I Just Want to Pee Alone
Page 8
Every day is pretty much, "Damn, that was embarrassing. I can't wait to tell everyone." Motherhood is hilarious. And mortifying.
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Amy and her husband made two kids, a three-year-old girl and a five-year-old boy. She does not consider herself a housewife, as she owns no pearls and only one apron. Amy is an expert in nothing but laughing at the absurdity of parenting. You can read more of her embarrassing stories on her blog, Funny is Family.
A Stranger in the Land of Twigs and Berries
By Suzanne Fleet
Toulouse & Tonic
I'm one of three girls. My poor father was so knee-deep in vaginas when we were growing up, he fashioned a man-cave in a tool shed in our back yard just so he could have a few seconds not dominated by someone else's mood swings.
Dad spoke baseball in a land of ballet classes and butchered Barbie doll hair. He looked at the price tag of designer jeans as if it were listed in Lira. He opened countless drawers to the sound of lipgloss tubes clattering in foreign tongues. And stood at the shelves of our stores bewildered by the difference between slender-regular and regular tampons.
His closets were dominated by once-worn ballet costumes and a shit-ton of Mary Kay make-up my mom never sold. He was so confounded by the exchange rate from dollars to drama that he regularly just handed over his wallet to all of us.
My dad was a stranger in the land of bras and panties.
And now I am a stranger in the land of twigs and berries.
I know from girl stuff. Hair-rollers and glitter. Flower petals and perfume. Hours-long conversations about whether a boy likes you or like-likes you. Growing into your features and losing your baby fat. The agony of PMS and the ecstasy of a new pair of shoes.
This is the language I understand.
But like my father, I've been given children who are completely foreign to me.
When my first son was just a few weeks old, I was chastised by my husband after he found the extensive lint collection the baby and I were unknowingly stowing under the head of his penis. Hubs was flabbergasted to find that I needed step-by-step instruction for the proper cleaning of boy equipment. To which I responded, "How many penises do you think I've cleaned before this one?"
Then there's learning to deal with a small arm-like appendage that shoots urine at you like a six-year-old boy with a super-soaker at the pool. All it takes is a small whoosh of air during a diaper change and that little hose turns on willy-nilly. If you have boys, you must become the fastest diaper changer in the world unless you like the smell of urine in your hair. Although, honestly, just get used to the smell. You can clean until you're yellow in the face, but you'll never get it out of the wallpaper from when he decided to write his name in pee above the toilet tank.
Penises are one thing. Balls are a whole other creature. Cleaning them is like being charged with disinfecting a speed-addled bulldog that's just rubbed his entire face in a pile of his own shit.
There's an art to pinning a strong, twisty baby boy to the mat while wiping poop out of crevices that seemed to just keep multiplying. But this process can never be perfected because the baby keeps inventing new moves. Last week, a match went to him after he used his new "Kung Fu Alligator Roll" move on me and somehow ended up smudging poop on his own nose. Although honestly, in a case like that, nobody wins.
Speaking of poop, as soon as you find out you're expecting a baby boy, begin gathering information on how to clean dime to quarter-sized brown stains out of underpants. All of my very scientific research indicates that boys are born with weaker anal muscles than girls. This is the only explanation I can think of for the persistent phenomenon known as sharting.
This is just the beginning of a long journey into a testosterone-laden land where confusion will reign. You'll never figure out the subtle differences between villains and pirates. You'll consistently mix up Captain America with Superman, Dr. Freeze with Two-Face. You'll buy plastic swashbuckling swords even though you always said you wouldn't and when they're played with, you will be the bad guy and you will get yours every single time.
Your Lego towers and Lincoln Log forts will never be both structurally sound and giant enough. And nine times out of ten, even if you're dressed like Batgirl and twirling fire batons, you'll lose their attention immediately when something with wheels rolls into sight.
Your house will always be filled with the sounds of small men trying to outdo one another and you'll never ever have enough eyes to answer the steadfast calls of "Look at me! Look at me! Look at me!"
Things will CRASH and BAM and KABLAM so often you'll hear those sounds in your sleep and wake to find a boy in a superhero mask standing at the side of your bed.
And now we're to the part where I tell you that I was absolutely sent the children I was meant to have. Two crazy, messy, stinky little men whose chubby arms have placed me upon a pedestal and crowned me Queen of the Land of Twigs and Berries. They love me as only little boys can, which is to say completely, passionately, competitively and sometimes irrationally.
I carried them inside my body and they are a part of me forever. They occasionally prove this by trying to go back in there. But, of course, neither one will ask for directions.
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Suzanne Fleet is a writer and SAHM of two stinky boys who works hard to exercise her family's sense of humor by writing about them on her blog, Toulouse & Tonic. Suzanne's writing has won her numerous runner-up trophies and honorable mentions over the years. Always a bridesmaid, never a bride. Except for that time she was a bride.
The Other Mommy War
By Nicole Leigh Shaw
Ninja Mom Blog
You a breastfeeder? Breast is best, you know. Except when it isn't. Like when you have raging mastitis and breastfeeding is more painful than watching Pauly Shore in his seminal work on the Neanderthal, Encino Man.
