Never Enough
One of my favorite posts of all-time on the Internets is Swistle’s The Facts (For Some People), and while I’m sure I’ll appreciate it later, I REALLY appreciate it now, in this Time of Well-Meaning (and Sometimes Scary) Advice. It’s SO FUNNY how everyone thinks their experience is THE universal experience, but what they don’t realize is that everyone thinks that, and yet everyone’s experience is different, and I know this, because I’ve heard it all, I swear. Pregnant people and new parents, I imagine, are particularly privy to this phenomenon, because we are irresistible fresh-faced targets.
You wouldn’t think that this phenomenon would extend to what I EAT, but lo, you would be very wrong. I’m currently stocking my freezer with enough yummy stuff to last for a while so that I don’t have to cook or run out or do anything normal, at least at first. This is hilariously ill-advised to some people, because I will TOTALLY be able to at least cook something BASIC, and am overreacting.
Conversely, the fact that I “only” have somewhere in the range of 40-50 meals frozen is panic-inducing for others, because the facts are that I will NEVER BE ABLE TO COOK AGAIN and I should really consider a bigger freezer packed with enough food to sustain me for a year, at least. No, really. Never again.
And we haven’t even touched on WHAT I’ve frozen which, for the record, is a wide variety of foods featuring all sorts of food groups. “No tomatoes!” some warn me, as they claim tomatoes upset baby’s tummy if you’re breastfeeding. “No dairy!” screech others, for the same reason. “Meat? OMG no meat!” others admonish. “Ditch the gluten!” say others. “It causes gas!” And oh, it goes on.
All this is basically to say that if I took everyone’s food advice, I would be able to subsist on air and the occasional spoonful of Miracle Whip. Nope, not even that. It has chemicals. And forget about mayonnaise, because WHAT ABOUT THE EGGS.
I am amused, not irritated, by this, for the record. Unsolicited advice doesn’t bother me unless it’s related to my early demise because of the wrong birthing choice. There’s advice, and then there’s death-related advice, is what I’m saying.
This is probably why I can tell you that I have very little expectation for what parenthood will be like, except that it will probably be Very Very Bad and Very Very Hard and Very Very Exhausting, not to mention Very Very Tear-Inducing and maybe Very Very Miserable. No kidding. That’s where I’m starting from, and I’m cool with that. Only one way to go but up at that point.
Onward! One of my closest friends’ moms is on Facebook, and it truly provides endless hours of entertainment. He and I have been friends since we were ten, so obviously, I know her quite well, and am familiar with her hot buttons. However, that doesn’t mean I don’t find it hilarious when she responds to his totally benign midday status updates with harsh, borderline hysterical admonishments like (and I’m so not making this up or even exaggerating), “ALEXANDER SMITH, GET OFF THE INTERNET THIS INSTANT. DO YOU WANT TO LOSE YOUR JOB OVER FACEBOOK.”
He’s 33, married, successful and has a kid on the way. HA HA HAAAA. Oh, MOMS.
(And not his real name, obvs, because that would be unfair.)
And finally, three gestational-related events that amused, horrified and delighted me this week:
1) I forgot to mention that the midwhiff from earlier this week asked me if I knew what I was having. And, strangely, when I replied, “A girl!” she promptly asked, “And has anyone talked to you about circumcision?”
Me: “…”
MW: “Well, would you like to discuss it?”
Me: “Again, not really, as it’s a girl.”
MW: “…”
I’m wondering if she was high or just really, really out of practice.
2) While sitting and/or lying down, it can be hard to realize just how badly you have to pee. That is, until you get up, when all hell breaks loose as the baby’s head drops directly onto your bladder and suddenly you find that you can no longer walk. I got up today and lurched to the bathroom in such an awkward fashion that the dog no longer recognized me and started barking, chasing me and biting my ankles because clearly, I had morphed into an intruder. Good to know in the event that my body is taken over by aliens and/or I become a zombie.
3) Adam’s company threw us a baby shower earlier in the week, which was ADORABLE and so nice and too generous and just … yes. So cute. Among the myriad of ridiculously cute things we received were decorated onesies from each department (one of them an artistic interpretation of some sort of theory of calculating a carbon footprint, complete with mathematical equations), clothes, books, useful stuff and, oh I didn’t realize such a thing EXISTED, but … baby ice skates, designed for a two-year-old-ish midgety person. Yes, WEE ICE SKATES, so that, I don’t know, we can raise the next Katerina Witt or a female Wayne Gretzky. Too cute. Thanks again, guys.
And speaking of, Adam’s working on an environmental-related project that some of you might be interested in being beta users for. If so, you can find the information here. (Added bonus: you may occasionally receive correspondence from the man himself, as Suebob discovered previously.)
Have a great weekend!
*The Cure
36 comments February 19th, 2009