Tag: babies

I ruined you before 3.

Hey, kid. One day you’re going to learn stuff about your childhood that I’m sure you’re going to insist I explain to you. Things you’re certain ruined you, and you’ll probably be right, and I’ll have lost the sharp clarity of my reasoning over the years. So I figure I should write it all down now. Save us both the heartache.

Ruining you didn’t take long. By all accounts, I’d completely fucked you up by three. I didn’t wait until you were a vulnerable teen. I did it young, when you were still too young to ever have a chance.

This morning I read an article about how screen time is going to turn you into a homicidal junkie. Those hours I let you watch Finding Nemo and play that bug game that keeps you happy and quiet while I have a glass of wine and try to connect with my husband, it’s ruined you. You’re going to turn into an antisocial dick with no interaction skills. You’ll never date. You most certainly won’t ever have sex. Your father and I will house you and your collection of black socks and vintage Nintendo sets in our basement until you are imprisoned for life for a crime that could have been avoided if I just didn’t give you that screen. So I’m sorry about that.

Also, you have a TV in your room. You probably don’t want to hear the speech about how our house isn’t huge and there is only so much kid space and we wanted your room to be a place that kids could hang out, play, watch movies, AND STAY OUT OF THE ADULTS WAY WHILE WE TRIED TO TALK, but I can see how that doesn’t matter. We never should have put that TV in your room. If I’d have known it would keep you from getting your first job out of college, I’d obviously have made a different decision.

I stopped breastfeeding at nine months. You wont get into medical school because of it. I tried to make it okay by buying your formula direct from Germany, but I can understand how that seems like a cop out. What I should have done was continue to pump. Which I did. After that first 4-day-stay in the hospital with 5 clogged ducts, I kept after it. I hooked myself up to that machine for another six months, but in the end I couldn’t take it much longer. I was working these insane 12 hour days and commuting and you were spending so much time with the nanny. When I got home, I had to go straight to pumping instead of hanging out with you, so I stopped. Obviously I’ll write whatever letters to admissions offices on your behalf, but in the end, the damage is done. You’ll likely amount to nothing because of my selfish decision.

Let’s talk about your blanket. I read a study the other day about how kids with blankets after infancy are actually just emotionally crippled. They lack internal coping skills and can’t fully develop into productive adults. Women find these kind of men repulsive, which leads to feelings of sexual inadequacy. That wasn’t my intention. You love that damn blanket and its gotten you through some tough times. That blanket had you sleeping through the night at 3 weeks old. And when your dad and I had to leave you with strangers for 12-hours-a-day, your daycare report always said that you were happy and social as long as blanket was there. It may be hard to understand, but at the time we wanted you to feel safe and happy. We weren’t thinking about you as a sexually frustrated and socially ostracized adult. And that was short sighted. We should have taken away your blanket and left you there alone. What dumb, naive, first-time parents we were.

I don’t allow your toys out of your room. You’re not allowed to drag endless amounts of kid shit around the house, marking our whole house as yours. I’ve heard a lot of parents and therapists talk about how this will stifle your creativity. Your inability to adequately spread your thoughts around the house will lead you to be a CPA. God knows I didn’t want to raise a financial planner, but I needed to maintain something for myself. When you’re chained to your desk at tax season, cursing my name, I’ll understand. I should have known better. I should have given you more.

On your first birthday, I gave you real cake. It wasn’t made with applesauce or mashed potatoes. It was cake. Out of a box. I sprinkled it with cancer and type two diabetes and set it in front of you like the lousy parent that I am. I wanted to see you smash it and taste it and get super excited about the sugar rush. (Which you did.) But that was a silly memory. A moment in time that wasn’t worth poisoning you against beets and steamed broccoli. I never should have done it. But I did. And it’s done.

I let you drink a lot of juice. Not from concentrate or with sugar added, but juice nonetheless. In the morning I let you have green juice and after school I even let you drink chocolate milk. You eat about 16lbs of green vegetables a day, but those don’t matter. This isn’t about moderation, it’s about the shame and guilt I should feel for giving you juice. So let’s stay focused on that.

I bought you stuff and said yes when I was too tired to say no. So you won’t have a healthy relationship with material goods.

I was honest with you about money from the time you could talk. So you’ll obviously have a childhood riddled with anxiety and concern over the cost burden you add. Then be a hoarder.

I put you in timeout a lot. And let you cry. One time I even shut the bathroom door so I wouldn’t have to listen to your INSANE screaming. But I’ve since read that it causes you shame and you’ll never be able to express yourself emotionally. So, again, I’m sorry.

I referred to you by your gender. A boy. You had a penis so we went with it. You’re welcome to change your mind later, but frankly it was too confusing to try to wait it out and it seemed cruel to call you “it.” I can see now how narrow minded and confining that choice can seem, but yellow is my least favorite color and, at the time, you seemed just fine being a boy.

The list of things I did to ruin you is so long that I could go on forever. And anything I’ve forgotten will pop up in my inbox or newsfeed. Tomorrow I’ll get an article about what I did wrong or how I ruined you in a new way. I know we’re using the wrong sunscreen, bath products, toothpaste. We don’t eat enough organic and I think you had something with red dye in it last week. I’ve let your shoes get too tight, I once used real detergent instead of the eco-shit (that doesn’t work) because I’d just spent $36 on a shirt and you immediately got watermelon on it. I drank beer while I was pregnant. I ate sushi. I yelled loudly while I was pushing, so your entrance wasn’t the silent sanctuary that many psychologist believe is best.

