I will introduce myself with this:

Hi, my name is Mo.  I'm 5 months pregnant, and in the process of buying a house with my husband.

I don't need the two goddamned cents of every single person that I come in contact with between the hours of 8 and 4:30 pm about either fucking topic.

Happy Monday.

Gifts

Gifts for a baby- sounds so easy. They don't make a huge list for Santa, they don't sit glued to the TV watching for commercials about new toys and yell, "I need that!", they don't throw fits when you wheel down the toy aisle of Wal-Mart or Target because they're going to DIE, DIE I TELL YOU! if they don't get Barbie Princess Fairy of Whompaland Collector's Edition with extra wings. So, it should be easy.

Should be.

Being the Mommy of a Boy

I always wanted to have a girl. I have a sister and lots of girl cousins and really don’t know the first thing about little boys. I shed a tear when the ultrasound tech told Mr. Plummy and I we were having a boy. Not because I was disappointed, but because I literally didn’t know what I was supposed to do with a boy. It took me about 10 seconds to come to terms with the idea of having a boy and now….well now I wouldn’t trade my Monkey for 100 girls.

But being the mommy of a boy has some particular challenges. For example, last week I noticed that Monkeys’ junk looked a little red. Further examination revealed it was really red. I called the pediatricians’ office to get some advice on how to treat it. The conversation went something like this:

Me: My son’s penis looks a little red.

Nurse: Is it on the shaft of the penis?

Me: Yes

Nurse: Or is it at the base when you pull back the foreskin?

Me: Ummm….Yes?

Nurse: Well, it is more at the base near the testicles or near the tip?

Me: Ummmm….Ummmm…Ummmm

Clearly, I am going to need a refresh course on male anatomy before we get much further into Monkey’s childhood. For the record, it turned out to be a simple diaper rash that was cleared up with a little Desitin and a pep talk with myself about the importance of not ignoring Monkey’s little boy bits.

Bi-Polar Baby

I just love those times when Munchky looks up at me, and I smile, and she smiles back. Or when I smile at her and talk to her, and she laughs. These are the moments that make my day.

However, lately, she's been a bit of a bi-polar baby. She'll be laying on the couch beside me, playing with her toy, chatting away. All of a sudden she will whine and start to cry (no tears, mind you), and I'll look at her. Here's the rub- she's looking at me, and as soon as I look at her, she laughs. Ummmm, yes Munchky, I'm still here and paying attention to you.

It always reminds me of that video on youtube, called "Toddler Throwing A Funny Tantrum".

Getting sick

Getting sick sucks at any point. But I'm learning that it sucks even more when you have a baby. The only sure-fire thing that works all the time for me when I'm sick... is sleeping. A lot. I mean, a LOT. Yeah, not really possible with a 5 month old.

My hubs is pretty good at taking care of Munchky when I want to go out and play poker on Tuesdays, or go out for a girls night. But if I'm at home, sick or not, he just expects that I'll be helping and feeding and changing. UGGGGGHHHHHHH! It just sucks. Do I want to help? Yes. Do I want to hold my little girl since she spends all day at daycare? Yes. But what I need right now is sleeeeeeeep!

The "No Return" Policy of Parenthood

There are some days that you wish there was one. You could just dig out your receipt and trot your not so hot ass back to the hospital, plop them on the counter and say they're broken and smell funny...no exchange necessary, just a refund. There's a pair of shoes at Macy's you've had your eyes on.

For the last three days I've been trying to keep my mind intact. I thought that since I made it through teething (three times), and potty training (three times), the first day of school (again, three times) that I made it! I had done it! I kept the crazy to a minimum, my sanity intact, and still have most of my hair.

Not so fast.

It started out with the usual bickering back and forth, the tattling, the screaming...ugh. I want to break out in stress hives just thinking about it. It continued into the kicking each other, punching, crying, saying they hate each other. Again with the hives. I figure I'll distract them with work. I ask them if they'll help me rip some old wallpaper border down. They jump at the chance to be able to destroy something.

After thirty minutes of actually being good and helping me they both start in (out of the blue, mind you) about living with their dads. Okay, the youngest but the oldest had her sly eyes on. Do other parents not realize that any kid that has working ears and can speak a coherent sentence will repeat EVERY-THING that is said in their presence? I cannot be the only person on earth that knows this bit of information. Literally...everything.