But, let us not battle over organic versus synthetic nipples. There are so many more important parenting stands to take. There are bigger, more precious soapboxes to perch upon. Like red-shirting your kindergartener or whether it's advisable to let your eight-year-old daughter wear shorts with "Princess" or "Cupcake" emblazoned across the buttocks in sequins.
Truth be told, in my real life I've not seen the traditional Mommy Wars between SAHMs and Working Moms, or over boobs, homeschooling, and artificial colors in foods and beverages. I've never borne witness to a carpool cat fight over iCarly readiness. And though I've seen many a virtual battle on the internet's most accurate and reliable medium for debate—Facebook—I've never personally seen two women throw down over BPA-free sippy cups.
What I have seen and heard and witnessed, both publicly and privately, is the growing phalanxes of mothers lining up on the more-than-one child versus only-child topic. It's not uncommon to find a commenter on social media blasting a mom who claims to shower every day with the incendiary slur, "She must only have one child." It's not uncommon to be with a group of women, chatting about everything from shopping lists to Tatum Channing's best angle (the shirtless one) while bandying about disparaging comments about singleton mothers.
It's a dirty word these days. Singleton. Moms with more than one kid use it like a failing grade. Sure, you're wearing a coordinated outfit, but you only have one child. Sure, you can sign your kids up for five extra-curricular activities because you only have one child. Having one child is easy. You may as well have a hermit crab or a pet rock.
As a mother of four, I can assert that nothing I've done as a mother was harder than having only one child.
My oldest and I were attached by breast, Bjorn, or the crook of my arm for the first three months of her life, and for 20 out of 24 hours per day thereafter until she was one year old. I hadn't spent that much time forced to bond with another human since my college days. We bunked together in close quarters, one of us always drinking too much and heaving it up unceremoniously, and fought over whose turn it is to get a shower. Never mine, it turns out.
Newborn pledging is th
e domain of freshman mothers, whether you stop at one child or have a dozen more, none are as ridiculously surreal as the first. It's a time marked by scavenger hunts in the middle of the night, this time for pacifiers instead of a sorority mascot, when we do things we never thought we'd stoop to all because we want someone else to really, really like us. The motherhood sorority hazes with sleeplessness, irritability, and an abiding sense that you're screwing it all up. Once you become a sister, you'll never have to pledge again. One kid and you're in.
By comparison, having another child, while logistically difficult to adjust to, forces a mom to loosen her grip on the reins. It forces her to stop obsessing over the health, happiness, and future career opportunities of her oldest child. Now mom has an unscheduler in the house. A fleshy reminder that life rarely goes according to plan and, more importantly, who the hell put mom in charge of everything? When my next child forced my attention away from the needs of my oldest, I was able to enjoy her as a person, not a project.
I realized that I'd gotten busier, but life hadn't gotten harder, in parenting terms. Emotionally, it was eased by the addition of more children. If one wrote on the walls with a Sharpie, I could seethe quietly while whispering "you're mommy's favorite" into the ear of the better-behaved child.
I wonder if mothers of more than one are reluctant to acknowledge this truth because they are afraid to lose their sympathy card. That's the imagined scorecard that parents carry around. Points are award like this:
* One baby equals one point. You're new at this and we all feel sorry for you, but not enough to really help out because we've already lived it and you'll survive, whiner.
* Two babies equal five points because you're really committed to procreation, but not insanely so, and we can offer you help now if only because helping you means we can't babysit for that one friend with five kids. That chick's a lunatic.
* Have twins or higher-order multiples and you get tons of points, but you can only redeem them for help from immediate family or really close friends because no one wants to be responsible for your litter.
* Have more than three, or have more after having multiples, and you're at zero points. Consider yourself quarantined because no one wants to catch your crazy. After all, you should have figured out how babies are made by now, you idiot.
These distinctions, these attempts to put others into parenting worth-categories, are even worse than criticizing a parent over the amount of TV her kid watches, French fries he eats, or Bratz dolls she owns. They are worse because often the size of a family is less about planning and more about circumstance. Many people imagine a life with lots of kids making Goldfish crumbs in the corners of the couch and end up content with one child, by choice or not. Some parents never thought they'd want more than one and the next thing they know they are having a second baby 12 years after the first. Sometimes, like watching a birth plan disintegrate while you labor, the size of your family turns out to be something you have less control over than you expected. Making someone feel reckless for having a handful of children or making someone else feel like they copped out by having one is mean in spirit and meager in compassion.
Recently a friend began a discussion on Facebook with this comment:
"You know how you have one kid and you're all 'This is great! I love my family and my life balance!' and then your husband gets all, 'I feel guilty that she doesn't have siblings' and you're all 'CLOSED FOR BIZ' and then also feel guilty about the siblings and NOW about letting down the husband? Hrmph."