But, kid, I swear to God we love you. I promise you that every day we wake up wanting to make you better, even if that means doing the hard work of making ourselves better. We are human, and we’ve fucked up many, many times, but the road is long. Someday you’ll love someone so much you’ll ruin them too. And I only hope I’m still around so we can have a beer and laugh about how hard it is to love someone so much.

 

My kid was a nightmare. And other true stories.

Happy 4th. (Yesterday.) I was on social media channels a few times. I saw a bunch of adorable kids in gingham and stripes watching parades and looking American and perfect.

My kid was awful. Just terrible. He made a three-day-weekend seem like a prison sentence. By Saturday afternoon things were fragile. Sunday evening my marriage was starting to fray. And when we finally reached Monday night, everyone had to retreat to their respective corners so there was no bloodshed. It is a wonder to behold how a single 37 inch person can fuck things up so thoroughly.

The good news (if that’s how we want to categorize it) is that this appears to be age associated and completely predictable. Late two/early threes are notorious for their shittiness. Unfortunately, no amount of warning can adequately prepare you for the psychological and emotional damage that a toddler can exact over a three-day-weekend.

What I struggle with the most is actually how much I struggle. I’m 32 years old. I am a fully grown human being. I have pretty well developed coping skills. I’m good with conflict resolution. I have sound logic and reasoning skills. And my toddler gives ZERO fucks. If my husband and I had a dollar for every time the phrase “walk away. just walk away.” was uttered in our house, we could both retire. And yet for all our chanting walkawaywalkawaywalkawaywalkawaywalkawaywalkaway we can’t actually walk away. We’re locked in some intellectual death match with a tot. I’ve experience more logical and redemptive communication with cats.

And the stubbornness. Oh sweet lord the stubbornness. This is why people of the olden days resorted to physical acts of violence. Because it takes an incredibly well controlled and evolved human being to get to the brink of sanity and not be overcome with the urge to exert physical force over a lesser being. And I’m not even talking about beatings. Even just a well placed flick. Because when your child tells you for the 2736974120382039 time that they WILL NOT CLEAN UP their blocks and you’ve wasted 682 minutes of your day asking, and you’ve taken away everything you thought they held dear, and you’ve reasoned, begged, yelled, threatened and there are still mother fucking blocks all over the floor… your ability to keep your shit together is questionable. Worse than that, when you’ve sacrificed your plans, your desires, your activities in order to do the activity that should most appeal to your child and then they act like a domestic terrorist, you begin to question the very meaning of life.

We’re currently in the stage whereby all perceived offenses are of equal weight in his eyes. Not having the right color juice is as egregious an offense as refusing to allow him to play in the hose or trying to give him away. (Just listing the kinds of things that brought our weekend to its proverbial knees is giving me PTSD.) There’s usually a light whimper, followed by the introduction of a baby voice, which then becomes a fake machine gun cry, that then devolves into a full on melt down. (And then usually one of us walking swiftly out of a public place while our child confirms to single people within earshot that they are the superior species.) The single most terrifying thing about three year olds is that the truest and quickest way to incite a meltdown is to give them EXACTLY what they want. What? What is this you say? Yes. Exactly. Give them exactly what they want and they will most certainly meltdown. Because they hate you.

For example. Aut has been totally into bike riding recently. (We got one of those bike seats that you get when you have a child under 4 and you no longer care about how uncool your life is.) Generally speaking, he loves riding around on the back of the bike, going fun places, seeing new things. So we planned on an awesome bike ride on Monday. We were going to bike up to Marblehead and stare through the gates of yacht clubs at rich people. We told him… and he melted down. He didn’t want to bike ride. Turns out, he’d found a long-forgotten set of paints in his cubby and all he wanted to do in the whole world was paint. (Painting is a cruel invention by people who hate parents.) After much hmming and hawing, we consented. He could paint outside. In his underwear.

We went outside. It was beautiful out. We set up a drop cloth, staple gunned a canvas to the fence, got out the paints and brushes, slathered sunscreen on him. And feeling like THE BEST PARENTS IN THE WHOLE WORLD we set him loose on his artistic endeavors. Which lasted about 14 seconds.

The sun is too sunny and it’s on my head. We got him a baseball cap.

I need something different for my eyes. (Because THE BRIM OF THE HAT WAS NOT SUFFICIENT.) We got him his sunglasses.

I’m thirsty. We made him hold out but eventually realized this was not the one to nail him on when it was 90 degrees outside. Got him water.

I need different paints. Go fuck yourself.

I want to paint on the fence. Not on your life.

I need to wipe my hands. Shouldn’t have stuck both hands in the paint.

I want to do yoga with Mups. No, you’re painting.

I want to cut all my fingers off in the air conditioner compressor. Nope. [wailing]

I don’t like painting. Well, too bad. We got this all set up. You’re gonna paint. [more wailing]

I need a snack. We just had breakfast. You’re fine. [repeated slower and screaming I. NEED. A. SNACK.]

The sun is too hot. Sorry, we’ll talk to the solar system about that.

I need Buzz Lightyear. Buzz is napping upstairs. [whimpering, but surprisingly no wailing]

I really want to stick my entire hand into the A/C compressor. Ask me again and I’ll probably let you.

I need to go into the basement to get something. No you don’t. [full-on, mind blowing meltdown]

I want to go for a bike ride. You’re dead to me.

