ask me

I've been wracking my brain lately for the best momming advice I ever received so I can pass it along to Adrianne, who is positively dying to squeeze my niece out.

Spending my days surrounded by nurses and therapists and social workers and early childhood development pros and people who actually have the job of being emergency response teams to new moms (because new moms DEFINITELY need an emergency response team waiting in the wings) has its perks. I heard everything known to womankind about being a parent. I have all the latest research at the tips of my fingers and more on its way every second. I know all the right moves, because I hold the playbook in my lap. Do I use it? More often than not, but even a total anal retentive spaz like yours truly knows that allowing a damn lollipop after dinner is easier than a headbashing screaming fit despite the fact that your child doesn't give two craps about proper oral hygiene or sugar rushes and letting your non-trained kid pee his pants is remarkably easier than finding a bathroom while you are on public trans thirty feet below street level.

Somewhere in between the thousand words of advice and the stacks of parenting manuals and the people who think that you should do to your baby what they did to theirs THIRTY EFFING YEARS AGO despite medical research and breakthroughs a few people pulled me aside and whispered that motherhood was hard forever but especially hard at first, and no matter what you feel or experience you are normal.
Feel tired? Normal.
Wide awake? Normal.
Ugly? Normal.
Miraclesque? Normal.
Fat? Normal.
Overwhelmed? Incapable? Superhuman? Ecstatic? Depressed? Ready to run away? Normal. Normal. Normal. Normal. Normal. Normal.
Everything and anything you feel is normal, even if it involves a very small human sailing out a very high window. Feeling is normal and okay, btw. Doing, however, is not. Call one of those emergency response people if you find yourself unlatching the screen.

And the really sucky part? People keep telling you to enjoy this time, because this is the easiest because all they do is sleep and eat. Okay jerkface. I'm on Deathwatch 2006 over here because my baby might have some birth defect in his lungs or heart that went unnoticed or some sort of allergy to something I ate that is in my breastmilk or the blanket might be on his face and you are saying this is easy?!?! Take it somewhere else, you horse'sass.

Sorry. I'm still a bit bitter at all that.

So yeah, it is hard. And so much more complex than you are capable of imagining because the human brain is wired so you can do it and to not comprehend it. It's so difficult because it is the deepest, truest love ever. And love is hard. And I wish I could put it in better words, but there you have it- the best advice I've got.