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Broke Wife, Big City
Who did I just
give birth to?
By Aprill Brandon
Numbers are a funny thing, ain’t they?
It all starts with two individual Ones wanting to become a single Two.
And then you Two build a whole world together.
And then when you decide, probably drunkenly, to go from a family of
two to a family of three, that entire world you built is set on fire
and bombed and then drop-kicked into a black hole by an 8-pound human.
Everything changes. Everything. Your house, your habits, your hygiene.
Especially your hygiene. Oh…oh, the hygiene. It all becomes almost
unrecognizable there for a bit.
And yet, when you go from a family of three to a family of four, the
only thing that really changes is the volume.
Everything is now just permanently set on loud. The baby is always
crying. Loudly. The dog is always barking. Loudly. The toddler (tiny
dictator) is always demanding a tee-tee (cookie). Loudly.
And the grown-ups are always yelling at each other in an effort to be
heard over the cacophony, but yelling in that very particular parental
way that says “I’m trying to avoid having an edge to my voice so as to
not provoke a fight but I’m going insane and there is totally an edge
to my voice.”
Of course, it’s all worth it (modern parenthood requires I say that).
But no, really, it is (and that). Every time you look down into the
gorgeous, big-eyed face your lady parts made, you realize you’d do
anything for them. You’d walk across fire for them! You’d die for them!
You’d get into a 20-minute argument over why M&M’s are not an
acceptable lunch and then LOSE that argument, all for your love of
them.
But here’s the funny thing. When your kids are really young, you don’t
actually know them that well. You’d kill for them, and yet, you
honestly don’t know that much about who they are as a person. I mean,
you know things like how much they poop and that “Little Einsteins”
puts them in a trance-like state for 23 minutes and that if they eat an
onion, even the smallest, barely-perceptible-to-the-human-eye piece of
an onion, they’ll DIE. But that’s all just surface stuff.
Of course, that all changes as they get older. Soon, they are able to
tell you all their hopes and dreams and fears and favorite Sesame
Street characters and long, rambling, pointless stories about a
rocketship that has no discernible beginning, middle or end.
But in the beginning (and I might get my Mom Card revoked for saying
this) they really aren’t that interesting. Newborns are beautiful and
squishy and eternally cuddly and smell amazing and are surprisingly
strong. But it’s not like the little critters are known for their
sparkling conversation and dazzling wit.
For example, here is what I definitively know about my daughter:
She’s a champion long distance pooper. If that wall in the nursery
wasn’t there, I’m pretty sure she’d shatter the world record (if such a
record actually exists…and it really should).
She does not care that my nipple is attached to the rest of my body.
She makes hilarious faces when she farts (that I’ve dubbed the Popeye,
the Chris Farley and, my personal favorite, the one reserved for the
really big farts, the Surprised Wombat).
Oh sure, people are always attributed personality traits to her, myself
included. According to the doctor, she’s tall for her age, so naturally
she’s going to be an athlete. She loves to eat, which obviously
translates into a hunger for life and adventure. Her hair is naturally
shaped as a Mohawk so she’s also clearly a feminist punk rock star.
We do this because otherwise we’d have to admit that during the first
month of their life, our precious little angels are really just
glorified drooling meatbags (shout-out to my friend Elaina for that
fantastic description that I just blatantly stole).
It’s not just with my newborn daughter, either. All this upheaval in
our lives has also made me realize I don’t know my toddler nearly as
well as I thought I did. For example, I was previously unaware that his
favorite chosen method of protest to any big change is a hunger strike.
I also didn’t know that he can sit in a highchair for three hours
staring at me over a plate of uneaten spaghetti like it’s no big deal.
Nor did I know that he is not, in fact, a big fan of babies. (However,
he has gone from poking his sister with a stick to petting her like a
dog, so…progress, I guess).
Yet, I still love these tiny strangers with a depth and fierceness I
didn’t know was possible. And hey, let’s be honest. What do these kids
really know about me so far? To the one I am merely Milk-Giver at this
point. And to the other, I transformed from Momma, The Greatest Human
Being In The World into The Betrayer Who Brought Home The Hairless
Puppy.
Luckily, we have the rest of our lives to get to know each other.
Can’t get enough of Aprill? Can’t wait until next week?
Check out her website at http://aprillbrandon.com/
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