One Year
I mentioned on Facebook that one year ago, yesterday, we found out I was pregnant with G$. Holy crap, that seems like FOR-EV-ER ago! I barely remember even being pregnant. Luckily, I have loads of stretch marks to remind me…hooray.
Boy have things changed around here in the last year! I feel like I might be on my way to adulthood now. So, in typical Lauren fashion, I made a list. Enjoy.
Top 10 Things I Learned In the Last 12 Months
10. Being a parent is gross. Every part of it. Start to finish, gross gross gross. I mean think about it. So many people are having trouble getting pregnant these days, and they end up basically getting shot up with a turkey baster full of goo. And if you’re lucky enough to get pregnant the “old-fashioned” way…well, that’s gross in its own right. Nothing that happens there is clean and pretty. 9 months of pregnancy=gross. Water retention, morning sickness, edema, weight gain, stretch marks…need I say more? Oh yeah, DELIVERY. You’re pushing a watermelon through a straw or being gutted like a deer. Rock on. Who wants to throw up?
9. I do not have the perfect body. I will most likely never have the perfect body. Also…I do not care. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I need to drop a few pounds to get back to my pre-baby weight and, like everyone else on earth, I could use some serious toning up. But that’s just the point…EVERYONE ELSE ON EARTH has this problem. (Except Luke Bryan. He is perfect.)
8. My feelings still get hurt sometimes, and it throws me for a loop. When you’re a kid, everyone feeds you this line of BS about how it’s “just high school” and people outside of high school don’t act like that. Then you get to college…same shit. Then you get your first real job…ditto. I’m almost 30 years old and guess what? Finding out someone doesn’t like me still hurts. People still judge you. The difference is that now I have the foresight to realize that those people are just working out their own insecurities on me.
7. All this “mommy war” stuff is WAY less prominent than people want you to believe. And when I do hear some ignorant bitch start mouthing off about formula feeding, vaccinating, circumcising, c-sections or whatever else they have an opinion on, I’ve found that there are way more moms out there who have my back than moms who want to back up the bully. Most moms really couldn’t care less what you do with your kids, so long as they are healthy and safe.
6. Speaking of other moms, it’s really important to listen to them and learn from their mistakes (and successes!). It seems like some parents just want to go their own way, not ask for help, just tough it out. That seems silly. If someone has an epic potty training fail, I want to know. The less poop on my floor, the better.
5. Bullying is even more horrifying now than it was pre-children. Maybe that seems obvious, but I cannot for the life of me understand how people tolerate that kind of behavior and how they don’t realize that kids learn it AT HOME. I hate to think what I would do if someone tried to pick on my precious little boy. All I can say is watch out. 😉
4. Your friendships really do change…especially with your single/childless friends. The good ones will be patient with your oversharing of photos, diaper disasters and lack of time for fun. The rest of them…maybe they’ll come around, maybe they won’t. This is why it’s so important to have a community of other parent friends. They not only don’t mind the photo bombs, they probably have a shutterfly coupon.
3. Everything seems worse/more dramatic when you’re sleep deprived. Take some extra time to think about major life decisions before you make them. In retrospect, most of what I worried about was not that big of a deal.
2. I really appreciate my parents even more than I did before. And not just for the free babysitting. It’s so cliche but so true…you really can’t fully appreciate your own parents until you become a parent. Thanks Mom and Dad!
1. (Courtesy of Adam) Puke doesn’t kill anybody. Enough said.
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