The New Baby

Friday as I was leaving nursery school they handed me (aged four) a gift, “for the new baby”. A wrapped gift that wasn’t for me, this was a bad sign. I was obsessed with it. I suppose I’d brought a few gifts to other kids at birthday parties, but that was different. This gift was in my house somewhere and I had to find it. The gift wasn’t my only problem; my grandmother was staying with me while my mom and dad were at the hospital, and though it was probably only a few days, it felt like an eternity.  

Unlike almost every child under the sun, I didn’t like being with my grandmother. The previous spring while my mother sat on my bed holding my coat and trying to get me ready to visit her I fell off the rocking chair I was standing on and cut my eye badly. And now here she was living with me, albeit temporarily. I didn’t like the food she cooked, and that gift was driving me mad, why wasn’t it for me? I got all the presents around here and if this was how things were going to be I did not want that new baby in my house any more than my grandmother.

I wanted a baby sister, but when my dad called to say the baby had come he told me I had a baby brother. This was getting worse and worse. The crib was going to go in my room, and I had been planning on a little baby girl, just like one of my dolls sleeping there. A baby brother wasn’t on my agenda.

I was now even more determined to find that present; that would make me feel better. I waited for my grandmother to start doing something, and went into my parents’ bedroom. I started looking under the bed, the dressers, then going through my mother’s drawers; it didn’t take long to find the flat package. I shook it, I felt around, I couldn’t tell what it was, but I knew I wanted whatever was under that wrapping paper. I gently slid my chubby, four year old finger under the tape, and the paper ripped, uh oh, now what? I kept going; trying to keep to that one side of the package, and planning how I would fix it so no one would notice.

When I finally saw the gift I couldn’t believe what I was looking at; a stupid baby toy! One of those bouncy things that you suction to the table of a high chair so the baby can amuse himself. I have no idea what I thought would be in that package, and despite assurances from everyone that it wasn’t anything that would interest me, that didn’t seem possible, until this chilling, sobering moment. Now what? I tried to put the package back together, and re-tape it, but I couldn’t make it look as if it hadn’t been opened. I shoved it under my mother’s dresser as far as it would go, and began my career as a (bad) liar.

It wasn’t long before the hidden gift was missed. My dad was coming home to take us to the hospital to see my mom and the new baby, and my grandmother wanted to bring the gift. I know I fiercely protested my innocence, but she broke me, and finally I pulled the gift out from where I’d stashed it. That new baby hadn’t even gotten home and already he was ruining my life.