She tells me that her dad told her (6 months ago) that he can tell me what to do and if she wants to live with him he can do whatever he wants and I can't stop him. Um...what? Do you want to live with him? She informed me she wants to live both places but she likes my house better...I'm there and I let her have snacks. That set me off...am I that horrible? Do I make you starve? Do I make you sleep on the floor and wear dirty clothes (I'm not perfect with laundry but I give it a hell of a try) or beat you? What is so horrible about living with me?

Then the bomb drops..their step moms are always home at night. Are you freaking kidding me??! My kids want to live somewhere else because I have a fucking job? Because I work midnights??!!

Let me break it down for you..the oldest's step mom got fired from their local grocery store. This is the latest in a very long line of firings for her. The youngest's step mom works part time at McDonalds because they can't afford day care...they have 7 kids in their household..in a 3 bedroom house. Maybe I'm being a little judgemental but come-the-fuck on. I work an (almost) 40 hour workweek..I work nights so I'm gone while they're sleeping and home when they need me. If they are sick at school, who gets them? Me. Who gives up their sleep time to go to school programs and functions and field trips and to nurse them when they're home sick? Me.

I hate feeling like I'm being punished for being responsible and making a choice that I thought would work best for them. I'm returning to school next term and that's going to take up more of my time..what's going to happen then? Are they really going to hate my guts when the pressure is on and I have to lock myself up for days at a time to study? I'm not going for cosmetology here.

There are some days that I really do wish I never had kids. Nobody can hurt you like they can. Nobody.

As soon as I think that I feel even more guilty because there is also nobody that loves you like they do. It is conditional, but those conditions are so easy to meet. Just love them and they love you back.

There will still be more days that you wish you could send them back. Teenage girls hitting puberty is enough to make me want to turn into an alcoholic..the fact that I get to do it again as soon as the first one moves out is making me second guess my decision to keep having them after one. Maybe I was already drunk when I made that decision.

Small doses of crazy.

Ever since I became a mom, I noticed that I'm a bit more crazy than normal.

Pre-baby I lived in this blissful world thinking about how it was going to be once my daughter arrived, like we all do. I don't know how many times I said that I wouldn't change a thing once my daughter was born. I was determined to live MY life, just with a kid in the mix now. I thought she would abide by MY schedule, not the other way around. I thought I would still have a social life, getting a sitter is no big deal...and so on.

Um, sure.

Needless to say, none of the above came true. There is a new queen of this castle and we bow to her, no doubt about it, as we should.

I have to say though, I am now mourning my old life. Yes, you read it right, I am saying that I'm missing certain aspects of my old life. I'm admitting it. It goes without saying that I wouldn't change having Lily for the world but I will admit that the adjustment has been difficult.

This is where the small doses of crazy come out of me.

Take teething for example. A year or two ago, if I saw a six month old baby, I would think what any childless woman would think, "Awwwww! They look like so much fun at this age!". Sure, they are, but I never gave a second thought to things like teething. So, days like today when Lily has spent a good portion of the day screaming, because of God's little prank on new mothers, I tend to go a little crazy. I start thinking, "What did I get myself into?", or, "I am not cut out for this shit, I do not have the patience" and every once in awhile, I'll even cry with Lily.

Other doses of crazy include, but not limited to:

• Snapping at my husband often, for making me become his mother too.
• Getting irrationally irritable when someone pisses me off at work. I don't have time for that shit anymore. I have a kid at home.
• Thinking, I would rather try to survive off of my husbands (very small) salary, than to spend another long day away from my baby, one day...to then thinking, the very next day, I cannot wait to spend 2 hours in the car driving to the furthest point in my territory so I can be alone in quiet.

I can go on but you understand what I'm saying, I'm sure.

I know what you're thinking, "Shit, this chick has postpartum issues!", and that might very well be...but I don't think it's anything more than adjusting to my new life.

I think new moms are afraid to admit things like this, in fear that they'll be judged if God forbid they have a selfish thought. I mean, come on, if you're a mom, you can't tell me that you haven't been excited to put your kid to bed for some peace and quiet, or that you didn't sometimes wish that you could take a night away with your husband without one ounce of guilt.

No, no one sat me down and told me motherhood would be easy but I honestly wasn't prepared for the changes that everyone warned me about. I guess that's the point is that you can't prepare. There are no words to explain what truly happens to your life when you become a mom. You can try to explain it but until you live it, you can't conceptualize the new life you're about to have.

