โGood morning mommy and daddy,โ I remember the doctor saying. โSo, are we fussy? Crying? Whatโs going on?โ
โHeโs lost weight. I donโt think heโs getting enough breast milk,โ I said. I was sure of myself โ definitive. Not like when I go to the doctor about an issue Iโm having.
With a compassionate nod the doctor called in the nurse and the baby scale and sure enough he was down another ounce even after feeding him multiple times through the night and that morning.
I knew it.
The first time I realized that becoming a mother changed the way I saw the world was 12 hours earlier, just 48 hours after I brought my baby home from the hospital. He felt lighter. For all intents and purposes, it appeared that the breastfeeding was working, as painful as it was. As swollen and red and purple as I was. But my baby felt lighter to me. Maybe just a few ounces, but I could tell. I asked my husband when he held him, โDoes he feel lighter to you?โ And while he could not say yes, he believed me. So we immediately bought a baby scale on Amazon and paid extra to have it delivered same day. That evening, we weighed our baby and there on the scale was the evidence that he had indeed dropped down three ounces from when we left the hospital. I called the pediatrician who had just seen us the day before and the after hours on-call doctor told us to come in the next morning.
My baby fed and fed and fed and was healthy and plump. There wasnโt anything wrong with him, he just needed a little boost with formula as a supplement for a week or two. It wasnโt just the weight though. His cries. I knew when a cry wasnโt usual โ too high pitched, too whiny, too soft. I knew when a runny nose was allergies or a cold. I knew from a belly gurgle a blow-out would follow in minutesโฆif not seconds.
But it wasnโt until much later that I realized the very thing I was doing was training to be a detective. As he grew, I noticed new clues that would alert me to his goings on. A bowl of sweet potatoes, a food he once loved, ending up on the floor โ that wasnโt him acting out, but an allergy to our dogs. The sweet taste was no longer sweet due to his stuffed-up sinuses. And as heโs progressed through elementary school each day has become a game of Clue, depending on his mood and attitude when he arrives home. Iโm asking questions that arenโt just โHow are you? How was school?โ No, Iโm opening his lunchbox to see how much he ate. Iโm measuring the water left in his water bottle, Iโm paying attention to the show heโs putting on the tv and the type of snack heโs grabbed (from the fridge or was it the pantry?). A hummus or yogurt: evidence of a great day, played a lot of sports at lunch and recess. Cookies and chips: something emotional happened. A disagreement with a friend or a bad score on a spelling test.
Being a mom doesnโt come with a roadmap. Sure, there are books. A lot of books that tell you what to do if your child is gassy, or colicky, or wonโt stop crying. But even the pediatrician said at our very first meeting, while I was still pregnant, that diagnosing babies is part science and part art because they cannot tell us whatโs wrong. Iโd like to go back to him and say itโs also part forensics and sleuthing. Itโs our job as mothers to look for clues, keep logs of behaviors with times and dates. I still have an entire notebook filled with every time I breastfed my son, on which breast, for how long, and then again on the other side. Anecdotally, were you aware that babies spit up A LOT and their throw up looks the same as their spit up? We are required to differentiate. To identify the difference between the two, because one could be the flu and one could be GERD or just a full belly.
ย It writes itself like a pulp noir detective arriving to the scene of a horrific crime:
She had only been in the garage for five minutes. As she entered the house through the kitchen door, the smell hit her before she could take in the scene. Something sweet, and also something pungent. As the door swings all the way open, a vision of chaos commands her view. She sees it in flashes: multiple open cabinet doors. The refrigerator ajar and beeping a relentless alarm. Something brown and gooey dripping from the counter to the floorโฆa butterknife coated in the dark brown goo. Chocolate sauce. An exploded package of graham crackers. These items added up to baking โ QUICK โ make sure the oven and stove are off, and no gas is filling the room. Where is he? Will he be hostile, a take no prisoners kind of mood?
Then she sees it: a chocolatey handprint three and a half feet from the floor, pressed into the inside of the door frame. Urgency. She sprints through the door to find the trail of chaos continues. Crumbs are sprinkled on the floor, a used napkin dropped in front of the tv, the screen is paused. And then, before she can get ahead of the chaos it comes, โMom, I spilled.โ
Most days being a mom feels like youโre the supersleuth star of every cop show on television, using your awareness, your wits, and your gut to untangle each scene in your mind, and then jump into action to save the day. Youโre good cop and bad cop. Interrogations are real and frustrating on the best of days, just like they are on tv. Moms are always hypervigilant and leaning on intuition. Motherhood is endless evidence gathering. Itโs a lack of sleep while maintaining the level of awareness a whiskey drinking detective has on a double shift. Iโd put a tired mom up against a seasoned P.I. to solve a crime any day. Luckily, I got both when I created the protagonist of my Corey in Los Angeles series: an investigative reporter solving local murders who also happens to be a mom of a young son.ย
Jaimeย is a writer, podcaster, and professor of film and television at Montclair State University. She is the author of the gripping thriller, โVicious Cycle: A Corey in Los Angeles Mystery,โ and is the creator and host of the true crime investigative podcast,ย The Girl with the Same Nameย as well as the hilarious podcast about side-hustles,ย Make That Paper.ย Jaimeย lives in Los Angeles with her husband, son, and fur babies.
