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28th May 2009
Signs You Are a Mother!
True signs you are a mother (as experienced recently by a new mom, updated throughout the first year of raising baby):
- Postscript: I actually initially titled this “Signs You a Mother”
- Where did my grammar go? LOLOL - okay, so read on and it will all make sense as to how I’ve lost my head
- Spit-Up - No longer grossed out by spit-up wherever, whenever. As time goes on within the first year of baby life, you are excited when baby learns to lean over and spit up, missing herself entirely, landing all of it entirely on you, or the furniture, or the ground when it’s outside. I’ve actually learned how to catch baby spitup in my hand - yep, talented, aren’t I?
- Personal Hygeine - No longer excited about dressing up and looking perfect everytime you go out in public
- Yesterday, I thought something was crawling on the back of my leg - I looked back there and realized the wind was blowing in my hair - on the back of my legs!! A sign I needed to “take my time” shaving!
- Excitement that you can work in a pedicure, hairdo, coloring once every six months (as oppposed to once every six weeks)
- I often forget to put on deodorant, despite now having it in multiple places so I won’t forget this important routine
- I actually went to a conference, spoke in front of hundreds of people, and didn’t get a pedicure - or even paint my toes - that would have never happened before baby
- Food - Awareness that you “live” in the kitchen .
- When she does start eating, Cheerios end up everywhere - I mean “everywhere”
- Steaming baby food so you can be green is not always practical
- Your life will become consumerism hell - so many baby jars, plastic containers and bottles
- Awareness that eating for you is only a means to production, and overall health. It is really no longer enjoyed - to enjoy food, you must take your time. A sign of a mother is cold food, hardly eaten food, or rapidly eaten food in such big chunks ’cause you’re trying to eat it before she cries… or wants to do something else.
- Laundry - awareness that life is laundry, laundry, laundry
- Dare you do anything without Dreft?
- Dreft becomes your life savior - and if you want any cash at all for those unwanted, quickly outgrown baby clothes, you better spray it with Dreft - yes, I want a kick-back for all the references to Dreft
- If you go a day without doing laundry, it seems that the next day there are four times as many loads to do
- What was my babysitter thinking? Why did she choose a burp cloth to wipe my baby’s face who just had prunes and then bury it in the laundry, and then what was I thinking by skipping the baby laundry for a few days? Like those stains can be removed days later?
- Poop is the leading yucky thing in a laundry machine - I remember hearing about that before baby - I thought “Gross!” and “How is that possible?” Yep - I now know it’s true.
- You actually begin to wash things twice, with more Dreft, because apparently the first time was not enough
- Health - Moms really don’t have time to get sick. We are not amused by your cough, your cold, or anything about anyone’s sickness. All we can think of is, if my baby gets sick, I’m going to kill you.
- When I was sick and not a mom, I actually accepted being sick because it meant that my body was telling me I needed to slow down. This week I got a head cold - since when do I have time for this? Melina got it first. Then me. Melina was fine, now I was sick. All I wanted to do was sleep. But how do you catch up on sleep with a baby? Yeah - good one.
- If my sitter gives my kid one more cold, or H1N1, I’m going to become a fanatic, germ-sensing probe
- Handywoman - You are willing to put things together - things that you thought you’d never put together -
- I put up a baby gate the other day (another post needed on babyproofing and child gates, etc.) - which took the better part of the day. The child gate took so long, because I refused to measure, so I managed after the third time to get it “nearly” right.
- I put an old screen door back together today - I also installed upside down and right side out. LOL
- I put together an exersaucer - that took two margaritas and several hours in the garage
- I put together a hi-chair
- I had to ask the mailman how to open up my stroller the first time
- I had to ask a neighbor to show me how to open up the stroller the second time
- I dreaded for hours putting together the second stroller, looked at it for several more hours, only to watch my male friend look at it for a second, snap the wheels into place and open the stroller in perfectly working condition - in less than a minute. I considered having sex with him moments later.
- I re-used the office desk by having my neighbor saw it down into wooden shelves - months later, went to Lowes with baby right before they closed one night, hung shelves by myself hours later - marvelling at my re-use desk concept
- Cleanliness - Acceptance that your house will never be perfectly clean all the time
- Clorox or other nearly similar wipes are my friend
- Why do we have carpet? Do you know that baby spitup cannot possibly be cleaned up all the time - in the number of places it likely flies when your child projectile spits up in the beginning, or when she’s sick? I shutter to think of what grows in my carpet in those small dark spots. The same kind you see at the Border’s and Barnes & Noble bookstore in the baby board book section….
- How does a baby room, a living room, or a kitchen get this messy this fast?
- How quickly a room can be destroyed - but then you see how quickly a crawling child can move from one spot to another, pull things out, become bored and move on? Then it’s easy to understand why a room can become a tornado’s windpath
- You no longer have money for cleaning person, despite how much you need that cleaning person
- You wonder how it is that you don’t get Hepatitis from cleaning up so much baby poop? It ends up everywhere… I mean how does baby poop manage to go up her tummy and stain her onesie that quickly, sitting up in a carseat on the way to the grocery store? I just changed her less than an hour ago….
- Baby Bumps & Bruises
- Naivete - when experienced moms tell you that your baby will fall off the bed - you think that person has to be an idiot to let their baby fall off the bed, how is this possible?
- And then, survival of your baby’s first fall off the bed - rolling over from tummy time, right off the bed - not sure who freaked out more - my child, or me. Receiving the idiot award for this, of course.
- This is why I have to put my kid in the bouncy chair while I take a shower - so she doesn’t roll off any surface during this time.