All that said, I do not blame hormones for my doses of crazy. Maybe it's a small piece of it but more than anything, it's coming to grips with not being able to be selfish anymore and the new life I signed up for.

I can deal with my own crazy. I just hope I don't pass down the gene.

OMG- Now I've done it

Yesterday started as a typical day- Hubs got up to feed Munchky while I got ready, then I got her ready, took her to daycare, and then went to work. It was about 9:23 am (approximately, of course, I'm not THAT OCD, except I am), that I realized I had done it...

I had become a Mommy.

Now, let's define some things here. I have been a Mom for months now- and couldn't be happier with it. But becoming a "Mommy" is something totally different.

I'm not sure, I don't have any photo evidence, but I'm pretty sure that someone snuck into my closet one night, took out all of my stylish, cool clothes, and replaced them with "comfort is way more important" clothes. WTH? Where did those come from?

Oh, and some horrible force of nature has replaced my body with this... this... spare tire thing. I admit I was only happy with my size for a few years before getting pregnant- I lost a lot of weight at one point and loved it. Seriously- I was lovin life! But now I am incapable of even imagining those days of smaller sizes. I do dream about them, though.

About a month ago, the "delayed stress reaction hair loss" kicked in from having Cora, and I couldn't stand how much hair I saw in the drain each time I took a shower. So I cut it short. Now, I've done this all my life- grow my hair long, cut it short, then grow it out again. It grows quickly, so I never really worried about being stuck with something for too long. But I'll be damned- a friend saw me a couple days later, and said, "So you got the Mommy cut!" Bitch. No, I didn't get the Mommy cut. I'm not sure how it's different, but it is. So there.

This one I will admit to, though- I wear granny panties sometimes. There, I said it, shoot if you want. But it's true. They are so damned comfortable (Holy crap, there's that word again). But not even my husbands ribbing about them will make me get rid of them.

**through tears** "I just never thought this would happen to MEEEEEEEEEEE!"

Can We Talk About Sex?

I guess this isn't technically on topic, but it's something I've been thinking about lately.

Giving birth wasn't nearly as traumatic on my body as some. I had only minor internal tearing and some chaffing. I really didn't think that getting back to "normal" was going to take that long. Wrong.

I made my husband wait 8 weeks before I consented to intercourse. And I say it that way because that's really all it was. Not only was I deathly afraid of what it would feel like, but I also wasn't the least bit interested. A year later, not much has changed.

It's sad, really. There was a time when I loved sex, especially with my husband. I considered it an essential part of life and an important factor in deciding whether someone was worth spending the rest of my life with.

Will I ever love sex again?

Weekend woes

Holy hell- yesterday was hell. HELL I tell you!

Poor Munchky has a cold. Well, let me preface that... she has had a constant cold for the past month, and this weekend it was worse. I took her to the doc when she first got it, and here is what I got:

- You can't really do anything about it. Use nasal spray and suction stuff out.
- Use a humidifier in her room.
- Use Infant's Tylenol if she has a fever.

That's it. Nothing else. Oh yeah- here was the kicker that made me all gooey...

- She'll probably just sneeze her way from one cold to another for the winter, especially since she's in daycare.

Yeah, thanks. BLECH. Anyway- back to my story. This weekend Munchky was worse- she kept having sneezing fits where she would sneeze like 4 times in a row, snot flying everywhere. And like every other kid I've ever seen, she HATES having her nose wiped. HATES. With the passion of a thousand suns.

So the thing the pedi doesn't tell you is how completely hopeless you will feel, when she sneezes her little head off, cries when you wipe her nose, and then look up at you like, "make me better!" Ugh- what a heartstring tug! There was nothing I could do, and I hated it! And when she screamed her head off in that shrill, horrid way for like, an HOUR last night, all I could do was walk around with her and dance and sway, trying to comfort her. And then get up a bajilion times throughout the night to check on her after she finally went down.

Wow. Mommy stuff is hard.

Adventures in Breastfeeding

Let me preface this entry, by saying that I am in full support of however you decide to feed your kid.

You breastfeed....great.

You formula feed....great.

You do a little of both....great.

You start cow's milk at 6 months, but only 2% because you don't want your baby to get fat like my mother-in-law did....okay, then I'm going to give you the side eye and probably talk shit behind your back.

