Rules of the Game Change With Daughter’s Arrival

Dave Anderson and Leslie Mascarenas, the baseball-softball sweethearts of Pacifica High School, are discussing each other’s batting averages when the realization hits.

It’s feeding time--again.

“Here, you take Kayla, I’ll get dinner,” says Dave, a senior shortstop, as he carefully places his 3-month-old daughter on Leslie’s lap.

Leslie, a junior third baseman, gives her baby girl a gentle hug and a kiss.

“She’s always hungry,” Leslie says, looking at the child with wonder. “She goes through, like, five bottles a day .”

In the kitchen, Dave carefully mixes the powdered formula--”Four scoops to eight ounces of water,” he recites--and caps the bottle with a freshly sterilized nipple. He gives the bottle a couple of hard shakes.

“Sometimes, the nipple gets kind of clogged, so I have to suck it through,” he says. “I spit it out, of course.”

Dave gives the brim of his baseball cap a quick tug and delivers the bottle to Leslie, sitting with Kayla on her parents’ living room sofa. Leslie wipes the bottle on her softball uniform. The game ended an hour ago. She hasn’t had time to change.

“Dave? Could you get me . . . ?”

“A diaper?” Dave asks.

“A cloth one--for a towel,” Leslie says.

Dave’s already halfway down the hall.

The walls of Leslie’s bedroom are of typical teen-age decor: lots of photos (mostly of Dave), a bulletin board (lots of Dave there, too), and at least a half-dozen dog posters--all Dalmatians.

Leslie loves the spotted dogs and has a Dalmatian calendar on the wall above her bed. The photo for April captures a Dalmatian going nose-to-nose with a rubber ducky. It isn’t the dog that commands your attention, though. It’s the piece of notebook paper tacked just above its head.

In large, scribbled letters it reads: TAKE PILL!

Leslie, lying on her twin-size bed, and Dave, sitting a few feet away on the floor, shoot each other a grin. They giggle. Leslie says it was her mother’s idea that she go on birth control pills after Kayla’s birth, even though her parents tell her she’s not to have sex.

“Insurance, I guess,” Leslie says of her mother’s reasoning.

As Leslie says this, Kayla smiles and gurgles on the pink and blue baby blanket on the bedroom floor. Her parents keep a watchful--and proud--eye on her every move, as they talk about their situation.

Although Dave and Leslie have known each other since they were toddlers--a photo of them as 5-year-old soccer players sits in a little heart frame on Leslie’s desk--their first date, dinner and a movie, wasn’t until two years ago. The relationship got increasingly serious. When they had sex, they used condoms. But one time, the condom broke.

A home pregnancy test confirmed their fears. Suddenly, what they thought would never happen--at least not to them--happened. The worst part was telling their parents.

“I said, ‘Mom, I have some good news and bad news,’ ” Dave says. “I got a B on my test, and . . .’ I told her to guess. She guessed it.”

Said Leslie: “I said, ‘Mom . . . guess what?’ She guessed everything before she finally said, ‘You’re . . . pregnant.’ I said ‘Yeah.’ Then she called my dad.”

Which called for a family meeting--soon-to-be parents with their parents. Responsibilities were discussed. Priorities were listed. Rules laid out.

Leslie would remain at Pacifica and stay in class as long as she could. Dave would get a job to start saving money for expenses. Dave and Leslie would remain living separately, at their parents’ houses, until Leslie finished high school.

That decision didn’t suit Dave. He and Leslie were going to be parents. He wanted them to be together--a family. As it is, Kayla stays with Leslie one night, Dave the next. There are cribs in each of their bedrooms. Dave’s mother, Sue, does most of the baby-sitting during the day.

Dave says he can’t wait until Leslie graduates. They can live together, get married, whatever. Just be on their own. He figures his $8.50-per-hour job at his parents’ computer service business will be a $15-per-hour position once he takes over increased responsibility. Combined with the minimum wage Leslie earns at a local sandwich shop, they should be OK, he says.

But he also wants to play baseball in college. He had hoped to join his brother, Bob, at UC Santa Barbara, but now he knows he’ll stay home next year to care for Kayla while Leslie finishes high school. He figures his .667 batting average might help him land a scholarship somewhere close, maybe Cal State Fullerton.

Leslie’s dream was to be a nurse. But now her dreams are day-to-day. That’s life as a parent, she says with a shrug.

Dave and Leslie went to Lamaze classes. They remember it as being populated with “old people . . . like in their 30s.” Dave says he studied hard because “if you answered a question right, you got a piece of candy.”

Leslie said her pregnancy was easy. Her only big craving was for pumpkin seeds, she didn’t feel ill, and the only nuisance, she says, was having to use a rubber band to fasten her jeans once she was too big to button them. But the mood swings and crying spells were a surprise, she says. Dave rolls his eyes, apparently in full agreement.

Leslie stayed at home for the few weeks before she was due, doing her class work at home. Dave wore a beeper to school so Leslie could notify him if she had to, but a vice principal took it away. Against school policy, he said.

“I’m like, ‘Whoa! My girlfriend’s pregnant. I kinda need it,’ ” Dave said. He got it back after his mother had a talk with the school administration. Days later, Dave was in accounting class when he was notified Leslie was having pains. He rushed off campus without getting permission. Even though it turned out to be a false alarm, it was worth the risk of Saturday school--four hours of detention, he said.

Two weeks after Leslie was due, her doctor induced labor. Dave stayed in the delivery room for support and encouragement. Leslie yelled and took a swing at him in return. Sixteen hours later, Kayla Irene Mascarenas, 7 pounds 12 ounces, was born.

Leslie, still under sedation, entertained the party of 25 well-wishers with a woozy rendition of “Three Blind Mice.” Everyone pointed out that Kayla’s birth date--Dec. 22--was a good omen. Dave and Leslie each wear No. 22 on their game uniforms.

The last three months have been filled with lessons for the new parents--how to properly sterilize nipples for one--and child-rearing decisions. Disposable won out over cloth diapers, Leslie said, because it’s less time consuming. But who changes more diapers? Apparently, it’s an on-going debate.

“Oh, I change more diapers,” Leslie says.

“You?” Dave asks.

“Yeah. Me. You just have your mom do it.”

“No I don’t. I change her plenty . . . “

Kayla’s cries halt the debate. Dave runs down the hall to check on her. Leslie puts her feet up on the couch. She greets an instant of rest with a heavy sigh and a smile.

“It’s not like our lives have changed very much,” she says hopefully.

A moment later, Dave returns with Kayla. Feeding time--again.

Barbie Ludovise’s column appears Wednesday and Sunday. Readers may reach Ludovise by writing her at The Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, 92626, or calling (714) 966-5847.