I don’t want to exaggerate, so I’ll say this was all within the span of about 11 minutes. Conservatively I’d say six tantrums and one meltdown in 11 minutes. Because we were doing exactly what he begged us to let him do.

And like I said, the very worst part is how ill prepared we are to cope. It’s impossible to ignore, but equally as impossible to correct. Stupidly I allow myself to imagine these scenarios whereby we’re doing these things happily and peacefully as a family. The hubs is drinking coffee on the porch, I’m doing yoga on the driveway, Aut is painting like the gifted painter we will joyfully discover he is. But it’s never anything like that. It’s screaming and whining and trying not to lose our shit at how unbelievably insufferable he can make 15 minutes in the sunshine. And then the guilt when he says something like “why do you always yell?” And I feel so terrible but I also want to be like “why do you always try to make me insane?” But I know he’s 3 and he doesn’t know why he does it. He just does. And my job as his mother is to cope. And get through it.

And I don’t want to wish his life away. I don’t want him to grow up too fast. And inevitably there’s some gray haired woman (as there was this weekend) who says “enjoy every moment” at exactly the wrong time. And I get it. I know she’s wistful and hindsight is rosey. But these moments are not enjoyable. They’re trying and terrible. They make you question yourself. They push you to dark places where you have to look hard at yourself. And that’s an unexpectedly difficult part of parenting– seeing yourself through your child’s eyes. Because every now and then, you won’t like the person you see. But this too shall pass. And tantrums about paints and Buzz Lightyear will be replaced by heartbreak and humiliation and things that will make us long for the days that the absence of Buzz was the most meltdown-worth part of the day.

But for now, we cope. We parent. We continue onward. Knowing they won’t be 3 forever… for better or worse.

Author Paints
A brief moment of happiness and reprieve. 

 

 

And today. And boobs.

I’m having a hard time today. I’m having a hard time coping with the grief that I feel for so many people I don’t know. I’m having a hard time building bridges instead of walls. I’m having a hard time focusing on being happy and present, when my mind wants to wander to a black hole filled with fear and anxiety. I want to go home from work. I want to pick up my child early. I want to eat something fluffy and cheesy for dinner. I want to put a lot of hard shit on pause for a while.

I know a lot of people are feeling that.

But I can’t. Not today. Because the grief has to be grieved. And the hard conversations have to be had. We have to get through this, not over this. All of this. Not just the acute stuff, but the big stuff. We have to keep talking and debating and saying honest things to one another so we can make progress. And it’s tiring. It’s always so tiring. I know. Because I’m married. And that’s all you do when you’re married. Have hard conversations and fight the urge to give up. Because giving up is so easy now and so fucking hard later. (And because I don’t want to die alone. So…)

We have to keep going.

And while I can’t make that easier or better, I can distract you for a while by talking about boobs. My boobs.

My boobs are terrible. My boobs were sacrificed on the alter of over-achieving parenting. After two merciless weeks (because pro-breastfeeding people can be BRUTAL; don’t argue) of attempting to get Aut to latch, it became abundantly clear that he wasn’t gonna. His mouth and my nipple were a failed arranged marriage. The kidney transplant that wasn’t going to take. He did not want my boob. (Which, merciless breastfeeding people were also cruel about. So fuck you, again.) Because organic, imported from Germany formula was going to poison my child, give him autism, stunt his mental development, and keep him from getting into college, I only had one choice. I had to pump. I had to hook my titties up to a pump four times a day for 9.5 months. I pumped first thing in the morning. I pumped in the only bathroom in my entire building (which happened to be unisex), while evil bitches knocked ceaselessly and told me it was “unfair” that I was using the bathroom to pump. I pumped when I got home from work and before bed. Sometimes I would accidentally oversleep and wake up in a soggy pile of bed linens. I pumped on airplanes and in shopping malls. I pumped in parks and in my car. I pumped and pumped and pumped.

And when you pump, you squeeze. You treat your breasts like misbehaving Plah Doh. You squish them and poke at them. You live in a constant state of fear about not getting all the milk out and ending up with clogged ducts. (Been there. Spent 5 days in the hospital. And kept pumping.) You manhandle them in ways that young boys dream about.  You shake them and mash them to make sure every, single drop of that delicious, liquid gold makes its way out.

And while you’re breastfeeding, your tits look fantastic. If you’ve ever forgotten, go to a children’s swimming lesson. You can tell the infant moms from the toddler moms by tits alone. The infant moms have perky, swollen boobs that have a strange mix of utility and sex. The toddler moms look like they dropped their tits into their bathing suits and then lost them. Poof. Gone. While you’re breast feeding, there is all sorts of blood flow and tissue and milk working in glorious symphony to make you look like a porn star. It’s amazing.

What you don’t know is that they will deflate. You’ll wean your little angel, and for a few weeks you’ll be like “SWEET! No more milk, but my breasts are amazing still and everyone was wrong. I’m going to end up with incredible post-baby boobs!” And you’ll be naive and wrong. And premature.

Within about 6 months the sag appears. The “life” that your boobs had begins to die. They take on a new relationship with your belly. Rather than resting-on or grazing your belly occasionally, they flop upon it. With a harrumph. For me, the worst part was the stretch marks. The incredible 40 EE breasts that I developed while pregnant and breastfeeding (I am not fucking with you– 40 EE– A, B, C, D, E, EE) had stretched and pulled the skin of my boobs to the point of no return. All that squeezing and kneading and mashing while pumping only made it worse. I had ruined boobs. I had… sad sacks.