But beyond that, I fully support every mom in making the right choice for themselves and their baby. Having said all of that, I exclusively breastfeed Monkey. When I was pregnant, I was pretty meh about breastfeeding. I figured I would try it and if it worked great and if it didn't formula was fine. I was lucky enough to have cooperative boobs and a cooperative baby and breastfeeding works for us.

But it wasn't easy. Part of the problem was I believed The Lie. The Lie women tell each other about breastfeeding. The Lie lactation consultants, nurses, and doctors pass on to poor, naive mothers. The Lie you read about in books while you are pregnant and convince yourself it must be true.

Breastfeeding should not hurt. If it hurts, you are doing something wrong.

Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. And let me add for good measure....bullshit!

Breastfeeding hurts. It hurts like a mother fucker! Monkey had a great latch, I had a great supply, our holds were all correct....and it still hurt like hell. The first few weeks, my nipples were red and chapped and occasionally bleeding. Everytime Monkey latched on, I cringed and curled up my toes in pain. Every single time I fed Monkey, I would tell myself it was going to be the last time I would breastfeed. I would sit there, praying for him to be done, and think next time I'm going to make him a bottle.

But I never did. I just kept at it and eventually it got easier. And now I love it and love each special moment I get to spend with Monkey. But most of all, I love those 7 or 8 times a day where I am not expected to do anything but sit on the couch, feed Monkey, and catch up on my DVR'd shows!

9 months was the easy part

Being pregnant was no fun for me. I was sick every.single.day for the entire 9 months. I took anti-nausea medicationss every.single.day and they only worked some of the time. I kept thinking I only had to make it through those 9 months and then everything would be better. Well, I'm no longer nauseous all the time....but those 9 months were definitely the easy part!

I'm a 31 year old mom to a 3 month old little boy. I've been married for a little over a year to a man I adore on the good days and tolerate on the bad days. I'm a social worker, stuck in a job I have no passion for but that pays more than most social work jobs. I'm in graduate school and will get my master's degree in about a year.

I spent approximately 29 years of my life convinced I was not going to get married and I was not going to have kids. It just wasn't for me. I wasn't interested in those societal norms which said every woman wants to get married and have a family. I didn't really know what I wanted from my life, but I was sure marriage and kids wasn't it. When I was 26, I met Mr. Plummy and fell in love for the first time. At 29, I decided I wanted to have a baby NOW! Mr. Plummy decided we should be married before starting a family, so on a rainy day in August 2008 we walked down the aisle and said I Do.

I'm a planner. An organizer. A bit OCD, really. With my grad school schedule, I had identified a 6 week period which would be ideal to have a baby and only have to take one quarter off school. I counted backwards and then Mr. Plummy and I settled into the business of making a baby. I read books, charted my daily temperature, examined my cervical mucus and....on our 2nd month of trying....got knocked up. My due date was July 24th....right in the 6 week window.

July 24th came and went and our baby was nowhere to been seen. I endured 2 more weeks of pregnancy (including the hottest week on record) before I was finally induced. My induction started on Friday and my Monkey finally entered the world on Monday, August 10th. It was a long, long, long wait....but oh my, was it worth it. I didn't cry when Monkey was born, I laughed. Laughed and laughed at the notion that I was now someone's Mom. For the first few days, I would just look at him and laugh....I was a Mom.

The first 3 months have been challenging, rewarding, exhausting, aggrevating, full of joy and nothing like I ever expected my life to be. My maternity leave ended this week so now I'm balancing working full time, going to grad school, being Mr. Plummy's wife, being Monkey's mom, and trying to maintain some part of Me in the whole thing.

One for the record books.

My turn! I'm BuggerBoo...32 year old mother to three kids, a husband, and a dog. The kids are 13, 9, and 6...the husband is slightly older. The dog slightly younger.

Let me tell you some things that I have learned over the years that you may or may not already know. Being a parent is a bitch.

My first pregnancy was completely...unplanned. I spent my days going to work, hanging out with my boyfriend of 5 years at the time, drinking, getting high, and looking forward to claiming the college scholarship. If you've ever had something bad happen to you and you get that kick in the stomach and the hot feeling that instantly creeps over your entire body making you think you are engulfed in flames...that was me when I peed on that stick. Never in my life have I felt so disappointed in myself (not that I was a great success at that point...please see my daily activities above) and what I had let happen to me. My boyfriend was not the kind you see yourself spending forever with...or even procreating with but he was tons of fun to keep around for other reasons.

