So, I’m pregnant, which I’m sure you don’t know because it’s not like it’s all I talk about or anything. Aaaaaaaanyway.
I’m approaching the home stretch, which is to say, I’m more than halfway through (I ran cross-country track in high school, and generally considered a race a victory if I made it to the midpoint without faking a sprained ankle or projectile vomiting). But even though I’m signed up for childbirth classes and have a shelf full of pregnancy books, I feel I need some more preparation, something more extreme than carrying an egg around with me at all times and trying not to break (or eat) it.
(P.S. Does anyone actually do the egg thing outside of TV high schools? I don’t know because I was too busy watching TV.)
So I polled my friends who have successfully ejected a human from ‘twixt their thighs (what, you thought I’d get through one post without alluding to vaginas? For shame…) and came up with a prenatal boot camp routine.
Some highlights:
- Get in shower. Lather up. Get out and have someone suck on your boob for awhile while you are blinded by rogue drops of Garnier Fructis. Get back in shower and have someone scream unintelligible things at you while you try to finish washing your hair and sing simultaneously. Stop shaving your legs.
- Set alarm clock (programmed to sound like Janis Joplin hitting a high note) to go off every two hours from 10 pm to 8 am. Get up and alternate trying to tie a plastic bag onto the bottom half of a greased-up watermelon, walking around your house bouncing a 10-lb sack of flour up and down while stepping on your cat’s tail over and over to elicit ear-shattering shrieks, and sitting in a rocking chair with a bicycle pump attached to your nipple (note: also remember to alternate nipples).
- Whenever your friends take a bite of something they don’t like, have them spit it out into your hand unannounced.
- Douse shirt with strategically-placed splashes of liquid every time you hear, see, smell, or so much as think about babies.
- Become comfortable with sniffing other people’s butts without even flinching. Mall escalators are a great place to practice.
- Begin depositing your feces in a small garbage can in the nursery. Enjoy the resulting fragrance (Glade Plug-Ins, eat your heart out!)
- Get really drunk and duct tape your toilet seat and all cabinets shut. Forget you did this and then try to open them. Hilarity will ensue.
- Soak some Cheerios in milk. Drain. Plant strategically in living room carpet while listening to endless loop of Elmo’s Rap Alphabet.
- Stop having sex. Replace with lengthy conversations about breast pumping (candlelight optional).
Did I miss anything? It’s super important that I cover all of my bases here. Because prenatal yoga and kegel exercises are all well and good, but unless I can soothe a wailing baby with my clenched glutes* I’m afraid they’re not going to take me very far after the birth.
*Update: I tried this with my practice egg. Do not recommend.
About Una LaMarche
Why has no one published a manual with these tips???
Here’s a few more:
Do not ever wear sweatshirt gray tops while breastfeeding. Major color contrast when wet.
Practice getting every foul expletive out at 3 am before entering nursery, then transition to a quiet soothing voice to check on the earthshattering crisis of newborn angst.
Remind yourself that many other moms have probably fallen asleep on the sofa while breastfeeding and watching an infomercial on how to make money in the cash flow business. Yes the baby almost got rolled onto the floor, but only almost.
Adjust to the fact that your husband will never hear the baby cry at night. EVER.
Do not heed the advice of anyone telling you to wake the baby up to feed. Never wake a sleeping baby, absolutely the most important rule.
Make sure to savor and enjoy your baby’s first blow-up-the-back-up-to-the-shoulders fecal explosion, which will inevitably happen in public.
Also, the Diaper Genie is the worst possible purchase ever. It does nothing to eliminate odors, creates a horrendous sausage link of nasty diapers — and that is if it is actually functioning as advertised!
Changing tables are a waste of money, the floor is safer and works just fine.
Encourage use of pacifiers. They live up to their name.
I am enjoying reading about your “journey” into motherhood! Keep it up!
Thank you! These are amazing tips. I’m totally going to make flash cards and pin them up all over the nursery.
