Parenthood Makes You Boring

Just like everyone else in North America, I have a blog. I've been writing in it since 2004 and have made a few friends along the way. When one of them asked me to write a humorous guest post for her, my first thought was, "Duuuuurrrr." I was paralyzed. See, I used to be funny. I used to have all kinds of funny stories to tell--stories about crazy customers at my restaurant, stories about crazy riders on the bus, stories about crazy classmates and professors at school. This year, however, I finished school, moved to a small town, and had a baby. Now all I have are stories about my new kid. I'll tell you the craziest story about her that I have, which is not much different from every other story about her:

This morning my child started screaming at 6:30. I rolled out of bed and stabbed myself in the eye with a nasal aspirator (the snot-sucker, for those of you unfamiliar). Unfortunately, it didn't kill me. And my kid was still screaming. So I fed her. Or tried to. All that screaming, and she falls asleep after just fifteen lousy minutes of eating.

Then I burped her. And then I changed her. She screamed about that, too. Then I swaddled her (with more screaming). Then I put her back to bed.

Then she woke up three hours later and ate and got changed and stared at things for a while then screamed then slept then woke up and screamed and ate and, well, you get the idea. My life is an unending parade of "thens".

Once or twice a week we like to really shake things up and have bath time. My little ball of sunshine thinks we're cooking and eating her. It used to be terribly upsetting to see her scream like that. Now it's just funny. She turns the most beautiful shade of purple I have ever seen. I laugh at her screaming. This makes me a bad, bad person, but it also keeps me from the white rubber room with the nice people and the pretty pills.

Deep maternal love and heartbreaking cuteness are the only things keeping my daughter alive and fed and clean. Babies really have no redeeming qualities that aren't directly connected to those two things.

I never thought I'd miss all the lunatics who live in my old city. So much writing fodder. If I got shouted at by a customer at work, my first thought wasn't "How dare he?" or "Oh, my feelings! They are hurt!" or "I'm so getting him kicked out of here." It was always, "Ooooh, this will be good material." In fact, if I went a few days without any verbal abuse, I'd get a little sad. Blogging does sick things to a person's mind.

Now I just have a kid and a house with a possibly haunted basement and slightly eccentric neighbors. The kid is only amusing to us. The couple next door is slightly eccentric, yes, but their quirks involve things like excessive lawn care, ownership of a hundred cars, and parking on their lawn instead of the driveway. It's a very boring eccentric. And the basement? Well, even I won't go down there just for writing material. Satan lives there.

So I've found myself writing "funny" stories about my kid. I've deleted most of them; halfway through each one I realize I'm That Lady--you know, the one whose entire identity is wrapped up in her sweet little bundle of joy, whose conversation is wholly devoted to the latest oh-so-cute antics, who ceases to exist as a person separate from her baby. It's a short road from that to The Lady Who Shoves Pictures of Her Cats Down Everyone's Throats. I don't want to be TLWSPOHCDET. I hate cats. And I don't want to become a sitcom's used-up plot device.

How does a new stay-at-home mom keep from becoming a Seinfeld caricature? How does she remain sane and well-adjusted? Here are a few handy tips for you:

1. Take pictures and video of your kid and plaster them all over Facebook; tell yourself that your friends aren't just lying to be nice and really do think she's as cute as you do. Make sure all the pictures are of the same thing: your kid, lying there, staring at the ceiling fan.

2. Make sure you look as young and trashy as possible, then haul the kid to the local Macy's without wearing your wedding ring. Watch the old ladies glare! Bonus points if you reek of booze and cigarettes.

3. Take pictures of your kid passed out with a cigarette in one hand and an empty beer bottle in the other while she cradles a knife in her lap. Send the pictures to grandma and grandpa.

4. Attempt to go out with friends and your baby at the same time. When you're twenty minutes late and still trying to leave the house, resist the urge to stick your head in the oven after your child soils herself and all her clothing for the sixth time.

5. Take your baby with you to the bar.

6. Attempt to get dressed and put on makeup up for your husband before he comes home from work. Expect failure. In fact, learn to embrace it.

7. Read an intellectually stimulating book.

Okay, I just put number seven on there to make myself sound good. Number seven is impossible. Or maybe I'm just really lazy.

My point is that, unless you have a sense of humor about losing your life to a ten-pound bag of screams, demands, and unpleasant fluids, you won't survive the first week of parenthood. Babies are cute for a reason. We're supposed to laugh at them; otherwise we'd go completely insane.

If you're not a parent and/or have no plans to ever be one, be patient with your friends who are new at it. They can't help acting like total idiots. I mean, if you look at their hair closely enough, you'll see that it hasn't been combed in three weeks and that they're using spit-up as hair gel. Just smile and pat them gently. When they take out a wad of pictures to show you, just pretend you have a sudden, urgent matter to attend to and tell them you'll check out their Facebook album. Leave one or two token comments on random pictures. They're all the same anyway.