How Not to Calm a Child on a Plane by Johanna Stein Page A

* † ‡

    * I.e., Gender-wise; species-wise we were pretty clear on what to expect.
    * A phrase I like to use when talking about people whose opposing beliefs are both (a) different from mine and (b) 100 percent wrong.
    * I still can’t explain why he used the terminology of Hustler magazine, but I’m just going to stick with the assumption that he thought we were cool enough to handle it.
    * Fact: I am known in some circles as a Manly Lady.
    * Please see Appendix A.
    * Look, I’ve heard about all those studies linking physical attractiveness to professional success, and if she can sail through life on her looks, then I guess that bodes well for my husband and me and the quality of retirement home that she’ll eventually stick us into. But for the sake of her humanity, I’d still rather she were a little more nerdy/awkward/homely/ dorky. Not just because all of those words have described me at one time or another (also now), but because I’ve heard it straight from the mouths of “babes” (i.e., the grown-lady kind) that their striking good looks often make life more—not less—difficult (i.e., problems with female friendships, men feeling intimidated by them, the world not taking them seriously). This being so, two rhetorical questions: (1) Is it too much to hope that my child could learn to get along in life solely on her personality, intelligence, and pluck? And (2) would I be going too far in considering physically disfiguring her? Just wondering.
    * As long as she’s your kid.
    â€  ( Just kidding.)
    â€¡ (No, I’m not)

ten
    MY BODIES, MYSELF
    S he woke up screaming “STEEZIN DA QUOZIT! STEEZIN DA QUOZIT!” After a few minutes of rocking and snot wrangling, I was able to get to the root of it. She’d had a nightmare about Steve. The guy from Blues Clues . She thought he was hiding in her closet.
    This brought me great joy.
    Now, it’s true that I have always been attracted to “Steve”—the host of this mind-numbing Nickelodeon show—to the point that (a) I did place an eBay bid on, and after a hair-raising bidding war did win, the entire series of Blues Clues on DVD, and then (b) summarily discarded the single disc containing the episodes hosted by Steve’s replacement, “Joe,” whose round face and lack of charisma make me want to punch something.
    But the pleasure I felt after my three-year-old’s first night terror had nothing to do with Steve, my not-so-secret future second husband.
    It was all about her and me.
    Until that moment I’d had no sense that she shared any of my genetic material, despite the fact that she was conceived inside my body and did, indeed, shoot out of my loins like a cannonball.
    Back when she was growing in my belly, I’d imagine the little girl she’d become. In my wildest fantasies she was somewhere between Little Miss Sunshine and that kid from Welcome to the Dollhouse: a chubby, nerdy, socially awkward little dork. Sometimes I’d toss in a little deformity, like a clubfoot, a lazy eye, or a third nipple growing out of her face. She would be my Beautiful Little Underdog™.
    Instead, I gave birth to a Disney princess who looks like we stole her from a pair of privileged and well-adjusted Swedish downhill skiers.
    I am on the short side with a laugh like a pellet gun and a head full of frizzy hair that looks like something a cat threw up. And while I find my husband attractive, he frequently describes his appearance as that of a thumb. Our daughter, on the other hand, is gorgeous and girlish, with almond-shaped blue eyes, silky blonde hair, and long, willowy legs that come up to my Adam’s apple. If I hadn’t witnessed with my own two eyes the sight of her punching her way out of my vagina like some character in a Quentin Tarantino movie, I wouldn’t have believed she was ours . . . or, more specifically, mine .
    But that night, after seeing her in the