“How about you give your back a break and let me carry her,” I suggest, but Remy looks over at me and shakes his head.
“No thank you.”
“C’mon, Remy. Let me carry her.”
“Listen, missy, I’m not giving this sweet baby up,” he comments and nods his chin toward the top of her head. “Plus, look at her. She’s too cozy to be moved.”
“So, what you’re saying is that you’re a baby hog?” I tease, and the small smile that crests his lips makes my heart get all wonky inside my chest. My reaction is strange, but I blame it on that smile of his. It’s all too familiar and has the power to take me back years into the past.
“When it comes to this little cutie? Yes. I am most definitely a baby hog,” he answers. “Plus, I think me and Iz are quite the adorable sight. No doubt, the ladies of Central Park are appreciative.”
“Ohhhh…so what you’re really trying to do is pick up hot chicks with my baby?”
“Yeah, right.” He winks. “Why would I want to pick up hot chicks when I’m with the two most beautiful girls in the world?”
“Are you trying to charm me, Remington? Because it’s starting to feel like you’re tossing an awful lot of smooth-talking my way today.” I quirk a defiant eyebrow at him, and he just shrugs one shoulder.
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“Is it working?”
I roll my eyes. “When I was sixteen? Most definitely. But now? Not after I got a look at myself in the mirror before we left my apartment.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he retorts. “You’re freshly showered and gorgeous.”
“I might be showered, but I’m still a sleep-deprived, overworked, postpartum mess of anxiety,” I correct him. “I’m surviving. That’s about as far as it goes.”
Seriously. This isn’t even me being insecure. It’s my current reality. There is no way on God’s green earth that my current frazzled state lands me in the top one billion of beautiful women. Being a new mom is not easy. Especially when the term “new mom” holds so much more weight than I ever thought it would when I first found out I was pregnant.
“Well, I think you’re gorgeous. And I’m certain, if Izzy were awake, she would agree.”
I snort. “Izzy can’t talk.”
“She’d think it.”
“Pretty sure that’s not how it works, but okay.”
Remy just grins and places a gentle hand to my lower back to guide us toward a park bench. “She’s out. I think we can take a load off for a minute.”
We sit down just as a young, thirtysomething mother runs past us, trying to wrangle a small toddler back into his stroller.
“Henry!” she shouts, and he just giggles and giggles, his fat little legs churning faster whenever his mom gets close.
Henry the toddler screeches like a pterodactyl, and his poor mother exhales an exasperated breath, sweat already starting a path on her brow. “Henry, honey, it’s time to go home.”
“No!” Henry shouts and stomps one gym-shoe-covered foot to the ground. He crosses his fat little arms over his chest and tries to stand his ground, but his mom isn’t having any of it. In an instant, she whisks him up and into her arms and toward the stroller he keeps refusing to sit in.
The toddler screams and cries the whole way, his little arms and legs kicking and smacking his mom as they go.
Holy moly. What’s it going to be like when Izzy is no longer an infant, but a toddler like little Henry over there? Will she be just like him? Screeching and demanding and not listening to anything I tell her? God help me.
I can’t manage Izzy and my work schedule as it is, and she’s only six weeks old. Even when she’s crying or upset, I can at least keep her secure in my arms or in her stroller or baby carrier or her vibrating swing when I’m really desperate.
But when she’s a toddler? What in the hell am I going to do?
“Maria?”
Evidently a liar wrote the last book I read, talking about how it gets easier after the newborn stage.
“Maria?” Remy’s voice stresses, his extra effort at getting my attention obvious now.
“Hmmm?” I respond, but I still can’t pull my eyes away from little Henry and his mom as she fights to get him strapped into his stroller.
“You okay?”
I have no idea how long I’ve been sitting here, falling down the rabbit hole of future fears and watching Henry turn into the Incredible Hulk, but the concerned look in Remy’s eyes says it’s been a few minutes too long.