Baby Boom

Another friend is having a baby. (this makes baby number 911 that is not mine) Why am I not thrilled for her? I’ll tell you why, because I am petty and mean and jealous. We have been trying for well over a year and still no pink one take 2, annoying to say the least. But I digress from my original point.

Truthfully, I am really excited for her. This will be her first little bundle and she is going to do all those cute new mom things we all did when our first little bundle came along. She is going to pick out matching outfits, organize her nursery, set schedules, come up with crazy schemes and pick extreme parenting philosophies. Then, while we all nod our heads sympathetically and “totally agree” with her, we will giggle quietly as it all gets tossed out the window in favor of what is acctually going to happen; baby dictated chaos.

MUHAHAHAHA (that’s my evil laugh)


I love new mom’s, I love them so much. I love how cute they are with their plans. I love remembering myself as a soon to be new mom, glowing with tiny life inside of me, smugly protecting it, creating custom made nursery baskets that matched the mural on the wall, that matched the curtains, that matched the bumpers etc. etc.

I love that I totally planned on using NOTHING but cloth diapers, organic, homemade baby foods, educational television, black and white soothing educational toys, co-sleeping cradles and bondlicious, nutritional breastfeeding until she could tell me she didn’t want it anymore.

And I love that NOTHING turned out the way I planned. Secretly, (or, not so secretly now) I really REALLY love it when the other smug new mommy’s like myself finally hit that realization as well. I think it might have to do with my own insecurities, but you be the judge.

I admit, I gave in a lot faster than most. The pink one was a child that would not be controlled even as an infant. She was a great sleeper, luckily. However, if I wanted her to eat, she wanted to sleep. If I wanted her to sleep, she wanted to eat. If I wanted her to play independently, she needed extra snuggles. If I wanted her to nurse, she wanted a bottle. When I wanted her to show off her nifty new tricks, like sitting up, or talking, she was a mute blob on the floor. I am fairly convinced she developed a lactose allergy early on just to spite me; willful little wretch.

I made the homemade baby food exactly twice, and I froze it in ice cube trays, where it stayed. I was never able to get it defrosted enough for her to eat it, and when I did it was all stringy or watery, she of course turned her nose up at it, but gobbled down anything pre-processed from a jar that she was presented by her grandmother. This theme continues today, 4.5 years later.

So for us, plans didn’t work, and I had scads of them, so I know. Most of the mom’s I know are the same way. They have plans and schemes and theories and books, most of which are thrown out the window at some point, usually around the 6-12 month mark. This is about the time that most of us realize that babies suck as cute, pink clad accessories, and are really, bawling, spitting, kicking tiny people with no impulse control and the inablity to use an inside voice.

A couple of others stubbornly hold on to their plans a bit longer, and I commend them for it, becuase I did not have the willpower to see it through. Then again, I have always been of the school of thought “If its easier, just do it, I’ll pay for their therapy later” it’s the same school my mother used on us, and we turned out only mildly neurotic.

So while I am bitter, jealous and somewhat conspiratory against my dear friend who is about to embark on this treacherous path of motherhood; I will be there for her. I will be there to hold her hand when she bawls that it just isn’t going the way she envisioned it, and to tell her she is NOT a failure because nursing isn’t as easy as it looked in lactation class. That putting the baby in the crib is not child abuse, sometimes its just a necessity for all of you, and that just because she had a C-section, her child will not end up a serial killer; well, he might, but not because of the C-section anyway.

And I will laugh. But not to her face, I swear.