This was a post I wrote a few months after our second daughter was born – AKA The Awful.
Around The Awful I was spending the majority of my day fantasizing about running away via hitch hiking cross country in a wig and fake mustache (though I was working on a nice real one that probably would have done just fine) so I could make a new life for myself under a nice quiet park bench somewhere known to my friends only as ‘Domino’.
I had a newborn baby, a crack in my nipple so big you could see my food as it was being digested, functioning every day on about 45 minutes of sleep, and a 1-year-old who didn’t care.
I decided to re-publish it today because, believe it or not, lately I’ve been having some big time baby fever. I know. How can that be? I don’t understand it myself. Maybe I just want some cake. Whatever.
P.S. – Four months after I wrote this we found out we were expecting #3.
Enjoy responsibly.
Don’t look it in the eyes. It will hug your soul.
Dear Self,
If you are reading this then you have made the exciting decision to have another baby. Let me be the first to congratulate you on this thrilling and permanently life ending changing journey!
It sounds like you are finally to the point where you are able to de-latch the baby from your boob and actually go to the bathroom and eat and maybe even step outside and breathe fresh air. All of which are such a foreign concept to me right now that I’ve actually almost given up on life! LOLOLOLOLLLLLJSHDJHEJEJIUERJHKQOWHGRJHEGRJEH!
The newborn days are a distant memory and perhaps nature has even found a way to erase them altogether in some sort of evolutionary species preservation effort to keep the earth populated.
However, before you go and do anything crazy please allow this letter to serve as a friendly reminder from the depths of hell. I’ve taken the liberty of outlining below a few notes on how I’m feeling right now that I’d like you to read before you get knocked up again.
1. Chug five gallons of water, tie a concrete block around your waist and sprint up and down the street. No, you won’t have time to do anything leisurely for yourself like exercise while pregnant, but you will be forced to run through the Target parking lot as one of your children tries to make an escape through traffic for freedom. There may be a time or two when you feel you are too tired to chase her and revert to Free Range Parenting mode and think not chasing her might allow her to ‘learn in a way she’ll remember’, but so will you being live via satellite from prison on the Today Show. You’re gonna have to run.
2. Scrub your nipples with a Brillo pad. Then put a fish hook through them. Then get a butcher knife and cut them off completely. Then find a crocodile and stick your bloody stump of a boob in its mouth until it snaps down. Scream in agonizing pain. What you’re feeling is only slightly more enjoyable than what you’ll be feeling 10 – 12 times a day forever.
3. Take every purse, bag and pair of jeans you own out of your closet and ask Nick to hide a pacifier in one of them. Then take them all out to dinner with you and just after you order ask Nick to scream at the top of his lungs until you find the hidden pacifier. Then after you put it in his mouth ask him to shit through his pants and up his back. Then ask him to throw up all over the table and your new shirt. Then ask the waitress to just please box up your dinner before it gets to the table. Then dodge the spoons and profanities as the other restaurant customers throw them at you as you slink out.
4. Ask Nick to blow an air horn in your ear every morning at 2:30am. Then find the crocodile and clamp him down on your still bloody nipple-less boob for about 30 minutes while you try not to fall asleep and suffocate him as you watch infomercials. Then just as you finish up and think you are going to have some sweet sweet sleep relief have the crocodile pee all over the bed spread. And your pajamas. And the crocodile’s pajamas. And then the floor. Then just as you get everything cleaned up and start to fall back asleep blow the air horn again. Repeat.
5. Sit in the playroom and stare at the wall for eight hours. You may occasionally look out the window in between diaper changes and wonder what happened to your life.
I wish I had time to write more, but life is really crazy right now being responsible for keeping something alive when you feel like you may die from exhaustion at any moment. Also the goblin conspiracy in our back yard is requiring more and more of my attention.
Hopefully I didn’t discourage you from bringing another miracle into the world. I just want you to be fully prepared for the wrath that will be unleashed in 9 months. Because this can’t be undone and there’s no turning back.
Love,
Self
Hahah! This is going on permanent file as you could have also called it a warning for Melody!
Melody – I think it’s funny that we have both had more kids after I wrote this!!
I just want to know one thing. Where the hell am I supposed to find a crocodile? If you can answer that, then I need you to tell me where to find him pajamas.
you are so freckin hysterical!
Remind me to never read your blog at work again, I am laughing so hard tears are streaming down my face!
I just found your blog and I had a baby a little over a month ago. I have been laughing my ass off for about an hour reading your blog. This particular post had me almost peeing myself. Too funny!
OMG. That is quite possibly the most adorable picture EVER.
I feel you about the baby fever. WTF is wrong with us?! I’m going to have to print this out and refer to it on the daily until this madness subsides.
It is fascinating how our minds just shove this horrific period of babyhood out of our minds once we are past it. I made my husband record a video to my future self detailing all the issues of my pregnancy and why we don’t need a 3rd. My babe is almost 6 months old and I think I need to rewatch it because he is in that “adorable but still immobile” phase where he’s not about to kill himself every minute of every day and all he wants to do is snuggle and it’s got me thinking that maybe a 3rd would be ok.
I would offer to let you borrow him to address your baby fever issues, but given his propensity towards squishiness (there are actual thigh rolls), it might backfire horribly.
And that picture is adorable.
Haha I have the same problem! I have three kids and I already want another one even though I have finally gotten to the point where my last one is almost potty trained. My husband is the smart one saying no but I cant seem to stop it. Although it is pretty pleasant to not carry 30 billion things with me everywhere “just in case”
Yes. Yes. Yes. You’re hilarious, but you probably already know that. Thanks for bringing some well-timed humor into my insane day.
Hilarious. My favorite part was the restaurant scene. I have lived that.