Sam’s Town

You know, despite the fact that my kid doesn’t sleep (STILL OMG), one of the things I’ve come to finally realize is that all of my fears that I would turn into a different person once I had a baby were completely unfounded. I am still ME, and even though I have less time to do the things that make me … uh, me … I am finding that as I get the hang of this, I get a little more of myself back every day. It’s true. It all gets harder, in some ways, but it also gets easier. Or maybe I’m just comfortably numb to it all. Not sure, truthfully. It could go either way.

But it is not easy, by any stretch. But by saying that, I’m not saying it’s not awesome, because weirdly, it is — the most awesome thing ever, in fact — but holy hell, is it hard. And it’s hard in ways that can’t really be articulated, for even all the things that SOUND hard — staying up all night, dealing with a child who screams for no reason at all, pushing a stroller around and around in circles while wearing an afghan until the kid finally falls asleep — aren’t really THAT hard. No, really. What’s hard is that it’s all so RELENTLESS.

You can live through anything if you know there’s an end. A sleepless night here or there is no big deal if you know you can catch up on the weekend, or look forward to some much-needed downtime on a slow afternoon. But in parenthood, there is no definite end. Whatever challenge you’re enduring could end tomorrow, or it could go on for three more years, with absolutely zero downtime. You just don’t know, and my God, that is hard.

Hey, do you guys read -R-? If not, you should, for she is friggin’ hilarious, and one of the most real, honest people I’ve ever “met.” This reminds me of a post of hers I caught up on after vacation that absolutely slayed me. We all know those women/moms/bloggers, and she articulated all of it SO WELL.

“I really do not get it if you think your baby is so wonderful that his pee smells like Chanel No. 5.”

HA HA HA. HA HAAAAAAAAAA. I mean, I love my daughter more than life itself, but: yes. It’s hard. I don’t care who you are. It’s HARD. I’ll bet even Jennifer Lopez, who never admits anything bad in the universe, including the fact that she married a dead man’s skeleton, will tell you that it’s EFFING HARD SOMETIMES, even if she hands her baby off to the manny when shit goes down. To pretend otherwise is such a load of shit.

Onward! A few things:

– Dude, Maryann’s minotaur head was not what I pictured. I pictured her as a full-bore shapeshifter, not some person/thing who threw on a HELMET. WTF. (Right, that would be True Blood. What the hell I’m going to talk about when this season’s over is friggin’ beyond me.)

–I am going to admit right here and now that I am a full 30 pounds overweight. THIRTY! It’s a frightening number, but it is the God’s honest truth, and the most I have ever weighed, excluding pregnancy. Ever. And boy howdy, I would like to get rid of it, because not only am I fitting into exactly none of my clothes, but y’all, MY KNEES. They are dead. I should not be carrying this amount weight around, and my knees are politely informing me in the only way they know how.

– Relatedly, one of the unfortunate side effects of my ever-changing postpartum body — particularly, my large ass — is that all of my pants fit funny in the back. All of them, no matter what size I try. They all … well, there’s no other way to say this, but they all end up baring my ASS CRACK when I bend over, squat or sit on the floor. Which, if you have ever been around the mother of a five-month-old, you fully realize is something I do approximately 9,568,345 times a day. Adam has taken to simply announcing, “I SEE FRANCE” to give me a heads up that things have, uh, gone south. And when he’s not around, I just hope that no one’s behind me. Awesome.

– Finally, bringing it back to babies and their, uh, challenges, I have to say I would like to publicly thank everyone who didn’t scream at me that I was a total idiot whilst in the throes of my honeymoon stage with Sam. I thought, based on her newborn-ness, that I had birthed an EASY BABY OMG. And I CROWED ABOUT IT on this here blog. And everywhere else. The old, “She’s so easily placated!” “She only cries when hungry/wet/whatever!” “This is SO AWESOME, I don’t know WHAT people complain about!”

Dear God, people. You are all saints for not warning me. And I love you all for later admitting that yes, you did this, too, even if it was only to make me feel less stupid about it.

I say this, because it has recently come to my attention that this is a UNIVERSAL THING that most new moms do. Three times, in the last month, I have watched three of my real life friends have babies, and without fail, they have announced that they “seem to have a really easy baby,” and then crow that they have NO IDEA WHY PEOPLE COMPLAIN ABOUT IT.

OMG.

And it has taken EVERY OUNCE OF WILLPOWER not to laugh at them, shake my head ruefully and announce, “Oh darling. We all did. Everyone does. This is not your baby. Your baby will emerge at the four to five week mark, give or take. And then that baby will turn into a DIFFERENT baby and you … well, I’m sorry, you’ll never REALLY know what kind of baby your baby is. Sorry.”

So now you all know, folks. The baby you bring home from the hospital is not really your baby. It will seem like the world’s easiest baby, or the world’s hardest baby, depending on your experience, but trust me: that baby is not your baby. Even if he turns out to be easy, he’ll still have a personality that is probably different than the newborn one. You just have to wait and see.

Happy Thursday! Playgroup day! THANK GOD. AM DESPERATE HOUSEWIFE UP IN THIS PIECE.

*The Killers. Chosen not only for the obvious, but because of the lyric, “I seeeee London … I see Sam’s Town …” or you know, France. AND THEN MY ASS.

27 comments July 29th, 2009