"It's funny," Sandra Dee Darin admitted, "but I thought the minute I saw the baby I would love him and feel like a mother. And I didn't. The first time they brought him in to me, I loved the baby. But I didn't love this baby. I would have loved any baby they brought in, because I didn't know him yet. It was like I loved him more inside, because I carried him for so long. Then when they showed him to me, it was very hard to associate this with the baby I'd carried.

"So I didn't love Dodd Mitchell like a mother the first time. It was about the third or fourth time I saw him that I started to love him. Because by then I knew what was coming. I knew the face that was going to come down the hall, and I knew the little body. . . .

"You should have seen me the day I took the baby home from the hospital. I told Bobby, 'Send the nurse home.' He said, 'What?' I said, 'Send her home. I'm taking care of the baby myself.' So I had him send the nurse home and the maid, too—-although the maid came back the next day to help with the cleaning.

"So there were three people in the house when we entered—-the baby, Bobby and me. I put the baby down and we were watching him like proud parents and, all of a sudden, he starts crying. He was hungry. Well, the nurse had made the formula before she left, so I just got the bottle out and—-I can't figure out how to put the nipple on! I'm a mother now, taking care of my own child, and I can't figure out how to put the nipple on the bottle.

"So I'm only home about an hour, and I'm on the phone with my mother. 'Mother, come quickly, I don't know how to put the nipple on the bottle!' And she had to come over.

"By the time she arrived, I had the nipple on, all right, but backwards, so that it was too loose. The nipple was rolling all around, and my baby was getting a milk bath!

"But the funny part is this: My mother came over and I said, 'Is this the way the nipple goes?' And she said, 'Yes, I think so.' And we fed the baby like that. You see, I wasn't a bottle- fed baby, so how did she know how to put a nipple on? The next day we were sterilizing the bottle and reading the directions, and suddenly I said, 'Mom —the nipple's on wrong!' We were both surprised."

She shook her head, "I don't know. I look at our little boy now and I don't know how I had the nerve—-I'd never diapered a baby before in my life, or even held one in my arms. And yet I wouldn't let the nurse near him. But when his formula wouldn't agree with him and he had colic for a week, I naturally called the doctor down every day while he was sick, but I simply wouldn't call the nurse. I had more nerve! When I think about it now, it frightens me."

Sandra admitted that Bobby had been a terrific help during that first month. "There are some people that are born to be fathers," she beamed. "Bobby's one. He just loves kids—-any kid. When I brought the baby home, he used to take over the night feedings, when he wasn't working, and he'd even diaper the baby. I woke up one morning terribly sleepy, and I looked and didn't see my husband in bed. We have a gigantic bed, you know, so I had to sit up and look around, and all of a sudden I saw him sleeping with the baby in his arm and the bottle in the baby's mouth. He is drinking his milk, and my husband's sleeping.

For laughing out loud "You know, the baby looks so much like Bobby. There is nothing of me in the baby at all. In his face, in his hair, in his build, he's a miniature Bobby. In fact, I sit in the audience at night during Bobby's show, and I'll start to laugh hysterically sometimes. And nobody knows why. They all know who I am, and they look and wonder what's so funny. I mean, he'll be doing a ballad, and I can look at Bobby and see the little baby's expressions on his face. And I sit at the table laughing all through 'I'm a Fool to Want You.'

"At first, I didn't want the nurse at all. I was afraid the baby wouldn't know its mother if somebody else took care of it. But now I realize how really lucky I am. Because now, when I take that baby, it's only because I want to. It's a real pleasure—-it's not a job anymore. By the end of that first month, I was taking care of him alone, when he'd wake up crying for his bottle, I couldn't wait to give it to him and have him go back to sleep, because I was so tired. I wasn't seeing enough of Bobby, either. The minute he'd come home from work, the baby would start to cry for his bottle, and Bobby would have to eat dinner alone while I fed the baby. Now I want to see the baby awake, and I want to play with it.

"On the other hand," Sandra added, "if I hadn't taken care of the baby by myself that first month, I wouldn't have the self-confidence to turn it over to the nurse now. Because if I felt I couldn't take care of the baby as well as the nurse, I wouldn't feel happy.

"As it is, I've gone through sickness with the little baby, and I've taken care of it myself, and now you should see me carry him! I'm so casual I carry him slung over my shoulder!

The movie-star mother
"You should have seen the sight the other day. I was doing fittings for my new picture, If a Man Answers, and I had to go to Jean Louis' for them. Well, in this picture, I have thirty-two of the most gorgeous outfits you ever saw. Ostrich feather dresses and mink lined coats, and one dress is solid gold —-well, all gold beads. Anyway, I'm standing there with the four fitters and Jean Louis, and I'm in this beautiful dress and they're pinning me up, and on the couch is my son. He's lying there with his bottle.

"So there's "the movie star, getting herself fitted and pinned up and all, and all of a sudden you hear me shout: 'Hold it, folks! The baby's bottle fell out!' And I run over to the couch and put the bottle back in his mouth. Then the fitting continues.

"The baby's going to come to the studio with me, every day," she said determinedly. "I have a dressing room bungalow with four rooms, and I'm going to have them bring him in every day about noon. And he'll stay with me the rest of the afternoon. I have a little porch, and I'll put him out on the porch in the sun when I have to work, and the nurse will be there with him. Then I can see him all the time between scenes. He's a very good baby and I know it'll work out fine."

The baby has already attended his father's rehearsals. "You see, he loves music!" she said proudly. "He's crazy about it. The day we brought him home from the hospital, whenever he'd start to cry, Bobby would play the guitar for him and he'd stop immediately. So when the band would come over to the house to rehearse with Bobby, I'd wheel the baby into the rehearsal room to listen. When the band was playing, my boy would sleep. But the minute the band stopped, he'd start to cry until the music came on again.

"In fact, now he lies in his crib and listens to a little radio of his own—- it's shaped like a baseball. At night we hang it up in the crib and he listens to it for hours. Why, he even knows the Top Ten! He can tell his father which is going to be a hit and which will be a miss. When he starts to cry, that record is out.

"But he's not impressed by his father's records—-I tell you!" she laughed. "So far, his favorite record has been 'The Lion Sleeps Tonight.' When the high part comes on, he starts to smile. The doctor saw him and didn't believe it!

"When he grows up, I'd like him to go to military school," Sandra went on with a smile, "because the uniform's so cute. But Bobby says, 'The boy is going to a public school, and he's going to play in the street like every other boy, and he's going to get hit on the fanny.' I keep saying, 'Military school,' and Bobby keeps saying, 'Public!'

"And then Bobby says, 'I grew up in a public school, and I didn't do so bad!' And I say, 'But I grew up in a private school, and I didn't do so bad, either!' But, you know, I think his father's going to win out."

Would Sandra object if Dodd wanted to go into show business?

"No," she said firmly. "I'm happy in it and Bobby's happy in it, and if this is going to make the baby happy, fine. You know, there's nothing about this business that I regret. It's not done anything to me that I'm ashamed of, or that I wouldn't want the baby to know. It's brought me nothing but happiness so far—-knock wood!" And she rapped on the table.

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