And body shaming doesn’t really affect me. What affects me is when people talk about celebrating my sad, wounded boobs. I do not want to celebrate them. I want to mourn them. And then have them lifted, tucked, pumped, and injected.

But for now, they just sort of sit there in my bra. Like little puddles of forgotten pudding in a flavor no one likes (except your husband, because he’d eat spoiled pudding in shit flavor if it meant he could have pudding whenever he wanted). Every now and then I take them out and look at them, give them a pep talk, and then watch them retreat. They’ve given up. Which I understand. I don’t blame them.

 

 

Successfully Failing at Motherhood

A few years ago I wrote a post called “But what’s it really like to have a baby?” It ended up getting picked up by the Huffington Post (front page) and for 24 hours I was the most equally lauded and hated woman on the planet. Mothers and childless women from across our great country gathered their spatulas and absurdly limited legal knowledge and campaigned (anonymously, online) to have my child removed from me. Why? Because I just didn’t think being a mom was the super greatest time ever. In equal contrast were the others– the mothers and childless women who were relieved to hear a version of the truth that, in some small measure, mirrored their own feelings. The feeling that children, while chock full of charm and adorable (sometimes), are also a full contact, full time sport. There’s no beginning and end to parenting. It’s not just a sacrifice of your vagina and lower abdomen (which becomes a sideshow), but your actual life.

In those two years, my baby has become a toddler. And frankly, my feelings about motherhood haven’t changed much. In the same way that I love cake and hate baking, I love my child, but I really don’t love motherhood. And as hard as it is for some people to reconcile this, or even accept it, I don’t really feel much guilt about it. My journey now has been about how to balance the choice to have a child and catapult myself into a role that neither comes naturally to me, nor gives me much satisfaction, and maintain my sanity as a human being who craves a life less consumed by the unending demands of motherhood.

For many, there’s a simple, vilifying argument. “You chose to have children. Your selfishness is disgusting.”  To those people, I say “fuck you.” If you truly believe that our society pays even the slightest of lip service to the reality of motherhood in a modern age, you are naive. We’re still taking a page out of a book that has men bringing home all the bacon, women who were groomed from a young age to become mothers and accept the role that was offered, and zero social media pressure or scrutiny. In a day in age where maternity leave is a luxury, leaving early to pick up a child from daycare causes both personal and professional duress, and the choice between children and a career is only possible if your career affords you incredible flexibility or cash, the “reality” of motherhood has been rewritten, but never published. (For example, on top of childcare, which can run about $1600/month [down from $2400 in Boston], I pay nearly $800/month to have someone pick up my child from daycare because I simply cannot leave work early enough to fetch him. I get home between 7:00/7:30 and begin the one hour sprint through bath, dinner, books, and bed.)

I was chatting with my mother on the phone the other day, relaying the plight of the modern mother– the guilt and balance and dissatisfaction. Thinking she’d have some insight (she did have THREE children), she replied, “I don’t really understand that. I was just so happy.”

Welp, there you have it. Thanks, Mother.

But then I got to thinking about it. When she comes to visit, she relishes all the stuff that makes me want to poke my eyes out. She’s on all fours, pretending she’s a pony, coloring Elsa, watching Mickey Mouse. She thinks letting him pick out ridiculous, mismatched outfits is hilarious and cute. (No. Just no.) She can build Lego towers and knock them down for HOURS. I approach Legos with a mind for building something elaborate. A color-coordinated palace with symmetry and functional exits. To A, that’s sacrilege. We build it high and then we knock it to the ground. Then we repeat that… for the rest of the week. I don’t want to be sitting there thinking about being anywhere else, but that’s what happens.

I hate that on weekends, I look forward to time to recharge, relax, and get things organized, and instead we are held captive by the whims of a 37 inch person. Rain strikes fear into the core of my being. I want to eat at a restaurant, but I’m gripped with anxiety about whether it will be a fun and worthwhile meal or an ill-fated nightmare that leaves me feeling like I wasted $100 and 2 hours of my day. Keep them indoors and they bottle up so much energy you will live to regret your decision for days. Take them outside and they’re hot, cold, hungry, wish you brought the bike and not the scooter, need to pee, don’t like the way the sun is shining, think the slide is too green, the other kids are looking at them, or want to be pushed on the swing. For the rest of the day.

And I fucking hate “mommy friends.” I don’t mean my friends who are mommies. I mean people in the world who are supposed to be my friends because we both have kids. What the fuck kind of sense does that make? I don’t like you, your husband, your politics, or your approach to life, but since we both have children born in 2013, let’s hang out and have some wine. I’D RATHER DO ANYTHING ELSE.

And mostly I hate that I’m always fighting with my husband about nothing. We aren’t even fighting with each other, we’re fighting with the invisible blob that is parenthood. The intangible piece of shit that is blameless and evasive, so you have to yell at your physical spouse. Because obviously the husband deserves to take the entire blame for the fact that I’m wound like a top because my child thinks it’s absurd that we don’t kick people in the tits, I haven’t been able to eat lunch without a chopstick flying at my face since 2013, every dollar we make is assigned to childcare, college funds, savings, mortgage and alcohol, and every time my kid finishes a bag of ANYTHING, he flings the crumbs around the backseat of the car. (WHATTHEFUCKISWRONGWITHYOU?! JUSTPUTTHEBAGDOWNLIKEACIVILIZEDGENTLEMAN!)

