Mar

5

Imposter

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Those of you who have children, do you ever feel like you haven’t quite adjusted to the reality of your lifestyle yet? I sometimes find myself looking at other families out and about and thinking how their situation seems so familiar and yet so alien at the same time. The parents look older, more responsible, firmly adult in some mysterious way; they look like members of some club I don’t yet belong to.

Can it really be that I am a person with two children? TWO? It seems like the strangest damn thing. My car is a shitpile of cracker crumbs, juice spills, and carseats, so it must be true. I don’t know, though, shouldn’t I know what the hell I’m doing by now? I kind of feel like I should have had to pass a test.

Mar

4

Man jelly

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I keep a pair of pre-pregnancy jeans readily accessible in my closet for the purpose of trying them on every couple days and angrily shaking my fist at the sky when they still don’t fit. Don’t try and tell ME I don’t know how to party. Anyway, I pulled them on yesterday and noticed that for the first time the button actually closed fairly easily and I was all, woo! Then I exhaled, and something Extremely Unpleasant happened in my midsection, where I suddenly had this . . . fleshy innertube, and while that might prove to be a handy flotation device should I be thrown from the bow of a ship into eel-infested waters I think you might call generally call that sort of thing a Glamour Don’t.

I hate this post-partum body stage, it’s so aggravating to not be able to wear hardly any of my regular clothes and while it’s tempting to live in maternity stuff, those really don’t fit either. I was trying to get dressed to go run some errands last weekend and I tried on about forty hojillion different things, getting progressively more frustrated, until I stood in a pile of ill-fitting clothes literally stamping my foot the way Riley does, because jesus, NOTHING WORKED, and I finally draped myself in a giant sweater and a baggy pair of Levis that were about five sizes too big for me before pregnancy and went lurching out the door looking for a defenseless animal to kick.

It seems I’m short on patience for everyone these days, including children, genitalia-licking dogs, cereal-dish-leaver-outter husbands, and my own waistline. GRAH HULK SMASH.

I have been trying to work out fairly frequently, not only to deal with the innertube issue but also to help de-stress and hopefully encourage the ongoing circulation of happy brain chemicals (since my “relax with a two or three fourteen glasses of wine” days are behind me), and while finding the time to do can be a little, ha ha, challenging, it does seem to help. Maybe it’s the endorphins, maybe it’s Chalene Johnson reminding me that I can do anything, by god.

Is there something kind of pitiful about a franchise fitness instructor becoming my personal life coach?

Other things for which I am grateful: fat-free sugar-free chocolate pudding, even if it goes against all that is good and pure in this world, Mylicon drops (not actually sure yet if they make a difference or just fulfill my desire to Do Something when the baby is visibly uncomfortable and freaking out), Louis C.K. stand up comedy videos, and Lululemon yoga pants. Also, the glorious invention of the drive-through Starbucks.

:::

Three Random Conversations With a Toddler

Me (singing, as the dog comes barreling in from the backyard): “Whooo let the dog in? Who? Who? Who? Who?”
Riley: “Daddy let the dog in, Mommy.”

—

Riley: “Riwwy get inna airplane and fly high in the sky to the farm! Brrm brrm! Go see the moo cow and the chickens!”
Me: “Can Mommy ride in the plane with Riley?”
Riley (looking me up and down): “No, Mommy’s too BIG.”

—

JB: “Riley, do you want a big spoon or a little spoon?”
Riley: “BIG poon!”
JB: “A man-sized spoon?”
Riley: “Yeah, MAN POON!”
JB: “And do you want jelly on your toast?”
Riley: “Yeah, MAN JELLY!”
Me: “You know, I don’t even want to know what his daycare teachers think we’re teaching him.”
Riley: “Mommy! Mommy! I have a big poon and MAN JELLY!”

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