- Bruises on your child’s forehead that you wonder when she got them - what is she doing to get all those little bruises? Oh - after seeing her bang her head into the crib attachment while rolling around, falling asleep in her crib - no wonder
- You can hear your child fall in the other room, even when the baby sitter is with her - that tiny sound - you know isn’t right - you go running, regardless of whether you are in the middle of a conference call with a client or vendor. The bruise shows up days later
- Constant reassurance to friends that the baby “bruise” on her back, since birth, is not a bruise. It’s a hemo-strawberry-whatever thing that she’s had since birth. No, I do not beat my baby.
- Losing Your Brain, Your Sanity or Something Like That -
- Regardless of what people say about delivering your brain with the baby -
- Things to remember when you have a daily routine with baby (bottle, food, extra set of clothes, or two pair of clothes, something for cool weather, warm weather, burp cloths, diaper bag itself, suncare for warm days, hat for any day, wipes, diapers, baggies for dirty clothes & diapers, toys, socks which will always fall off or be kicked off within 60 seconds of putting them on, spoon for food, something to keep food clean, cool, something to warm food in and yes, the list goes on) -
- Things Lost Repeatedly include:
- garage door opener
- passport
- keys
- spare set of keys
- 3rd set of keys
- TV remote controler
- flashlight
- dog leash, 2nd dog leash
- Cell phone
- Toll booth ticket (had to pay the highest amount) - despite the fact that you put it in an extra special place so you wouldn’t misplace it
- Washed toll booth ticket, found it month later when looking for cell phone
- Realized I washed my cell phone after having lost it for an entire day
- Depression that this was the second time I’d washed my cell phone
- Wallet
- Checkbook
- Purse
- Change of clothes
- Toys for baby to amuse herself while trying to have adult conversation with friend at restaurant who is not a baby person
- Hand sanitizer
- Sheer panic when you’ve realized you have indeed forgotten to stock the diaper bag with diapers or wipes - the essentials - and you have three more errands to run - before you head home, because it’s not like you can run out later and get these things.
- Desire to kill person who looks at me with disgust on how I could be so disorganized - then remembering that they do not have children, or are not in charge of children, or have had 40 years since they’ve taken care of children, and remembering they did not ever do it by themselves
- What you were talking about
- What you were writing about
- Senses Exponentially Increase - The ability to smell, hear, love, perceive, and yes, at times, hate
- Hearing - Amazement at how you can hear your baby’s voice no matter how hard you might try not to hear it.
- I say this lightly - but have you ever put your hand over your ears praying to God your baby will go to sleep - so you can sleep - and yes, you can still hear your baby as if she was right next to you cooing away. You are more than thankful for this the rest of the day and night - because you can hear that little tiny sound wherever you’re at.
- Hearing a baby cry when there is no sound at all
- Love for your baby - an emotion that is so strong that you never thought even possible, and yes, it exceeds any love you have ever felt for any man in your entire life (sorry, guys)
- Speaking of men, and how it’s important for them to feel good. In that short little period after a woman has the baby, female senses are at all time high - and any woman who has ever had a baby, probably, knows what I’m talking about without too much “TMI”
- Sadness when you realize that you are too tired to take advantage of this heightened female sensation
- Sadness that once you have regained your strength, you no longer have this
- Relaxation Evaporated - Awareness that there is no more relaxation time - if there is, it’s laden with guilt that you are not doing something you should be - like the laundry, or getting things ready for the next day. I’ve ordered a few movies, only to try watching them 3 times, yes, three times before I finally give up.
- Massages - I used to get weekly shiatsu, bi-monthy massages, and several other spa treatments. I have more body pain than I’ve ever had before, except for when I trained for the marathon in 1995. Yet, I’ve not had a massage since 4 months of pregnancy, or was it 5 months? Recently, a male friend rubbed my feet and my legs for 10 minutes. I wanted to have sex with him. I didn’t, silly goose.
- Be Strong, Sister - Shock that you’re going to have to learn how to do something like pull a tick off your child, or rescue her from a bug, yes, a creepy crawly bug - and yet, act normal while you’re doing this - don’t scream bloody murder, like you normally do. Don’t want to transfer fear to my tiny child.
- I have lots of spiders in doorways, yet, for some reason, I am letting them live lately. Don’t ask me why.
- When you do cave to fear, like when there is a ghost in your hotel room, which happens to end in the number 13, and your daughter sees something, for real, that you can’t - try to remain calm, and keep it together, because your baby can see it all
- Respect for women who are mothers - like you never imagined possible - as they can show you the simplest way of doing something you thought was so complicated.
- Even greater respect for mothers who choose to, or have to work full-time - and run the household the rest of their waking hours.
- Constant observation of how much women jump to help other mothers
- Recent experience at executive health at OSU - with my baby - trying to get some bloodwork
- Four men observe me with baby, and wonder why she is shrouded in plastic weather cover on a cold, rainy day, and H1N1 concerns are rampant in the hospital. When baby cries, they stare at me, or continue on with their conversation, and don’t even move out of the way when I’m trying to get by them with a baby stroller, shrouded in plastic
- Five women jump to see what they can do to help me - seriously, five women, one by one, come up to me, to see what they can do to help me, and help calm my crying baby.
- Can I rock her for you?
- Can I get her something to drink?
- You need to wash her toys - here’s a sink
- Can I get you anything?
- Not one man did anything other than question me as to why I needed the plastic weather cover on a cold, rainy day in a hospital where people were wearing masks due to H1N1
- Blogging for Therapy - Delight in the ability to express this all in a blog so I don’t go crazy - I start getting antsy if I haven’t written in a while to document the fun and joy of motherhood with a wonderful daughter.
These are just a few of the cold hard facts of what it’s like to be a mother - glamour and all - and I’m so glad, so thankful to be in this new group of women - who are mothers.
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More from Laura Thieme:
- Postscript: I actually initially titled this “Signs You a Mother”