I miss energy and free time. I miss the gym. I miss extra cash flow. I miss investing in stupid shit like absurdly expensive sushi and shoes. Because as terrible as that sounds to other people, I love both of those things.

But the very, very worst part is that I know I will miss this. Because as much as I don’t love motherhood, I love him. I love his tiny face and his absurd lexicon. I love watching him learn things and his enthusiasm about damn near everything. I love that he thinks we are the absolutely greatest. (Though frankly he far prefers my husband to me. I’m sure you’re shocked.) I love that he wakes up first thing in the morning and asks if today is the day we get to spend the whole day together (weekends). I even love that he tells his entire swimming class that his Mups’ boobies are falling out of her bathing suit. (They weren’t.)

I know that there will come a time when motherhood does become me. At some point, some age, the winds will shift and motherhood will too. What my child needs and wants will be something I can offer. The sacrifices will become less physical and more emotional. And I’m sure that hindsight, that bastard, will be 20/20. I’ll laugh at what seems like petty, long-ago misery and cry as he walks across a stage or down an aisle.

This idea that we as humans are expected to sacrifice our lives for the lives of others isn’t sustainable. I want for “motherhood” to be a parallel journey to the bigger one that I am on, the journey of life. I don’t want to feel that choosing to have a child means choosing to jump track from continuing to become the person I should be to dedicating everything I have to someone else’s journey. I want to set him up. I want to help him find his path, but I want to stay on mine too. I don’t want to be consumed by motherhood. I just want to be a woman whose journey includes a child.

And I think that should be okay.

 

Are you a hoe?

We are homeowners. If you aren’t a homeowner, I will let your mind at ease. You don’t need to be a homeowner. If you are currently living in a swanky rental where someone else takes out your trash, replaces broken things, and worries about insurance and other random things, you are doing a-okay. I never really understood the economic incentive of homeownership– and truthfully I’m not sure I do now– but sometimes you crunch some numbers and you’re feeling all American-dreamy and POOF! you end up with a home that’s all your own.

Don’t mistake my honesty for dissatisfaction; I’m having a gangbusters time owning a home. (It’s a condo. I don’t want to lie to you.) But I know that there is not always a reason to own. In all fairness, we bought a new conversion condo that was almost as turnkey as they come. There are some #firstworldproblems, like I don’t like the blond wood of the bannister and the cherrywood of the cabinets aren’t what I would have picked out myself, but whatever. Cry a fucking river, Caroline.

But when you’ve lived in apartment rentals– especially in the city– for almost 15 years, there are things about homeownership that can be a real beast. Never mind taking out the trash myself and sorting my own recycling, I’m getting pretty good at that, and I’m even ramping up to changing my own lightbulbs and remembering to lock my own front door, but as the summer approaches, things begin to emerge. Homeowner things. Like tiny toothed monsters hiding in the shadows.

We did not want a yard. In some ways, it made us the perfect buyers. Yard? No thank you. I hear yard and I am tormented by the years I spent slaving as my mother’s stand in Indonesian factory worker, her personal weeder and earth whisperer. Saturday mornings spent hunched uncomfortably in a dirt bed riddled with dog shit, praying to every known deity that I wouldn’t find an earthworm or beetle of some kind. Because then I would die. And while I understand the desire for a green space to… do whatever you do on it… I’d rather a nice slab with a patio table and some twinkle lights. As for the child, he’s fine. He has a park, a room of toys, colors, tables, and whole city. He’ll live without a yard.

But we didn’t get away totally scot free. There’s a patch of earth. It’s about 3×2 feet on the side of the driveway. My initial thought was that we should buy some nice shiny rocks and fill it up. I was ignored. There was real enthusiasm for planting, which I was not UNenthusiastic about, but I was a little indifferent. When the snow melted, it revealed what I thought was a bunch of dead shit. Turns out, they were something called “annuals” and they weren’t actually dead, just holding out. If I ever look like that while I’m “holding out,” just take me out.

We had a Very Official meeting of our condo association. (Me, Corey, the downstairs neighbor, some cheese, two bottles of rose, and Author running up and down the hall.) We decided to get ready for summer by hiring some students to clean and paint the patio furniture and “prep the bed” for some planting. We made a list of items we’d need to pick up:

• Rustoleum Primer

• Rustoleum Black Enamel Paint

• Phosphoric Acid Prep and Etch

• Rake

• Hoe

• Shovel

• Wire Brushes

• Hose

• Hose mount

• Broom

• Hose Nozzle

• Compost Soil

• Mulch

I think that was everything, all of which would be available at Home Depot. I volunteered to go get the stuff during the week so that the students could hit the ground running on Saturday.

What should have been a quick trip to the hardware store quickly spiraled into a hot spot of self actualization and doubt. Do you have any idea how many different kinds of hoses there are? How many lengths, styles, colors, and types? Do you want a rubber hose or a vinyl hose? Do you want it to coil or spiral? Green or black? Expandable standard? Will you be using it to trickle beds or spray flowers? I DONT HAVE ANY IDEA. At this point I hadn’t even made it to the Home Depot. I was at the Target. I asked a couple who was passing by if they had any knowledge of hoses, to which the man, who had thick tattoos all around his neck and upper chest, responded, “They spray water. What’s there to know?” I explained that I was buying my first hose and he looked at me incredulously. I explained that he might be surprised how little use one has for a garden hose in downtown Boston and he looked at me like I’d no sense at all. He pointed at a plain green hose about 30 feet long. “Just get that one.” He started to walk off, but I knew I needed him to direct me to the correct nozzle. “Are the nozzles universal? Like can I use any one with any hose?” This time his wife/girlfriend responded. “What are you doing with the hose.” I wasn’t trying to be an asshole, but it just came out. “Getting water out of it.” She explained that there were different settings for different kinds of watering and I should be sure I was getting the right settings. After a somewhat exhausting back and forth, I realized that the most expensive nozzle in all the land was only $9. “Oh. Well this is dumb. I’ll just buy a few.”

