A few of my friends are pregnant or have just recently had babies.
Good for them.
Holding those snuggly-wuggly newborns is nice and all, but doesn't do a thing for my maternal instinct. I am done. Finished. There is absolutely no desire to reproduce. This is a good thing, because based on family history, my body will hit menopause a good ten years earlier than the average woman. I'm likely at the start of perimenopause as we speak; and dammit, I'm absolutely fine with that. It means that, even if a rogue sperm should escape the would-be Alcatraz of my husband's vasectomy, it will soon discover a pile of dust that used to be my eggs, and no embryo shall come of it.
However, as the Gremlins Three gradually leave behind their individual "little kid" stages, I'm met with the occasional bit of sadness. I give away Spawnling's too-small clothes knowing that he's growing far too quickly. I put books and toys in a garage sale bin that my children will never use again. I look at paint colours in their rooms and realize we may need to change them soon to suit their maturity levels. I go through baby pictures and get a little teary at the sweet little beings they used to be (before they started coming up with exciting and original ways to torture their parents).
All that aside, I'm so pleased to be done with diapers, night after sleepless night, teething, screaming sick babies who can't tell me what's wrong, and even breastfeeding (a total of seven years, I'll proudly announce to anyone who asks... or who doesn't. Whatever). Yes, it's good to have my body back and my bed (mostly) back. I've earned my stripes, thank you very much.
There are many other things I won't miss, either. Here are the first 10 that come to mind. Can you think of others?
1. Exhaustion
Evening hits me like a Mac truck with a driver who's high on barbiturates. It's not tired I'm feeling; it's a whole new level of fatigue unknown to those who don't serve little masters all day, every day, for thirteen years straight. To those parents who seem to have it all together - clean house, well-behaved children, solid relationship, fruitful career - I ask you: What are you on, and did you get it from the truck driver? More importantly, can I have some?
2. Stress
Is parenting ever not stressful? No no, I mean, when you're not high on barbiturates? What I would give for a full day when I don't have to deal with some kind of child-induced upheaval. The best laid plans are often laid to rest in a matter of minutes and there's nothing I can do about it. Maybe being a control freak with a vision of what our day should look like doesn't help. Yet, I never seem to learn. I just keep hitting my head against the same wall of frustration as I try to reason with a child who is too young to reason, one who is too explosive to reason, and one who is too pubescent to reason. Silly Maven.
3. Bedtime Routines
I use the word "routine" lightly. It's more of a patchwork attempt at salvaging the last of our sanity stores in time to spend at least a couple of hours together without being asked for one more glass of milk, one more slice of cheese, one more story, or one more cuddle. These days, Intrepid brushes his teeth, gets his pajamas on, says goodnight and goes to bed. We've had a piece of this independence pie and can't wait until those are our evenings all the time. I'm looking forward to the days when the only bedtime routine I need to follow is my own.
4. Noise
This could have been grouped with stress but I believe it deserves its own category. With two hearing impaired children and a three-year-old infatuated with the sound of his own voice, this is a loud household. The television is louder, the music is louder, the fights are louder, the singing is louder... Well, you get the idea. And as someone who needs quiet for any shred of creativity to blossom, the near-constant loudness factor makes me all twitchy-like. Twitching doesn't help in the sex appeal department. I feel like my hotness is wasted when my eyelid is fluttering.
5. What's a Vacation?
Oh, you mean that time when two-thirds of my children are not in school? That's not a vacation, people: that's pure chaos. And those rare times we actually get away to somewhere that is not our own city? You got it: foreign chaos. Overwhelmed gremlins who are completely off schedule and don't know what to do with themselves resulting in overwhelmed parents who are trying their best to justify the cost of this would-be stress reducer. No, we don't do vacations very often at all. Twice in thirteen years, to be exact. We're going to wait until Spawnling is at least five or six before attempting a big one. I envy the parents who's children travel well, I really do. You're very lucky. I'm thinking the truck driver may have something to do with your "good luck," though. Just sayin'.
6. Dirt
Filth. Smears. Stains. Smells. Everywhere. Enough said.
7. The Overgrown Thing I Call a "Lawn"
Somewhere in my front yard there are gardens. Unfortunately, they are being molested by an insane amount of weeds. But it's alright: you can't see the gardens anyway because of the long grass that should have been cut last week but wasn't because we were too busy. The good news? A lot of the toys littering the front yard are buried in said grass. Actually, between hidden toys and gardens, this overgrown lawn thing might not be so bad after all.
8. Playdates
These are such a crap shoot. Let's get two or more kids together and they can play nicely while the moms drink coffee and get a bit of a break. What a good idea! Oh, except when the kids don't play nicely/won't share/push or shove or kick or scratch each other/break things/injure themselves. Then, everyone is more stressed out than when they were before and, tragically, the coffee goes cold. Swell. Know what I want? Coffee without the playdates. Actual conversation not involving several dozen "excuse me for a minute"s. Is that so wrong?
9. Scheduled Date Nights
"Honey, would you like to go out on Saturday night?"
"Sure! Sounds wonderful. Let's do it."
"Okay, we just need to make sure someone can babysit and that the kids are fed and bathed and ready for bed and that the babysitter doesn't cancel at the last minute and that nobody gets really sick right before our big date night so we don't have to cancel. Oh, and we have to be back by 10:30."
"I'm... looking forward to it, I guess."
"Me too, I think."
10. Barf
This had to get a mention. I hate barf. I hate stomach bugs. I especially hate stomach bugs in little kids who can't anticipate and can't aim. Our couch has told me it feels violated.
Must go. It's been chaos for the last 30 minutes. Loud, tantrumy chaos. Thankfully, no barf. One must be grateful for the little things.
