Tag Archives: Humor

Chopped Liver

Posted in Babies, Comedy, Daughters, Parenting by

When you have a belly the size of a beach ball and you can’t see your toes any longer, people tend to pamper you. They offer you something to eat or drink every 15 minutes, they pick things up off the ground for you, and they will even let you cut in line at the grocery store. Being pregnant was awesome! The world revolved around me, er, my belly, for 9 months. Every day I woke up feeling like a walking miracle factory.

I had a very easy pregnancy. The only drawback was occasional heartburn which was totally manageable. I could sleep in until 10 and take a nap whenever I wanted and nobody would accuse me of being lazy. In fact, everyone said I needed my rest and encouraged me to rest. Annnnd I was encouraged to eat whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted it. (Eat your heart out, Oprah).

Then the baby came. My taunt round belly deflated to a flabby balloon and there was no time for sleeping whatsoever. Nobody gave me unsolicited smiles or perks of any kind. Plus, I had to share my baby with the world. Double whammy. She was no longer mine alone.

It’s easy to feel like chopped liver as a new mummy. Nobody is fawning over you anymore, but really they never were. While I had my baby bump, all the attention wasn’t really for me, it was for the life growing inside. Now, I’ll gladly step aside to let my daughter have the spotlight because I know that for the next handful of years I’ll still be numero uno in her eyes. That’s enough to make me feel like filet mignon!

Bieber Fever

Posted in Babies, Comedy, Daughters, Parenting by

Listening to a children’s version of  “The Wheels on the Bus” while driving around doing errands sounded like my own personal hell. I was never gung ho about kids, yet I wanted so badly to have a baby and be a mom. Weird–I can’t explain it. I remember when I was pregnant and in a store where a child was having a meltdown, I froze thinking…”What am I doing? This is about to be your life.” There were moments when I found myself saying that I didn’t want to give up my music, watch cartoons, or trade Quentin Tarantino for Barney but this was all before the baby arrived. The minute she got here I was a silly, googly mess willing to do anything to make her happy. And now I realize that whatever she wants IS my command. It really is her world and we are merely her puppets.

If she wants to sing along to Alvin & the Chipmunks even though I can’t stand their screechy voices, then so be it! And if she wants to watch Finding Nemo on repeat, wish granted. Sure, I’m probably setting myself up for the makings of a spoiled little princess (never, not my angel!) but I’ll cross that bridge later.

Since I’m her biggest fan, I’m sure I’ll love anything she loves. Well, not anything…I would never like Justin Bieber and I pray that she has better taste as she ages. But then again, I was a NKOTB fan so I can’t really hold anything against her. She’s sure to make a couple bad decisions here and there. And if loving the Justin Bieber of her time is one of them, I’ll be a happy mummy.

Some parents try to fit their baby into their lives while others build a new life around their baby. I hope that the hubby and I are in the latter group with a bit of the first sprinkled in. I think it’s good to expose your kids to things you enjoy without holding on to any expectations. We can’t wait to introduce her to The Bouncing Souls and take her for her first surfing lesson (she’ll probably hate both.) In return, I’m sure she’ll introduce us to things we never even considered…I just might end up with Bieber fever after all!

Mummynesia

Posted in Babies, Comedy, Daughters by

Becoming a mom is a little like getting roofied (at least I’m guessing since I’ve never actually been roofied.) But from what I’ve heard on shows like CSI or Law & Order, getting roofied and raising a baby will leave you passed out with random body parts exposed and weird fluids crusted on your skin. You wake up very groggy not quite remembering the last thing you were doing. That sums up my life perfectly at this point!

“We don’t even remember what life was like before the baby” is a commonly used phrase by new parents.  Mummy & Daddynesia at work!  Non-parents smile at the sickly sweetness of this while veteran parents think, “And you never will, ever again.” I always thought it meant that the new parents were basking in the glow of their newborn baby they loved so much, but it’s probably closer to not knowing which end is up in the midst of the newborn vortex. I just knew that I would use this clichéd expression when talking to people about the ways my life changed post-baby because it is true. From the moment you give birth, your life is forever changed and your old life is not put on pause, it’s simply gone.

So what does that mean for your old identity? My mom likes to quote “them” saying, “They say you shouldn’t lose sight of who you are. Don’t give up everything.” This coming from the mom whose life was her children. I get what she’s saying. I should continue to do the things that I did before my daughter so I don’t have a mental breakdown and a real identity crisis when she eventually doesn’t need me anymore and I’m left clutching her woobie and crying in the corner. Maybe this “Mummynesia” is a good thing…how could I miss what I don’t even remember?

Funny Like a Clown?

Posted in Babies, Comedy, Daughters, Family, Humor, Parenting by

“Funny Mummy” implies more than cracking a good joke every now and then. When someone says that you’re funny it almost always means, “You’re bonkers and you make me seem less crazy.” I can just imagine my daughter saying to me one day, “Mom, you’re so funny.” And by that I will know that she really means I’m a loony toon. And I will be so proud. I would love her to think I’m funny for more than the silly faces I make and wacky nicknames I bestow upon her. Good god, what if she doesn’t have a sense of humor? Is that learned or inherent? Should I practice spit-takes in front of her and knock-knock jokes?