What she heard was, “I’m an elitist hose whore who thinks money grows on trees and will simply surround myself with solid gold nozzles and scoff at other, nozzleless persons.”

I made it home with a hose and a nozzle. So about a 10th of my list. I wasn’t deterred. The problem was Target. Not me.

The rest of the items I knew wouldn’t give me a problem. Couple of cans of spray paint, bag of dirt, rake. I ran to the Home Depot to pick up the items after dinner.

Now look. I am not suggesting that the employees of the Home Depot are not helpful, as in, they desire to help you. But I can read labels just like the next guy. What I actually need is some expertise. Some knowledge that goes beyond what the hapless copywriter was able to get on the label. (Believe me, as a copywriter I know the drill.) When I suddenly realize that compost and soil are not interchangeable, and that there’s been a lot of fucking around with dirt since I last bought a bag of it, I need someone with some real information. There was no one. I wasn’t about to go home without dirt and try to explain that with all my brains I was actually dumber than dirt, so I stood in the nursery section for a solid 45 minutes reading bags. I learned nothing. I would have to just pick.

When I finally made my way to the gardening utensils section, most of my smugness had faded. I was glad to be able to grab the last few things and go on my way, but of course that didn’t happen. Because something happened to hoes since 1997 and it turns out I can’t pick one out of a line up. Hoes have changed. Hoes are in a whole new league.

The part that still makes me laugh is how I allowed myself to become convinced that I was being punked. Even though the display said “gardening hoe” and I was holding a thing with a “gardening hoe” label, I refused to believe that it was actually a hoe. Why did it look like that? And because I don’t actually know what a hoe is used for, I couldn’t accurately decide whether this nouveau hoe would work for my needs. My phone battery was getting too low for an extensive research effort so I did what I do best, gave up.

Hoeless and pushing around a bag of dirt, I finally found the spray paint. (The expert at Home Depot told me it was “halfway down aisle four.” What she meant to say was “it’s all the way down at the end of aisle four. Like the very end. Before you hit the bathtubs.”) I may have made an involuntary whimpering sound when I looked up to find 3790032 different kinds of RustOleum. I know that I said, “you’ve got to be shitting me” out loud. My hoe problems were the least of it. There was no way I was going to be able to figure out what kind of paint to get. And how much did I need? I deferred to the friendly Home Depot expert who read the label and then stated, “well, it says here you can get 50 sqft from one can so I guess you can get about 50 square feet.” I really didn’t feel like being bitchy because it occurred me that she really did think she’d just done an incredible job servicing me.

“Oh great. That’s awesome. I’ll get two.”

i.e. I don’t have the energy to point out to you how useless that information was to me. I’d try, but I’ve been beaten by hoe and a bag of dirt and have nothing left to give. I’m just going to get these two cans and if they aren’t enough, I’ll huff them in my car before coming back to talk to you about getting more.

Two wasn’t enough. I should have gotten four.

When I got home, full of tales of the hoe aisle and dirt differences, the hubs gave me one of his usual smug responses. Something along the lines of “you weren’t asked to pick out a cure for cancer.” His smugness was short-lived, though, as I had compensated for my inability to find anything for us to use by buying miniature versions of everything on the list for A. There’s nothing that makes the hubs’ crazier than my facilitating the boy being all up in his shit while he is trying to get something done.

“…. and this tiny shovel so he can help you clear the beds! Oh! And did you see this ridiculous mini push broom?! How cute is that?”

Next stop, the plant nursery!

NOT what you were expecting.

Everyone I know is with child. Everyone. I am not saying this to be one of those people who has to be the person with the most. There is a chance that you know more pregnant people than I do, but relative to the number of friends I have (very few), it’s a staggering number of pregnancies. I, for one, am totally into the multitude of friend pregnancies. Any opportunity for me to learn way too much about a subject and become a total know it all is instantly my favorite thing. Friends being knocked up = me learning everything you could ever want to know about pregnancy.

As a part of my dutiful pregnant friend training, I’ve picked up some books to read about the miracle of life. As a part of my dutiful blogging, I’m here to share a few key lessons and eye-opening facts that I’ve learned over the last few weeks. (You need to be sitting for this. That applies to guys and gals. You also need to make sure you’re only drinking clear liquids. You don’t want to be drinking milk when you hear what I’ve learned about cervical mucous.)

Likely the most interesting thing about reading up on the art and science of bringing a human into this world is how many things you realize you haven’t known to blame your parents for. Example: the fucked up swirly pattern that is the back of my hair? 100% my mother’s fault. Maybe if that useless milk factory had paid attention to the back of my head, and done the suggested head and follicle massages to avoid “irregular” hair growth patterns, I’d have a perfect ponytail like all the rest of the Heathers. She didn’t, I have the eye of a tornado on the crown of my head.

Thanks, mother.

