PARENTHOOD

In a successful attempt to cheer me recently, my friend Melissa rapped about all the "bummers" of parenthood. I enjoyed her tongue-in-cheek comments so much, I asked her if I could share them with my readers. She gave me the green light, so here it is, for your reading pleasure!
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Preface
I absolutely love [my daughter] Claire, and I really would throw myself in front of a bus for her. It's like my friends Rebecca and Joel put on their first child's birth announcement: "We thought we knew love, and then came Stella." I've never forgotten that because it became so real to me when I had Claire. It's this crazy protective love that you didn't even know exists. And yes, children are totally a huge blessing ... but if I may ... and totally for your benefit I hope ...

 

Physical Health and Hygiene

I frequently go two months without shaving my legs or bikini line. Please note that I had a C-section and I was freshly shorn way north of my original bikini line for that surgery, so my current bikini line ... well ... it's a bit higher than it used to be.

 

Showers are for function, not fun (or fornication for that matter). There's simply not enough time.

 

Fixing my hair means I blow-dried it, brushed it and didn't pull it back in a ponytail, as opposed to letting it air-dry with half of it sitting on top of my head and then putting it in a ponytail later.

 

I don't exercise. Actually, I started running again in August in an attempt to lose 20 pounds (I never lost all the weight after having Claire). After a month of getting up at 6 a.m. to run and shower before Claire woke up, I lost a half-pound and people said, "Are you losing weight?" It must've been a really big half-pound.

 

My boobs are, as Holly puts it, deflated balloons. Totally saggy and squishy and never to be perky again. (They are one cup size bigger, but big whoop, ya know? That just means I had to go out and buy all new bras.)

 

I have little red bumps on the back of my arms that I have heard occur during pregnancy. They never go away.

 

Due to that relaxin hormone, my joints swelled/expanded, and my fingers are permanently bigger. I haven't worn my wedding ring since February 2010.

 

Sleep, as you know it, is gone.

 

Environment

I clean my house every 9-10 weeks. That's right. The clean neat freak from college has a filthy, pube-infested bathroom. It is rotten nasty and I've accepted it. You think you won't accept that that's the way it's going to be, but eventually, you do.

 

If you have any home-improvement projects in the works, get to workin', because it's near impossible to do so when you have kids.

 

Social/Relational

Jerry and I have not been on a date in three months. It seems like it would be so easy, but here's why it's not. There is a shortage of good babysitters; even girls from our church are not always as good as we hope they will be. Even if you have a good babysitter, it's nerve-wracking to leave your child with her because what if the baby starts wailing uncontrollably and the sitter can't get her calmed down, or what if the baby doesn't take a bottle for the sitter or go to sleep for the sitter ... ? Plus, you're just too tired.

 

We don't see our friends often. We just don't. No time. Plus, if they don't have kids, you have to get a babysitter to hang out with them if you're going out to dinner or doing an adults-only type thing.

 

I have time to check my e-mail only once or twice a week. Example: This e-mail right here that I'm typing is like eight days late.

 

I cancelled my Facebook account because I never had time to check it.

 

God

Stopped reading my Bible altogether and rarely pray. Now, however, I'm in Bible Study Fellowship, and I read a little bit almost every day. I go to the meetings on Monday evenings, and Jerry stays home with Claire. I'm learning a lot.

 

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Post Script

I wrote Melissa back to say, "I already don't do the following on a regular basis: shower, shave, exercise, do my hair, clean, go out, improve my house, respond to emails in a timely fashion, read my Bible ... So I'm really screwed when we finally do have kids!"

 

Her reply: "No Erika -- the fact that you don't do all those things is only going to make the transition easier. Trust me. It'll be like, 'Oh well, I didn't X, Y, Z before Petunia was born anyway.'"