I guess all mothers are slightly insane. We’re insane because we let these tiny people spit up, defecate and urinate all over us and we still smile, clap, and kiss them all over right after they’ve done so. Who else in their right minds would put up with this? Since my daughter is still so young and the most she can do to me is these slightly offensive, but healthy, bodily functions, am I only at the beginning of my insanity? Is it going to get much worse as she gets older and can really inflict some damage? Drawings on the walls, eating pennies, and whatever else toddlers do? And then come the teen years. Hormones and attitudes. Ack. I’ll be 85% insane by then and a complete 100% when she graduates highschool.

And will I ever get it back? Will my sanity one day be restored? When my baby eventually leaves me in the dust will I get my fully functioning brain back as if it were waiting gift-wrapped sitting in a forgotten closet somewhere? God, I hope so because it’s only “Hello rest home” from there and I don’t want to be that crazy old woman who forgot to put her teeth in all because motherhood fried my brain.

Pass the Ginkgo Biloba, Please

Posted in Babies, Comedy, Daughters, Family, Humor, Parenting, Writing by

B.B. (before baby) my memory was a steel trap! You could’ve asked me anything…the name of my kindergarten teacher? Mrs. Zirm. Who wrote the poem The Wasteland? T.S. Eliot.  The Italian city where St. Francis was from? Piece of cake…Assisi. But these days: 6 months A.B. (after baby) I’m lucky if I can remember my own name. I’ll be mid-story and completely forget what point I was trying to make. I understand this happens to people all the time, but this never used to happen to me. It’s weird and frightening. It makes me worry how I’ll be in five years.

One of my mom’s favorite phrases to me over the years was, “You just wait.” I used to (and still do) tease her about all of her wacky ways and this would always be her comeback. She was referring to me waiting until the day I had children thus rendering me a brain-dead stressed-out sleep-deprived lunatic. Well, of course she was right. My day has come! My brain barely functions yet the baby is thriving so I must be doing something right.

Sometimes I have a moment of clarity and can get an answer to a Jeopardy question, but most of the time the only thing I can think is, “I would’ve gotten all these answers before.” But really Jeopardy answers don’t matter because there is no time to be sitting around watching TV anymore when there’s a baby who needs feeding, changing, and a reading to. I miss my DVR almost as much as I miss my sleep!

Virgin Territory

Posted in Babies, Comedy, Daughters, Parenting, Writing by

So I’m new to blogging, hence the virgin reference (cause we all know I ain’t one since I have a 6 month old!) Part of me can’t believe I just wrote that–the virgin thing not the baby thing. But the other part of me is not surprised because I don’t really know who I am anymore since having my daughter. Well that’s precisely the reason why I’m starting this thing…to meet the new me now that I’m a mom. I’ve already learned that there aren’t many things in this world that will flip your life upside-down quite like becoming a parent. In all the best and most unexpected ways, of course!

It’s not a “Brooke Shields postpartum depression kinda thing” going on that has prompted this sudden need to define myself, though I’m certainly aware that postpartum D is no joke. It’s more of a “One minute it was just me, the hubby, the animals and an expanding baby bump and the next thing we knew there was a screaming, pooping, beautiful little girl who demanded every second of our day and night” kind of thing. With sleep deprivation you tend to lose sight and clarity of a lot of things and in my case my identity went out the window along with my sleep. Oh, my glorious sleep how I miss thee…

Before our gorgeous girl came along, I was not so young, but still relatively carefree. Carefree in the sense that I was able to follow my dream of becoming a writer (novels pending), I could stay up late and sleep till whenever, have a girls’ night out drinking glass after glass of wine, watch a movie uninterrupted, and leave the house with just a sweater and a lip gloss in my pocket! Those days are long gone!! In other words life went from simple to anything but. That’s okay though because I’ve waited so long to become a mother and it’s one of the best things ever!

I was elated to have a daughter (even though I would have been excited to have a son as well) but I was secretly hoping for a girl the whole time I was pregnant. There’s just something about the mother/daughter bond that is inexpressible. I hope this outlet prepares me for the inevitable “talks” that are way, way in my future…at least let’s hope they’re not happening anytime soon because I’m clueless how to approach them/her. She isn’t speaking yet, so I think I’m okay for awhile. Anyway, I want to be able to teach her and share with her all without being ashamed or embarrassed of my own history/hang-ups and to embrace whatever path she wants to take. I think it’s impossible to not screw her up just a little but maybe because I’m aware of this going in, then the scarring will be very minimal. But aren’t scars a badge of honor? I guess I’ll have to brainwash, er, I mean teach her that.

So tune in to read all about my efforts to avoid “mom” jeans and the eventual “Decline” as my hubby likes to call a mom who lives in faded, stained sweat pants and ripped T-shirts, not that there’s anything wrong with moms who choose to wear those things but I hope I don’t succumb and end up on an ambush makeover show in 10 years. I’m not saying I want to be a MILF either, there’s something very wrong about that term, but there’s got to be a normal medium somewhere in the middle. Maybe becoming a mom is like aging…you don’t feel it happening but one day you look in the mirror and realize you’re changed.