If you are avoiding having babies because you are bashful about talking about menses, saying the word vagina, or chatting about your sex life, don’t worry. You won’t have to. There is an ENTIRE PREGNANCY LANGUAGE to keep you from ever knowing what the fuck anyone is talking about. This is not funny stuff. I will speak in this language for you.

“Hi! I’m 3DPO and waiting for AF to be a no show. My CM is EW so I’m really hoping we’ve done it! Send BD our way!”

WHAT?

No. Seriously. WHAT?

There’s no talk of periods, only of a woman named Auntie Flow. We can take our temperature vaginally, but can’t say period. Because that would be dirty. Auntie Flow (the period) becomes vilified in these pre-baby days. She’s an evil wench who does nothing but remind you that either you or your husband has failed to accomplish the most basic task. Don’t ever go on a message board if you’re fond of your period. Period fondness is not welcome.

Conception has the power to reverse hundreds of years of women learning to love their vaginas, even find them “beautiful” in their own special, fleshy, purply way. Conception is the anti-vagina. According to conception, your vagina might be a hostile environment, uninhabitable for sperm. (Try to imagine a hostile vagina without a Rambo-style bandana in there somewhere.) It’s hard to heard that you might have a hostile vagina. You don’t want to take it personally, but you do. And then you get hostile. Because no one calls your vagina hostile and gets away with it. No one.

If any part of you is impatient, prone to anxiety, or over analytical, I would suggest surrogacy. Or maybe adoption. One book, What to Expect BEFORE You’re Expecting, gave me such acute anxiety by the 4th or 5th page that I couldn’t sleep. The lists of don’ts was too much for me. No caffeine. Tea is okay, but only certain teas, but there was this study once that suggested that tea could cause flux in blood pressure in .00000013% of women and of those .0032% had a baby who was frowning when it emerged from the birth canal. So, if you can live without tea, it might be best. No one wants a frowny baby. OTC medications should be fine, unless you’re talking about allergy medication, which technically is fine, but it also can dry up your cervical mucous and then what happens? Your vagina gets hostile, of course. So you need to weigh your allergies against the potential of a hostile vag. Tough choice, but it’s yours to make. As for bathing. Fine. If you have to. You really should try to keep your parts from getting too warm, though. So if you’re stressed, you can do anything except relax in a warm bath, drink a glass of wine, or anything else that might actually work.

As for actually being pregnant. Oh wow. There are a lot of “you better be fucking kidding me” memos here. For starters, no raw fish. You know, because no one in Japan has ever given birth to a heathy or smart baby. Ever. Twinkies are fine, lunch meat is out of the question. Your gas will clear an amphitheater. And you’re now the proud owner of something called a mucous plug. (Assuming you don’t destroy your mucous with contraband like Claritin, it actually plays a HUGE role in conception and pregnancy. So I’ve learned.) Your relationship with your spouse, already strained from the sperm on command antics of the prior months, is at risk. The female is hot and horny thanks to the surplus of hormones racing through her veins. She is also orca fat, something that makes Mr. Midnight shy.

Many men also fear spearing the unborn child. It’s cute that they are so concerned. Kind of. The chances of a man folk spearing an unborn child is about as good as a penis getting stuck inside the vagina. While all ladies would like to flatter themselves by thinking their nethers are bear trap tight, we simply know that’s not the case. Unless your man friend has a 10 inch weapon for a private, the baby will be fine.

It’s not all bad, though. First of all, you’re bringing a baby into this world! (Hear the roaring applause?!) Second of all, your breasts get enormous. Sure, they’re filled with milk and leak every time you hear ANY baby cry, but they’re still huge. Some women even get the coveted glow; a transcendent iridescence that cascades them during the gestational phase. (Other women get disfiguring acne, but they still get the jugs and the new human, so it’s kind of a fair trade.)

Despite the paralyzing fear and anxiety that I can look forward to coping with someday, I’m more than certain that if there was ever to be a time for the blog to really get good, pregnancy would be that time.

My next read will be What to Expect When Your Expecting. Based solely on my experience with its sister book, I’m so excited I can hardly stand it.

Any other good reads?

no, no. don’t touch mommy’s vadge.

If I sat here for twenty or thirty seconds, I imagine that I could come up with one to two million reasons why people shouldn’t have children. I understand however, that for a lot of people, there isn’t a hell of a lot else going on and so, without foresight to the Popsicle-sucking, hair pulling, little monsters that they have an 76% chance of becoming, they decide to procreate. Unfair? Possibly. But I have never, ever been with a child that I was sorry to have to give back after ten or fifteen minutes. (I take that back. There was a baby that I really enjoyed last summer. But then I found out he was developmentally challenged… not a dream baby.)

However, I fully expect to have loin fruits of my own, so it’s fruitless for me to think too much about it. Then I just get scared and imagine stapling my fallopian tubes with a red Streamline. Without telling the hubs, obviously.

Anyway, what brings me to this point is that there are two ways to find your stance on parenthood: babysitting and cat owning. Exposing yourself to the mortifying reality of other people’s children is enough to make any kind hearted soul decide that babies are for crack whores and foster parents. And owning a cat shows you that you are powerless. No matter what.

When I was sixteen, I lived in a very affluent neighborhood. It was a cash cow for short-term, high profit babysitting gigs. In certain parts of the continental US (uh hem… Texas) it’s popular to hire a babysitter to watch your children even when you’re home. I’m not talking about a nanny, but a young teenage girl who has just enough energy that she can put up with your childrens’ post- school, pre-bedtime bullshit so you can have some Franzia on the porch with the girls.

