I, Sisyphus by JULIET WATERS One day last January, I decided to ask my babydaddy over for coffee. “Coffee?” he said, like it was just another word for money. “Yeah. Coffee, really.” I was feeling like it was time to start some healthy bi-nuclear family rituals. Though we’d had a rough beginning, ever since Ben’s first birthday last August we’d managed to shift things into neutral. Neutral’s great, for a while. But the danger of staying there too long is if you don’t shift into gear, you may end up going into reverse. I never underestimate the human need for drama, and I didn’t see us spending the next 20 years in neutral. So I decided, along with my therapist, that it was time to take a healthy risk—what is called “reaching out.” I proposed a day. He wanted to check it out with his girlfriend. Glad to have this opportunity to make clear the propriety of my intentions, I invited her as well. They arrived on a Saturday afternoon, with Ben, because Fridays they take him overnight. Ben seemed happy they were sticking around, though unclear as to how he was going to fit them into the usual half-hour breast-feeding binge with which he celebrates his triumphant return. Had I thought this out I would have pumped some milk and made coffee ahead of time. Fortunately the tantrum induced by this frustration made him sleepy and pretty soon he conked out. We chatted about the usual Ben-related things. Stuff we were noticing about him, plans for the future. I went to the kitchen for more coffee, and when I came back I could sense another gear shift. “So, listen,” said babydaddy. “We have some news for you. We’re going to have a baby.” A brother for Ben, due mid-July. I can remember my therapist looking a little shocked when I told her. You may remember how it was revealed a few months into therapy that she was about a week more pregnant than I was. Because we have children born a week apart, I often feel like she’s more of a friend than someone I pay for good advice. It turns out, however, she had some news too. She was going to have a second baby, due mid-July. So we focused on the positive aspects of this new turn of events. How fortuitous it was that I had created the circumstances that made it easy for babydaddy to tell me this news with respect and consideration. And how great it was that Ben was going to have a sibling and I wasn’t going to have to do any of the work. I haven’t been invited for coffee yet, but I was invited to their wedding. I appreciate this, though coffee might have been a little less complicated than a seven-course Italian meal. It was a lovely wedding at Murray Park. Sadly, we missed most of it because Ben had discovered the joys of running full throttle down a verdant hill, which he loved so much he wanted to continue across Côte St-Antoine and all the way down to Westmount Park. I, on the other hand, discovered the challenge of carrying a raging toddler over my shoulder, up a verdant hill, in high heels, only to watch him run right back down. I felt like Sisyphus, the existential hero doomed by the gods to push the same rock up a hill, over and over again for eternity. Poor guy. Though at least he doesn’t end up two hours later splattered with tomato sauce. That was June. In July Ben’s baby brother was born. And last week Ben turned two. I haven’t seen my therapist for a while, she’s on maternity leave. So, right now I think I’m on cruise control. :