A group of us debated the pros and cons, merits and demerits, laundry and love increases that a second child brings. We related our personal stories about growing up singleton or growing up Duggar. We volleyed between what's good for the kid and what's good for the parents. I added this:
"We still talk about a fifth. I'm a fence-sitter. But I feel complete as well as completely overwhelmed. I'm working and living a life I love. I'm so much more the person I want to be, and therefore, it's easier to see my kids and my family as a part of my larger life, not a part of me. I'm glad they have each other; but I wish I could give them more. Then I realize the cocktail of circumstances and genetics they've been given is unique and special and not mine to remix. Our children are mine to help and love. That's it. The rest is on them, as it should be.
You have another kid or don't. It changes the cocktail, but you can never know how or whether it's to the detriment or the betterment of all involved. If you feel like having another, now or later, go for it. That's on you and your husband. Your daughter is already on her path."
We can't judge ourselves by procreation; it's a measure of nothing more than the result of biology doing its thing. More is simply more because one or twenty, a parent is a parent. If we want to judge other moms, let's pick something important, like how much she spent on her yoga pants or the nitrates in her hot dogs.
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Nicole Leigh Shaw consistently wonders, "Why did I come into this room?" Once upon a time she was a mostly serious news journalist, an accidental magazine columnist, and a mediocre editor. Now she funnels an enthusiasm for meeting minimum requirements into her blog, Ninja Mom Blog. With four kids under the age of nine, two of them twins, she lives by the motto: All of my kids are still breathing. Award, please.
Don't Stop Believin'
By Michelle Newman
You're My Favorite Today
When you're pregnant with your first child, people like to tell you how much your life will change. They'll laugh as they warn you about sleep deprivation and colic and engorged breasts. They'll tell you your sex life is over.
You will smile politely and nod your head all the while thinking they must be referring to someone else because you will certainly defy all the stereotypes of new parenting and will birth an angel who will sleep through the night, cry like a kitten only when hungry and breastfeed like a champ. And of course you'll still have sex. What else are you going to do when the angel baby is sleeping?
And then you have the baby.
And for the first several months you don't care if you ever have sex again.
In fact, if your baby turns out to be an inconsolable night owl who has a serious case of nipple confusion, you make damn sure of it.
But much like having clean hair or intelligent conversation or being able to actually see your feet, you get to the point where you kind of miss it, and you tell yourself (and your husband...repeatedly) that soon - soon - you won't be so damn tired.
Liar.
As the mom of a teen and a pre-teen, I can now look back on the past seventeen years and see definite patterns in the stages and cycles of parental copulation (and lack thereof) and am here to give it to you straight, because I've lived it. I'm still living it. And like any good story, there's a soundtrack.
Turn up the volume; it will drown out your crying.
The infancy years - "Can't Touch This":
Having sex with a baby is tricky, and almost impossible to pull off.
Wait. Hold on. That sounded dangerously disturbing, not to mention illegal. Let me rephrase that.
Having sex with a baby in the house is tricky, and almost impossible to pull off.
Sleep-deprivation, hunger, projectile vomiting and crankiness can lead to a serious lack of "hammer time" (and the baby being there doesn't help matters, either). While at first it might seem like having an infant who basically does nothing but lay in a bouncer or swing all day would give you plenty of time to shower, make a nice dinner and take a ride on the bologna pony, the fact that the infant does nothing but scream and suck the life out of you all day makes the thought of lunchmeat, or pony rides, about as appealing as getting a postpartum Brazilian Wax. Plus, you crave sleep so much that you don't want to do anything that might put you in this predicament again.
So you don't.
Or you do, but only because you were promised a kick-ass backrub and a night off from baby duty.
The toddler/pre-school years - "Hit Me with Your Best Shot
":
When your child becomes a toddler, your sex life resumes some normalcy. And by 'normalcy', I mean not even close to normal. But you might start to remember just how you got into this predicament in the first place.
Because after a few years, when the baby grows up and actually sleeps on occasion, you forget for a moment how tired you've been. Your husband comes home from work (or wherever it is he escapes to every day) and makes you something other than a grilled cheese sandwich for dinner. You shave your legs, dust off the good bra, put on some dried out mascara and remember how much you enjoy playing the grown up version of Chutes & Ladders...for about four minutes.
Because the toddler years are also, unfortunately, the "shutting it down" stage. The years when your child seems to have a sixth sense and a hidden agenda and will, nine out of ten times, scream "MOMMY!" about 30 seconds before your husband was going to.
Shutting. That shit. Down.
The middle years - "Sexy Back":
Just about every Justin Timberlake song I've ever heard could be the soundtrack to these golden years of sexy, reckless abandon. The years you not only remember how, but why you got into this predicament in the first place.
Your kids have bedtimes! They sleep! They don't know that Mommy and Daddy's closed door during the day means that they are most definitely not taking a nap!
You are rested, washed and groomed (a relative term) and ready to bring sexy back.
You and your husband remember the pleasure of each other's clear minds and clean bodies, and the fun of actually being spontaneous. These are the years of the play date, and I'm not talking about the ones you make for your kids.
The teen years - "Our Lips are Sealed":
You might think that by the time your kids get to be pre-teens or teenagers, you and your husband would be livin' large and (taking turns being) in charge.