When I did this for the first time I thought it was a little bit awkward. It defies the law of babysitting that says you make a deal with the kids that they can do whatever the fuck they want while their parents are gone, but that have to be in bed by the time we see the lights in the driveway. And you’ll pay them $1. (To children, there is something awe inspiring about a $1. As though no one ever told them that next to the penny, it’s the most useless piece of currency in the world. It is, quite literally, just change.) Needless to say, after a while I learned that alcoholism and on-site babysitting are a recipe for tons of cash. Keep the kids away from Mommy and she will reward you handsomely.

And then there are the traditional babysitting gigs. Arrive at 6. Wear jeans, Merrill’s, and a pastel Polo button down, and say super cheery shit like “I can’t wait!” “Oh! Can we read before they go to bed?”

On one such occasion, a neighbor was walking down the street when she noticed me getting out of my car. In the Sahara, it would have been considered a predatory move. Said neighbor clearly sized me up, determined my age, pedigree, and credentials, and immediately asked me if I babysat. I returned the favor by assuming that her haggardly, Jewish facade was code for desperate and hoarding money. So I said yes.

As it turns out, said neighbor had not had a babysitter since the birth of her child SEVEN YEARS BEFORE. For seven years, she and her husband carted the child around like a duffle bag. I later learned that the child had never really left his mother’s side. At school he was having all sorts of problems with attachment disorder. Super. Can I please babysit?!?

We agreed to have a trial run. I’d let them go see a PG-13 movie for the first time in 10 years and if the house hadnt burned down, they could then go to dinner. Baby(sitter) steps.

After they had written a light dissertation on food preferences, allergies, likes, dislikes, emergency numbers, time tables, maps, and presented it to me, they started a melodramatic farewell sequence which culminated in said child’s face being smashed between the mohair-clad breasts of his mother while she murmured about his angelic face… as though it was a sight she wouldnt be seeing again in a few hours.

No sooner had they walked out the door when the child begin a meticulous debrief of the operational minutia of his house. There was the candy drawer. I could have one piece, but no more, because he wanted to have enough to last through the next week and if I ate more than that he wouldnt be able to. Then there was the playroom, littered with the kind of toys that future a-sexuals play with. I wasnt to play with ANY of them, especially the talking Darth Vader doll, unless we were playing a game and he instructed me to do so. All righty, kiddo. Got it.

After the tour was over, child took me down stairs to watch TV. I settled on the couch and waited for child to take a seat in the beanbag on the floor. Instead child decided to sit on the couch. And then he scooted over, nestled his face between my (16-year-old-non-existent) breasts. And then he cupped them firmly in each hand.

what. the. fuck.

No child, I told him. We don’t touch girls that that. Rather than being embarrassed about it, he became deviant, almost frantic. He was laughing manically and tearing at my shirt. “BOOBIES!” he yelled out.

The rest of the evening I played hide and go-away-you’ll-never-find-me-im-hiding-in-the-pantry and tried to avoid facing child head on. I decided we weren’t going to bathe that night, because the thought of what having him naked could mean for me was too much to think about. I kept thinking that some skillful editing of a handful of footage from a Nanny cam and I’d be bending over for Bertha for 20 to life.

When child’s parents returned home they were completely unfazed by my accusations. Apparently it was totally normal and healthy for a child of his age to take interest in the female form. Why on earth would they discourage that? I could only imagine that they were lucky that child was a boy, because little girls can’t exactly hide behind the healthy interest line when they’re walking around cupping their mansitters balls and yelling PENIS!!

iCaroline learned that unless you can guarantee your child isnt a Grade A molester, you should put off procreating.

Moving on.

Fast forward ten years and I have no children, but I am a married cat owner. After the loss of Milo (who was, as you know, a shinning example of why everyone should own a cat), we procured Stuart. (AKA Fuckface.) Stuart is, among other things, a total disappointment, and it’s sometimes hard to think of reasons why we shouldnt kill him. Just this week our fire alarm went off (for the building). As tenants were frantically running around, trying to find out if we were all going to burn alive, Corey and I calmly made our way downstairs. When we got to the atrium, our neighbors were huddled together, looking for answers. Two of our neighbors had their cats in carriers, one was even clutching her cat to her chest, soothing it. “Where is Stuart?? We need to go back!!” All the neighbors stared at us…

Stuart was staying in the apartment. He’s resourceful. He’ll be fine.

If you saw Stuart you’d never be able to understand where these intense emotions come from. He is cute as pie, soft like a dead bunny, and when he wants to he will be your BFF. Other times he makes it his mission to destroy your idyllic home environment and completely strip you of your humility.

The other day I was trying to get in the house, get my stuff down, coat off, door open, mail on the table– all before I tinkled on myself. I was doing a little hallway dance as I tried to get my gloves off. Fortunately I made it. I slid into the bathroom, pushed the door and sat down. No sooner was a singing the praises of relief when Stuart pushes the door open. Eh. Who cares right? Let him come in. He is probably just wanting to play on the bathtub, which is his favorite pasttime.

No, what Stuart wanted to do was pop his head up between my legs, fascinated by the action taking place, and paw at my most private parts. Are you fucking kidding me? Sitting there I find myself saying outloud “No, No, Stuart!! Don’t touch mommy’s vadge.” And I was taken back to my 16-year-old self, pulling the drooling face of a seven year old child out from between my less-than-heaving breasts.

The Beaulieus are not looking to have children any time soon.