I recently learned that three of
my over 38 friends are pregnant for the first time. To them I say,
you really have to stop drinking. You just jumped off the career
track for the next ten years. Welcome to Mommyland...here are the
guidelines:
1. Husband has to sleep in the barn until the vasectomy heals.
2. If he insists you have a natural, drug-free childbirth, you insist
that he has a natural, drug-free vasectomy.
3. The last book you read is the last book you will read for years
to come.
4. All of a sudden, you will see strollers and pregnant women everywhere.
5. With a baby in diapers, you will not know who you are, where
you are, or what day it is till 2020. You will not remember when
you last changed your underwear or when you last brushed your teeth.
6. Your life as an educated, intelligent adult with something to
contribute is over. You will develop that secret lobe of the female
brain, the Motherlobe, where you will store the motherload of Mommy
knowledge. You will know all the words to Wee Sing videos and all
the songs to every Disney movie. Your exercise will be limited to
fetching items for the kids, running to save things from being thrown
in the toilet, and speed packing diaper bags.
7. Pick a Soap Opera. Your days will be so repetitious that you
will rely on a soap opera to help you keep track of what day it
is, to provide the sound of adult conversation in the background
so you don’t lose your ability to converse, and to remind
you that sometime in the future, you will be able to wear clean
clothes again, just like they do on TV.
8. Remember that most parenting books were written by men who were
never in the trenches! I refuse to listen to their advice because
they have never experienced the unrelenting aggravation and fatigue
that Moms live with 26 hours a day. No, not 24 hours, you have to
add 2 extra hours for Moms with infants or they’ll get no
sleep at all.
9. Truth be told, if those kids are alive when your hubby walks
through the door at 5 p.m., you have done your job... Parenting
books make good wedges to level a tippy table. If you want to use
a parenting book for parenting purposes, attach it to a stick first
to create a nice flat paddle.
10. Welcome to fast food. You will have every fast food menu and
prices memorized in no time.
11. Cooking will now be limited to whatever can be made in a crock
pot or in one pan, nothing will have more than four ingredients
or need more than salt and pepper for seasoning.
12. I can’t explain this, but when a woman becomes a mother,
the husband unconsciously de-evolves into a son. Suddenly, they
can’t help around the house, they can’t watch the kids,
can’t wash their clothes or figure out how to get dishes to
the sink. I call it Baby Envy. They resent all the attention you
give to the baby, so they compete by becoming helpless. Think I’m
kidding? Have you ever left your hubby written instructions on microwaving
a Hungry Man dinner so you could go out one evening? Written instructions
for child care that included the kids’ bedtimes, and emergency
phone numbers?
13. Get ready to hear, “You’re not working, you’re
home with kids,” over and over. Ask that person to baby-sit
for you someday. Stay away from the house until they offer you enough
money to come back.
14. Put a soft light in the bathroom. Stand naked in front of the
mirror. Say a fond farewell to any remaining firmness in your boobs
or flatness for your stomach. All the sacrifices you made in the
line of beauty are now moot. Men love to show off a good scar they
got in combat, there’s a kind of prestige to a good scar.
Too bad society won’t give us credit for stretch marks as
mark of pride for having grown a new person. The old Soviet Union
used to give a medal to women who had eight or more children who
lived to adulthood. I’d give a medal to any woman who went
through eight pregnancies!
15. Thought you’d never become a frazzled Mom? Never be caught
dead running into a store with dirty clothes and your hair looking
like hell? Welcome to the club, honey.
