Sunday, November 18, 2012

The Inevitable Truth


We were once a grown-ass couple. We were independent. We drank, a lot. We dined out, a lot. We spent our money at expensive boutiques. We travelled, a lot. But most of all, we slept in ‘til whatever goddamn time we felt necessary. Then we had a baby…

Nowadays I wake up at 5:30 am, everyday, seven days a week…apparently motherhood has made me a neurotic psycho that can’t seem to sleep past 6:00am. Also, if I wake up at this time I guarantee myself a calm start to the day. I make my baby’s bottle, feed the dog, walk the dog, and make coffee all before my little one starts to squirm. I know it might sound ridiculous, but it’s heavenly. Should I decide to sleep in, my mornings turn into a scene from I Know What You did Last Summer, sans the blood. Just a lot of screaming and frantic running around…
                                                    
But, regardless of whether I wake up at 5:30 am or 7:00 am…things like this seem to happen to me, a lot:
-     You schedule weekly mommy lunches to which you’re, for the most part, surprisingly on time for. This requires a tremendous amount of preparation. But, on more than one occasion you will find yourself stuck in traffic for 1 ½ hours with your baby screaming her/his head off. You will be rendered helpless, and will give in to the urge to cry your eyes out along with your child. I’m sure other drivers will find this quite interesting as you’re stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic. But you will be mortified and scarred for life.
-      Upon reaching your destination, your child will decide to FINALLY go #2 after days of withholding from the act. Hence/thus/therefore you will have a fecal explosion to deal with in a public bathroom. Other women will give you dirty looks as you rip clothes off your sodden child…Oh, not to mention that this will happen on the ONE day you forget to pack a proper replacement outfit, so your child will then be parading around in public looking like a hot mess. Embarrassing.
-     Should you NOT know this by now, all babies think it’s best to go pee and poo at an accelerated rate the moment you take them out of the house. So, on any give day you will go through at least three outfits on a 2-hour outing. For example, first she will pee the equivalent of her weight to the point where the diaper will begin to leak (cue change of clothes #1). Then she will poop (cue change #2). Then she will decide to spit up like a fountain; by the time change #3 comes around you’ll be scavenging for random separates scattered in your diaper bag, which will result in your child looking like a homeless baby with hand-me-downs on…cue rushing back home. 
-      Here’s one thing I can’t get over: that awkward moment when you find yourself face-to-face with a breastfeeding mom in a Nordstrom’s bathroom. She will be eagerly feeding her mischievous 8-month old, flashing him (and you) her boob while going “Aqui esta la leche bebe” (“Here’s your milk baby”). SHOOT ME NOW!
-  Your baby will pee all over your duvet cover, and you won’t care, at all…’cause honestly, I’m not washing that shit. FEBREEZE!
-     You will start a blog when your baby is a peaceful newborn, thinking that you will have the time to devote to this new hobby, only to realize that the little buggers will start to sleep less and whine more as they get older. You will begin to devote an immense amount of time to entertaining an infant, which entails: singing totally made-up songs (‘cause unless there’s another child in the house, you truly don’t have a clue about lullaby lyrics) and aimlessly pacing up and down your townhouse with baby in tow. Should a peeping Tom peek into your house he’ll think you’ve taken up cabaret classes as you’ll also start using “Jazz hands” and exaggerated facial expressions both of which your baby finds hilarious (I like to think I’m giving my face mad exercise and will therefore never wrinkle!) All of these things will leave little time for you to eat and shower, much less sit down and write a full blog post.
-     You will realize that there’s no such thing as acquiring new hobbies…you’ll settle for getting through the day alive.
-  Your new bedtime is 10 pm sharp. You’ll invite friends over for dinner at 6pm and practically kick them out at 9:45pm. If they complain, they’re still single and don’t have an f-ing clue.
-   On the rare occasion that you decide to stop drinking for a month to shed some of the baby weight and then proceed to drink yourself senseless on your birthday, you will realize that a hangover is a parent's worst enemy. You will ask the Powers that Be to open the Earth and swallow you whole as you lay on the floor, curled up in fetal position, next to your baby's tummy time mat. You will never ever want to drink again, ever, until you remember the bottle of bubbly sitting in the fridge. Mimosas anyone? 
There are many more things I could list, but they’ll have to wait…’cause the baby is up and I’ve got a version of All That Jazz I’ve been dying to try out on her. Wish me luck…*cue jazz hands*

Nothing like my bottle and my mommy's
tone-deaf singing...