Good for them.
Holding those snuggly-wuggly newborns is nice and all, but doesn't do a thing for my maternal instinct. I am done. Finished. There is absolutely no desire to reproduce. This is a good thing, because based on family history, my body will hit menopause a good ten years earlier than the average woman. I'm likely at the start of perimenopause as we speak; and dammit, I'm absolutely fine with that. It means that, even if a rogue sperm should escape the would-be Alcatraz of my husband's vasectomy, it will soon discover a pile of dust that used to be my eggs, and no embryo shall come of it.
However, as the Gremlins Three gradually leave behind their individual "little kid" stages, I'm met with the occasional bit of sadness. I give away Spawnling's too-small clothes knowing that he's growing far too quickly. I put books and toys in a garage sale bin that my children will never use again. I look at paint colours in their rooms and realize we may need to change them soon to suit their maturity levels. I go through baby pictures and get a little teary at the sweet little beings they used to be (before they started coming up with exciting and original ways to torture their parents).
All that aside, I'm so pleased to be done with diapers, night after sleepless night, teething, screaming sick babies who can't tell me what's wrong, and even breastfeeding (a total of seven years, I'll proudly announce to anyone who asks... or who doesn't. Whatever). Yes, it's good to have my body back and my bed (mostly) back. I've earned my stripes, thank you very much.
There are many other things I won't miss, either. Here are the first 10 that come to mind. Can you think of others?
1. Exhaustion
Evening hits me like a Mac truck with a driver who's high on barbiturates. It's not tired I'm feeling; it's a whole new level of fatigue unknown to those who don't serve little masters all day, every day, for thirteen years straight. To those parents who seem to have it all together - clean house, well-behaved children, solid relationship, fruitful career - I ask you: What are you on, and did you get it from the truck driver? More importantly, can I have some?
2. Stress
Is parenting ever not stressful? No no, I mean, when you're not high on barbiturates? What I would give for a full day when I don't have to deal with some kind of child-induced upheaval. The best laid plans are often laid to rest in a matter of minutes and there's nothing I can do about it. Maybe being a control freak with a vision of what our day should look like doesn't help. Yet, I never seem to learn. I just keep hitting my head against the same wall of frustration as I try to reason with a child who is too young to reason, one who is too explosive to reason, and one who is too pubescent to reason. Silly Maven.
3. Bedtime Routines
I use the word "routine" lightly. It's more of a patchwork attempt at salvaging the last of our sanity stores in time to spend at least a couple of hours together without being asked for one more glass of milk, one more slice of cheese, one more story, or one more cuddle. These days, Intrepid brushes his teeth, gets his pajamas on, says goodnight and goes to bed. We've had a piece of this independence pie and can't wait until those are our evenings all the time. I'm looking forward to the days when the only bedtime routine I need to follow is my own.
4. Noise
This could have been grouped with stress but I believe it deserves its own category. With two hearing impaired children and a three-year-old infatuated with the sound of his own voice, this is a loud household. The television is louder, the music is louder, the fights are louder, the singing is louder... Well, you get the idea. And as someone who needs quiet for any shred of creativity to blossom, the near-constant loudness factor makes me all twitchy-like. Twitching doesn't help in the sex appeal department. I feel like my hotness is wasted when my eyelid is fluttering.
5. What's a Vacation?
Oh, you mean that time when two-thirds of my children are not in school? That's not a vacation, people: that's pure chaos. And those rare times we actually get away to somewhere that is not our own city? You got it: foreign chaos. Overwhelmed gremlins who are completely off schedule and don't know what to do with themselves resulting in overwhelmed parents who are trying their best to justify the cost of this would-be stress reducer. No, we don't do vacations very often at all. Twice in thirteen years, to be exact. We're going to wait until Spawnling is at least five or six before attempting a big one. I envy the parents who's children travel well, I really do. You're very lucky. I'm thinking the truck driver may have something to do with your "good luck," though. Just sayin'.
6. Dirt
Filth. Smears. Stains. Smells. Everywhere. Enough said.
7. The Overgrown Thing I Call a "Lawn"
Somewhere in my front yard there are gardens. Unfortunately, they are being molested by an insane amount of weeds. But it's alright: you can't see the gardens anyway because of the long grass that should have been cut last week but wasn't because we were too busy. The good news? A lot of the toys littering the front yard are buried in said grass. Actually, between hidden toys and gardens, this overgrown lawn thing might not be so bad after all.
8. Playdates
These are such a crap shoot. Let's get two or more kids together and they can play nicely while the moms drink coffee and get a bit of a break. What a good idea! Oh, except when the kids don't play nicely/won't share/push or shove or kick or scratch each other/break things/injure themselves. Then, everyone is more stressed out than when they were before and, tragically, the coffee goes cold. Swell. Know what I want? Coffee without the playdates. Actual conversation not involving several dozen "excuse me for a minute"s. Is that so wrong?
9. Scheduled Date Nights
"Honey, would you like to go out on Saturday night?"
"Sure! Sounds wonderful. Let's do it."
"Okay, we just need to make sure someone can babysit and that the kids are fed and bathed and ready for bed and that the babysitter doesn't cancel at the last minute and that nobody gets really sick right before our big date night so we don't have to cancel. Oh, and we have to be back by 10:30."
"I'm... looking forward to it, I guess."
"Me too, I think."
10. Barf
This had to get a mention. I hate barf. I hate stomach bugs. I especially hate stomach bugs in little kids who can't anticipate and can't aim. Our couch has told me it feels violated.
Must go. It's been chaos for the last 30 minutes. Loud, tantrumy chaos. Thankfully, no barf. One must be grateful for the little things.