I was only 18 years old.

My boyfriend went to jail when I was 8 weeks along for dropping dirty on a few of his weekly piss tests..yeah, I had myself one of those. He didn't get out until the baby was 3 mos old. I went through the entire pregnancy with only the support of his mom and sister. Without them I would have been doomed. I went a week overdue but other than that it was text book. It was so easy (what the hell isn't easy when you're 18?) and smooth. Even when I went into labor it never hurt...36 hours with contractions less than a two minutes apart, shooting off the monitor they were so strong..and I sat there watching Oprah and playing cards. Eventually I got a little tired. Okay, so a lot tired. The labor was taking it's toll on me. When I still hadn't dialated to 1 the doctor finally agreed to a C section. Thank God for modern medicine. I was out light a light, woke up all by myself in a hospital room and wondered if she made it or not. She did. 7 pounds and 3 ounces of redheaded beauty. I still call her my China Doll. She was perfect. I actually loved being pregnant.

No one tells you that girls are easy as pie when they're born and turn into spawn of satan as they get older. She's the snottiest, meanest, most nasty girl I think I've ever met (other than the whores I knew growing up...we always seem to be better at everything compared to kids today..even their evil doings are lazier than ours ever were). We're working on it. One day we're close, the next she hates my guts. We're learning.

Second was my son. He was also unplanned. I got married to his father when we found out I was pregnant. Not smart. I didn't love him, he wasn't fun. I showed very early on and we moved around a lot while I was pregnant...even living in a camp ground at one point because we didn't know where we wanted to be and it was summer and why not? I kept going into labor every.single.week starting at week 28. I knew the ER nurses by name. We became such frequent visitors that I swear they kept my favorite magazines on hand and saved the good beds for me...they knew it was Sunday and I'd be there. Had I been pregnant late enough in the year I would have arranged a gift exchange between all of us.

He was a planned C section. It went as planned except for the nurse that I got while admitted was a huge douche. I fell into depression not too long after I had him. He was colicky, pukey, and I swear he hated me from the get go. He's the one that has made me feel like the biggest loser on the planet. What the hell do I know about boys other than I don't want him to ever do the things I normally wanted boys to do? It took forever to get used to having him around. I wasn't even sure I liked him very much after a few months. I knew I loved him...but I really didn't like him most days. My sister moved in with us so I could have some help. My husband worked midnights and she and I split shifts. My husband got first shift..he'd hang with him when he got home from work. My sister got second shift so I could get the housework done. I got third shift...and a permanent kink in my neck from falling asleep in awkward spots and positions to try to make him fall alseep. He was the hardest kid ever to take care of..even as he got older.

One time he threw such a tantrum in the middle of WalMart that he kicked me in the leg and bit me on my hand. I smacked him across the face. Talk about "those" looks. They're like smiles to me anymore...I got them everywhere I went with this kid.

Sometimes I still think he hates my guts and always will. I still love him to death.

The last one. Ahhhhh...I'll say it again because it sounds so nice. THE LAST ONE. She was the only one planned. The pregnancy wore me right out. I would sleep all night and use up all my energy from those 8 hours to get up and pee in the morning. I could barely function. My doctor even put me on work restriction for 4 hours a day. Growing her was exhausting. Now I know why...she never stops moving. Ever. I call her monkey. She's all over the damn place. Hopping, jumping, running, climbing, crawling...and this was all today.

I divorced her father when she was just a baby. He was an over the road truck driver by this point and gone for weeks at a time. I did it all alone again. Being a single parent while married has to be one of the hardest things. You expect to have someone there, you expect to have back up...but you don't. It all falls on you. The skinned knees, the potty training, the grocery shopping, the house cleaning...all of it.

I always thought that as they got older things would get easier. You don't have to haul around bottles or diapers or fifty changes of clothes. You're not the keeper of the Bink or the blanket anymore. It's not easier. It's a big lie. It's harder. They grow up and they grow away from you. They say nasty things that you hope they don't mean but you're pretty sure they do. They slam doors in your face or leave their dirty laundry strewn all over the house.

