination dieting, a 40-hour med-free labor, the sleepless nights, the poop, the barf, and the party that was a bladder prolapse. All this and I still have a smile on my face and count these as the best six months of my life. I’m in heaven. My daughter, Teddy, is spectacular and evokes a love I still don’t comprehend.

All of the above I was prepared-ish for. (Maybe minus my bladder waving hello to me from my vagina. But the rest, yes.) The thing I haven’t been prepared for has been how my tiny, pink, infant daughter has sent me into an insecure tailspin that runs so deep it harkens back those dark days of high school. The popularity contest in my head is in full swing y’all, and it ain’t pretty.

Teddy is obviously the most popular girl in our house. With her adorable chub rolls, her wispy strawberry blonde hair, and her ability to (cry) bitch out any one of us without so much as a flicker of guilt or remorse. The same funny duck noise that causes her to bestow upon me the smile of a thousand angels one day, elicits nothing more than a glazed stare the next. It’s maddening!

She’s my high school nemesis Veronica Connors* all over again. Oh Veronica, with her tan legs, Jeep Wrangler, and sociopathic lack of empathy. I wanted to be her so badly, but since I couldn’t actually BE her (not by a long shot), I just wanted to be liked by her. Things are brighter when you’re standing next to the sun.

Here I am, a 35-year-old, self-empowered, confident woman. But the moment I walk into the nursery at 5am, my heart thumps with a desperate hope I’m frankly embarrassed by. How is it that my confidence and self worth is at the mercy of this sixteen-pound cherub?

Will she smile at me? Acknowledge me? Cry when she locks eyes with me? Turn away with what appears to be disappointment that I’m her mom? It’s anyone’s guess, which is probably why I’ve become her approval addict.

I know she loves me. She needs me. She depends on me. I feed her, I comfort her, I rock her gently to sleep. This is all wonderful. But it’s not enough. Ever since that first gas-induced accidental smile at 5-weeks-old, I’ve been OBSESSED with getting her to validate me through any means. A smile, a giggle, a reach-for. Oh the reach-fors! Those have just begun and it’s like I’ve moved on from snorting pure joy to free-basing it. (I think? I don’t remember how drugs work.) Again, I wonder: does she like me? How can I know? More importantly, does she like me the MOST?

Today, for example, she has smiled at me seven glorious times and laughed once – although it turned into a sneeze. I’m still counting it.

My insecurities vary, but on the dark days – the days where I’m hysterically laughing through a desperate full scale rendition of Annie while she watches with concerned judgment from her bouncy seat, not even a sympathetic smirk in sight – those are the days I really have to dig deep and remind myself that she’s just a baby.

I’m not alone in this ~ my husband, Andy, has fallen culprit. We are like two hormonal teenagers orbiting the queen bee, competing for her giggles, for a subtle reach of her hand that lets us know that We. Are. Worthy.

I must reluctantly hand it to him: He does a Karate Kid routine that makes her cackle. It’s a laugh that would emotionally fuel me for several days and it drives me mad with jealousy. After walking in on me doing an inferior imitation of the Karate Kid thing he informed me that I’m not allowed to poach his game. Fair enough”¦ So, I’ve developed a pretty solid “Mommy’s Gonna Eat Your Toes” routine. This is mine and mine alone. Obviously. I put Mommy in the title.

Even the animals have gotten into the act. Our dog is kissing her ass every chance she gets. I mean this literally. The cat follows Teddy around as if she were the Messiah and, true to popular-girl form, Teddy inflicts abuse after abuse on this poor kitty, pulling her fur and gouging her eyes. The cat is so wanting for her affection that she just endures.

See that there? How I wrote, “the dog” and “the cat?” I used to know my animals’ names. Now it’s every man for himself. We’re waging an attention war and we all want to be number one to Teddy.

At the end of the day, though, I win. For now. Because. Well. You guys, I have some news. She SCOOTED OVER TO ME recently, and – this is important – it was away from my husband. Granted she was hungry and I have the boobs, but still. I tasted sweet, sweet victory; a flavor I haven’t enjoyed since Veronica copied my biology notes in ninth grade and then invited me to her puffy paint t-shirt pool party.

But oh, what a fickle bitch popularity can be. Like that pool party, my day in the Veronica sun was a short one. Perhaps my puffy paint art wasn’t experimental enough, my bathing suit was ill-fitting. Whatever it was, I wasn’t welcome at the popular girls’ lunch table that very next week. And my true friends were less than enthused by my having ditched them for “greener pastures.” So I guess I should remember that the husband, the cat, and the dog were all there before the baby. They count too and I suppose should send a little love and attention their way as well.

I’ll do that. For sure. Just as soon as my messiah baby can say with her mouth and her voice and her heart that I’m her favorite.

She certainly is mine.

(*Veronica’s name has been changed but she knows who she is.)

(Photo: Shutterstock)