Didn’t I Feed You Yesterday?

And finally, there is Finn, which stands for Finis, Finito, Finished. We got Pierson and Larson’s names wrong; I really really hope we got this one right. As he is still so young, I haven’t been able to peg his personality, but he seems to be a happy boy—very rough-and-tumble—and he never shies from the action. If his brothers are wrestling, he will climb right to the top of the pile. If they are on our homemade stage, rocking out, Finn will grab the closest thing to a guitar he can find—a piece of pizza, for instance—and join in the jam. Finn will find his way to the middle of everything, from a dance contest to a fencing bout.

Although he is beloved by his brothers, this boy is no angel, which is probably why he fits in so well. I was sitting at my desk working on an article when I heard a series of dull thuds coming from the kitchen. I decided I had better go investigate, and sure enough I found Finn up to his usual trouble. He was standing in front of the fridge in his diaper with a dozen eggs, dropping them to the floor one by one like a B-52 bomber.

“Why eggs?” I asked as he got ready to lob another. The look on his face was pure satisfaction.

“Look at this mess, Mom!” Pierson scolded when he entered the kitchen to check out why I was going postal. “You just had to buy a new baby, didn’t you? Now he’s bad and we are all stuck with him.”

We still call Finn the baby, and probably always will, though at almost two years old, he is starting to talk. He’s also my only blondie, with a tuft of curly hair that makes me want to card it and knit a tiny sweater. Finn is my celebrity baby. As my pregnancy became increasingly obvious during Project Runway, much of the chatter surrounding the show focused squarely on my giant belly, and viewers got a kick out of watching me sew myself into larger and larger glam wear. When he was born, People magazine did a two-page spread on him. In fact, when we were still in the hospital watching CNN, his little name ran across the ticker! Even Peter, notoriously hard to impress, was thrilled. Apparently, by nerd standards the crawl is the ultimate sign that you have arrived. Now that I think of it, my contestant agreement for Project Runway was so intrusive, the network may actually own him. I should probably be receiving child support from the producers.

I HAVE A FAVORITE CHILD. I HEAR YOU GASPING IN HORROR. I ACTUALLY believe every mother does, but won’t admit it. It’s the dirty little secret of motherhood. Why is it so horrible? It’s not Sophie’s Choice or anything. I’m not saying I don’t love all of my children equally, just that I don’t always like all of them, at least not every day (or week, or month, or year).

I have favorite shoes, movies, and foods; why not a favorite child? It’s not as though I won’t help you with your homework if you’re not my favorite. The task is just less insufferable for me with some of my children than with others. My children know I play favorites; they actually compete to be held in my highest esteem. We call their rank order the List.

“Don’t do that,” I say, “you’ll go to the bottom of the List.”

“If I rub your feet, will I go to the top of the List?” Truman says, willing to work for it.

“Just put me at the top,” says Peik, angling for a freebie.

“Mom, I’m paying my own way through college,” Cleo helpfully points out. “I’m working two jobs and saving my education fund to start up a business when I graduate.” There is a pause. “Where am I on the List?”

“I sure do love you,” Pierson says, applying himself to me like spray tan. “There isn’t a List, is there, it’s just me, right?”

“Lawa, Pake is twying to gib me a wedgie,” Larson says, not really understanding what’s going on, but smart enough to take his brother down a peg.

“Gaga baga dada mama ist,” Finn squeaks.

I prefer certain childhood stages to others, and by virtue of being in one of the preferred stages, a child can find itself higher on the List. I find babies cute and innocent, while teenagers seem hell bent on ruining my life; I’ll forgive a ruined dozen of eggs more quickly than a lost-for-the-fifth-time cell phone.

Some of my kids operate like me, so I understand them better. These are the ones who, less intellectually gifted, work harder to succeed. Some of my children are better suited to my husband’s personality: he totally gets them, while I stand there dumbfounded. I find nothing more frustrating than a child who is superintelligent but uses that intelligence to find ways to beat the system.

If you swear you have no favorite, and think you are fooling your kids, you’re wrong. Kids are short; they aren’t stupid. I find that, just as personalities are formed partly by birth order, they are also formed by preference order. I know a woman who thought her brother’s name was MySonPaul, she was so clearly not her mother’s favorite. Today this woman is a successful publishing executive, driven by her childhood striving to be on top. Her brother still lives at home.

Not only am I convinced that this competition is healthy, but I would also venture to say that overprotective mothering does more damage. So bring me that List, and who wants to give me a back rub?

I’ve given up hoping for another girl, and have really gotten the swing of a houseful of men. But don’t think even for a minute that I don’t wonder what would happen if we were to go bananas and throw the dice again. People say I’m crazy when I tell them I’m open to just one more. Really—six, seven, eight, what’s the difference? Peter and I are already grossly outnumbered. We have no current plans to have any more children, but if we did get Finn’s name wrong, we would just throw another kid on the pile with the rest of them and it would be as well loved, exquisitely neglected, and—we hope—entertaining as all the others.

MANIFEST DESTINY

^{“I can see trapping a man with one pregnancy, but five?”}

LATELY, PETER IS SHOWING A DISTURBING INTEREST in card tricks. He learns them from videos on YouTube.

“Come see this, kids,” he says as he tries to get the five boys to gather around. After the first chorus of “How’d you do that?” and “Do that again!” they typically lose interest and move back to their video games, TV shows, and guitars.

“Peter,” I say to him in an indignant tone.

“What?” he replies, all innocent.

“What? What? Card tricks? What the hell are you thinking? Do you know what this means?” I almost shout. “Who does card tricks, Peter? Think! Old men! That’s who does card tricks. This officially makes you an old man!”

While I can take some solace in the fact that he learns these tricks on the Internet, a venue not normally associated with the oxygen tank crowd, the truth is that performing card tricks is second only to writing letters of complaint and carrying an AARP card as a true indicator that you have officially arrived at old age. It is not that I mind if Peter is old. I actually like being married to an older man; it makes me feel young by comparison, and it means that no matter how old I get I’ll always be a babe to him. It is true that at least his letters of complaint are usually about the inefficiency of an interface or a flaw in the calculation system of a financial website, but card tricks still cross the line.

It seems like a lifetime ago. I was living in Houston, and one of my girlfriends came to visit. Kathryn and I had worked together folding panties at Victoria’s Secret, but then her husband was transferred and they had moved to Kansas City.

“Let’s go get our fortunes told,” she said, telling me about this guy in Houston she had heard of who was reported to be the real thing. I demurred for myself—I don’t need a roadmap to navigate my life—but agreed to drive Kathryn to an address an hour across town, not such an unusual distance in the urban sprawl of Texas. We arrived at a typical-looking apartment complex with no discernible universe-shaking auras, located the proper apartment, and were shown into what could have passed for any retiree condo south of the Mason-Dixon Line. No red velvet curtains with thick gold fringe, no crystal balls, not even a single neon sign flashing promises of the future