Nobody tells you that as they get older it continues to get harder because they're changing. Every day they're changing. One day they like Dora the Explorer and the next day they have an abusive or controlling boyfriend, or one day they tell you they love you and want to stay home forever and then never come home from their father's in Tennessee because they don't have the heart to tell you they're not happy with you. You aren't enough.

They morph from these cute little critters with big doe eyes and long eyelashes and dimples into these pseudo grown ups trying to find their own way and figure out who they want to be when they grow up and what's important to them. It's hard to show them how to do that when you're still trying to figure the same shit out for yourself. You grow along side them. You grow old with them. You make mistakes. You make more mistakes.

It gets harder as they get older. No one tells you that.

Hi, I'm Leabee, grateful Mommy to a beautiful almost-5-month-old little girl. We'll call her Munchky. She's such a blessing, as I had been told I probably wouldn't be able to have kids. But I truly cannot imagine my life without her now- she makes me smile and laugh and feel important even when the world doesn't. I love her more than I thought I ever could.

OK, enough of that sappy shit. Do you know what I did today? Many times? I sucked snot out of an infants nose with a little ball sucker thingy. It is possibly the grossest thing I've ever done. It's one of those things that you really don't think about until you have to do it. The worst part of it? Her little left nostril was so congested, that I deflated the ball, gently put the sucky end into it, and it just sat there, deflated, not sucking anything. Good lord, the child probably thought her Mommy was trying to suck out her brains.

Motherhood is something I knew I was meant for, but never knew I could do the things I do now without puking. Seriously. Projectile spit-up onto the shirt that I just bought and couldn't wait to wear to work... not fun. And the diapers... oh, the diapers.

For Munchky, the first poop of the day is the hardest... literally. It's like a little plug holding the rest in. It's actually the one I would volunteer to change, knowing that Daddy would get the next one. The one with all the runny, grainy stuff that the plug was holding in. Sometimes, I feel like doing Ro Sham Bo for it. Sometimes, we do.

I love you Munchky, even with the snot and poop.

Karma's a Bitch

If you have children, you probably know about "the look". You know, the one that people give you when your child screeches in a store or a restaurant for no apparent reason? I'm ashamed to say that I was that person. I couldn't figure out for the life of me why people "allowed" their children to do that and I judged them for it.

Well, now I'm on the other side of that fence. When my son decides he's unhappy about something, he screams about it. Same deal when he's hungry, bored, tired, or excited. Most things in his life seem to warrant high-pitched vocalizations. And there really isn't anything I can do about it because he seems to take every reaction I have as some type of reinforcement.

So, yeah. I feel like I owe every parent I ever gave that look to an apology. Hopefully they can take some comfort in the fact that I will be listening to my own child scream for a while since it doesn't appear that he has the slightest interest in ever using words (or even signs) to communicate his needs.

"Are you going to have another kid?"

That question doesn't bother me so much. It's the reactions I get when I say, "We aren't sure yet", is what bothers me.

Lets talk about annoying questions.
They really start when you've been dating someone for awhile. We've all heard them. "When are you guys going to get married?", turns into, "Are you excited for the BIG day", which turns into, "When will you guys try to have a baby?", which turns into, "How are you feeling?" every.fucking.day, which turns into, "When will you guys try for a second one?". Yes, these questions are annoying...but we've all asked them. I'm totally guilty of it myself.

If you really think about it, most of them are super insensitive and no one really wants to hear the honest answers. Take my answers to each, for example...

• "When are you guys going to get married?"...Hmmm, maybe never. We're only getting married when we decide if and when we're having kids. If we decide not to have kids, we're just going to live in sin forever because we don't need the piece of paper stating we love one another.
• "Are you excited for the BIG day?"...Sure, so long as my mother and father in law do not get so fucking drunk that we have to carry them out of our own reception.
• "When will you guys try to have a baby?"...Well, since I got knocked up on my honeymoon, sooner then planned apparently.
• "How are you feeling"...Like SHIT, absolute shit.
• "When will you guys start trying for a second baby?"...maybe never. Having a kid is way harder than I ever imagined and I don't know if I want to be chasing a toddler around while worrying about what formula my new baby will take to (no, I am not a breast feeder this time around, and possibly will never be. Flame away).

It's the reaction to that last answer that gets me. "WHAT?? You NEED to give Lily a brother or sister!!".

Really? I NEED to? Why is that?

