Monday, July 6, 2009

Um....Can someone quickly tell me how to raise a human being??



Alright, so this whole motherhood thing is definitely the weirdest point thus far in my life. You always hear how great being a mom is. Tiring, but great. And yes. It really is. But nobody gives details on what really goes on behind the scenes, if you will. There’s no instruction manual that pops out strapped to your kid when they’re born. Yes, you will more than likely have plenty of advice and words of wisdom given to you by other experienced moms, but ultimately, your kid’s operations manual is different from everyone else’s kid. So I’m here to tell the truth about some of MY mommyhood experience, or at least what I’ve experienced so far in the month that I’ve been one. (Only 30 or so days of being a mom, would classify me as an expert, right? I thought so too.) And warning: some material might be classified as “TMI” (or “Too Much Information,” for you non-computer geeks) but the truth hurts & is uncomfortable sometimes, so enjoy. :-) (P.S. McKenna’s going to kill me when she gets older and reads all my blogs about her! HA! McKenna, just know I still love you & you’re the coolest little human I know, despite what you’ve put me through! :-)




One word of advice for those of you who are expecting or plan to have kids someday…Epidural! Do it! In fact, if I could have convinced my doc, I would have had one about 3 weeks PRIOR to going into labor. Life would have been A LOT more fantastic that way. :-) I don’t want to offend anyone, but people who decide to “go natural” with no drugs are absolutely out of their mind. Trust me. The epidural is amazing because it literally causes you to lose all feeling and control of the lower half of your body. And it’s absolutely wonderful. When I was in labor, I definitely had to pick up my legs with my hands to move them whenever I wanted to change positions. (Okay, for the record, I wouldn’t want to be like this all the time, but when you feel like you’re about to, in the words of my girl Amy Poehler from the movie Baby Mama , “shit a knife,” paralyses is a great option!) The epidural actually made the labor process somewhat enjoyable (if that’s at all possible…). “Keeping Up With the Kardashians” helped entertain me between pushing, and I thank Dr. What’s-His-Name-Anesthesiologist for helping me be able to concentrate on whether or not Khloe Kardashian should have posed nude for the PETA campaign. Oh, those crazy Kardashians…


So the # 3 question I received while pregnant was “are you going to breastfeed?” (Because I know you’re curious, #1 & 2 questions were “is it a boy or girl?” & “when are you due?” respectively). The weird thing about this question was that it wasn’t my friends or family who were asking, but complete strangers! First off – what the hell do they care? I mean, they’re my boobs and my kid so is it really any of their business? And they’re not ever going to ever see me OR my kid again, so really? Why the need to ask? Weird. But since YOU are my friend (at least on my blog!) I’ll share with you that I did in fact decide to breastfeed. This worked for about a week or two, and then McKenna decided that boobs piss her off and would pitch a fit whenever I’d try to feed her. Soooooooo, I’ve resorted to strapping a damn milking machine to myself every few hours to pump that crap out so she can still eat for free! And let me tell you. It’s not fun. Just imagine power sucking bodily fluid out of your udders. Yep, it’s just like that.



Speaking of bodily fluids….a couple of the most interesting points of parenthood thus far have come while standing over the changing table. The diaper changing table, that is. I read once that Jenny McCarthy contemplated cutting her son’s clothes off of him one time due to the mess that he made. And can I tell you, that’s the BEST IDEA EVER?!? Let me back up a little and give an example of why….Bryant was sitting with McKenna on his lap one day, and all of a sudden a warm gush of smelly goodness spread all over his shorts. Awesome. But no big deal, I thought, he can just go change his shorts while I change her diaper and we’ll be all good. Right? Wrong. I was unaware that my sweet, little 8 pound, baby McKenna had crapped a 46 pound condor out into her diaper and then leaked that shit onto Bryant also! Seriously, it was all the way up her back, down her legs, up her chest, all over ALL of our clothes by the time I carried her to the table, and pretty much everywhere else you can imagine. Seriously?? I almost DID cut her out of her outfit, but decided what the hell? We all need a bath or shower anyway, so why not smear that crap more by taking it off like normal? HA! I won’t give any more details, but I will leave you with two facts: 1) that particular changing experience was definitely a two person job (thanks Bryant!) and 2) that human feces are disgusting.I can only imagine how many more condor craps I’ll have to clean up or how many more gallons of milk I’ll be pumping out of myself via electronic human milking machines, but I’m sure it will all be interesting. And not to worry – I’m happy to share every weird detail with you! More to come as the “mom” experiences pile up! :-) Stay tuned…