Please don't feed me the bullshit that "there is no bond like that of a sibling" because my mother and aunt hate one another. My husband is the middle child and was ignored his whole life because his mother chose his younger brother as a favorite and his dad chose his sister. I can give you a million other examples of being fucked up because of birth order, but I think you get my point.

I happen to be an only child, can you tell?

Yes, I'm fucked up too, sure...but we all are. Please do not insinuate that I will scar my child for life if she is an only child. I will be able to provide more for her, if that ends up being the case, and if we do half as good of a job that my parents did, she'll be just fine.

Hardest Thing I've Ever Done

I'm Shmedlee. I'm 32 and my son is about to turn one. My husband is a chef which means he's not around much. Most days I feel like a single parent and it sucks, but my husband loves his job and I would never take that away from him. In addition to running in circles trying to keep my toddler alive, I work full time at a job I only like sometimes.

A few days after my son was born, I remember saying that giving birth (with an epidural) was the hardest thing I've ever done. Almost a year later, I shake my head at that. What a ridiculous person I was. Pushing that kid out of your vag is the easy part.

We had a hellish first few months. Colicky baby was almost the end of me. Honestly, there were days when I didn't think I could do it. I thought a lot about putting my baby in his crib and walking out the door. Forever. I've learned my lesson, though. I have no delusions that was the hardest part. Teething is an absolute nightmare, time changes are the devil, and toddlers are pretty much the most aggravating people on earth (right after husbands, that is). There is always something new. I feel like I'm doomed to a life that mirrors a jigsaw puzzle.

So here I am, living for those quiet moments at the end of everyday after my son goes to bed. Don't get me wrong, every time I get a sloppy kiss or he flashes his infectious smile in my direction, I fall in love all over again. Sadly, those moments are rare. More often, my time is spent following him around with a vacuum, trying to explain which things are toys, and figuring out where he left his sippy cup so this place doesn't smell any more like rotten milk than it already does.

Oh, and then there's me. I can't remember the last time I took a shower that lasted longer than 3 minutes or didn't forget some key part of my getting ready routine before going out the door in the morning. My wardrobe sucks mostly because I can't seem to find the time or energy to work out and nothing fits. And my latest trick? I sometimes wear the same mascara two days in a row because I can't be bothered to wash it off and reapply.

I'm telling you, motherhood is glamorous.

I'll start because I'm an attention whore.

It's true, I totally am. I act like I'm not, but I am.

I'm Lilo. I'm 33, married to a man 8 years my junior. (Yes, I said 8 years. Don't do the math. It becomes scandalous when I say how long we've been together ...::cough:::7 years::::cough:::. What can I say? I live in Florida. That's what we do down here.) We have a baby who is almost six months old already, and who I believe we conceived on our August 2008 wedding/honeymoon, or shortly thereafter.

I could sit here and tell you how amazing our little girl is and how much I love her, because I do obviously, but I won't. That's not what I'm here for and that's boring. I might post about it here and there, but why I needed this forum was to bitch and be honest about some of the things my mama never told me about motherhood. Turns out that this mommy shit is actually pretty difficult.

Oh, and pregnancy too.

I'll just lay it out on the table right now, I fucking hated pregnancy with every ounce of my being. It was full of worry, anxiety, aches, pains, testing, dos and don'ts, swelling, ugly physical weirdness, low sex drive, weight gain...what the hell is there to love about it? Yes, the miracle of life, yes. I get that, but I honestly believe if you are one of those freaks that loves pregnancy, you are trying to fill some weird void in your life...or, you are just a big fat liar, afraid that people will judge you for being honest. Pregnancy sucks ass, but I would do it over in a hot minute....eventually...maybe.

Did I mention I was a social work major, turned salesman? This is only important because I am super analytical. I tend to get on people's nerves because of that...well, my husband's anyway. I didn't stay in social work because I am a money grubbing whore. $9 an hour to hear about old people's problems all day? No thanks. I'll sell orthopedic products to surgeons instead. Yes, I am the bread winner of our little family, for now, with hopes of being blissfully broke soon, as I embark on my own business...or move to Costa Rica...or both.

As I sit here, watching my husband do his "I'm naked and going in the shower" dance, that he does every night when he gets home from his illustrious restaurant management job, and watching my daughter on the video monitor, sleeping ON HER STOMACH (::gasp::) with her butt in the air, I realize that this is my life. I chose this, for better or worse.

I wouldn't have it any other way.