Twitter Name: sassycurmudgeon
Everytime someone burps, splash warm, curdled milk over your shoulder & down your back, or on the couch cushion behind you, or (the best yet) down your cleavage.
Use baby wipes to clean everything. And I mean everything.
Twitter Name: houseywifey
Hahaha, I love it. Luckily I already do this. Just a weird fetish.
Twitter Name: sassycurmudgeon
NEVER WAKE A SLEEPING BABY. That is the best and most important one. You cannot spoil a newborn baby so the first old person that tells you to put your baby down because you’re spoiling him? Smell his/her butt and tell them they better check themselves before they wreck themselves.
Brush your teeth every couple of days and throw out your make up. You can buy some new stuff around six months in when you might entertain wearing it again.
Get a nursing pillow. One with pockets on the side for the TV remote. Become familiar with middle of the night programming….start watching now so you don’t feel lost in that particular episode of the Walton’s the first time baby chooses to nurse more than sleep in the wee hours.
You’re Welcome.
Twitter Name: Fargs77
Thank you, these are priceless. And I’ve always had a thing for John-Boy.
Twitter Name: sassycurmudgeon
this all sounds about right. . . maybe something along the lines of put your piss in of those squirt bottle things and go around spraying in corners of the house, and on rugs and the nice furniture (although this comes a few years into it. . .)
Twitter Name: lickthefridge
Good addition, Jared. The spray-bottles of pee will also be helpful for when our upstairs neighbors play Rock Band at 1 am.
Twitter Name: sassycurmudgeon
You also need to practice reminding yourself that infancy is the easy part. Just wait for the toddler years and beyond. They still puke, scream and wake up at odd hours for odd things but they can also climb, break stuff and embarrass you at every turn.
Twitter Name: litlsuzzy
Yes, even as he is still in my belly I’m getting wistful for the time when he’s just a little football I can control at all times.
Twitter Name: sassycurmudgeon
You are going to be JUST FINE! Mine are now 13 and 18 and I haven’t killed them yet :)
Thank you, Amy! Avoiding infanticide is one of my main priorities.
Twitter Name: sassycurmudgeon
This is the BEST advice I’ve read yet- wish I’d had this before my first baby. Need to add practicing going to pee with baby attached to nipple- try pulling down your pants, whilst holding a sack of potatoes with a full (weak, unless you’ve been doing those marvellous kegels) bladder and not splashing on the seat!
Oh, I have no illusions that my half-assed kegels are doing anything. I’ll be lucky if I’m not in diapers alongside the kid. :)
Twitter Name: sassycurmudgeon
You must have forgotten to hardboil the egg first!
A couple of weeks in, I mastered the shower. Starting now, set the baby’s carseat in the bathroom while showering. This way, you can practice opening the shower curtain/door every 3 seconds with your best “peek-a-boo.” You will be so programmed by the time the baby comes, your addled brain will be on automatic.
Also, if you ever want to eat anything remotely healthy or satisfying again, practice holding your bag of flour and prepping/cooking a meal with one hand. Also, try removing casserole-type dishes from the oven while holding the bicycle pump to the nipple of your right breast if you’re right-handed or left breast if you’re left-handed. (that’s just Murphy’s Law). Or just keep a box of wheat thins by the side of the rocking chair at all times. Do that anyway. You’re going to be spending a lot of time there.
Your off to a great start!
Twitter Name: HeatherSchiavo
What fabulous advice–thank you! Maybe I’ll make my husband sit in the car seat. Nothing like some shower flashing to spice things up before we get cockblocked by the baby.
Twitter Name: sassycurmudgeon
Be prepared for older people to tell you the baby should be wearing a hat, or not wearing a hat. Or should be covered with a blanket, or not covered with a blanket. Pretty much any old person, who you’ve never laid on eyes on before, will feel it is their job to tell you how to raise your child. It usually occurs in parking lots of grocery stores or Targets.
I’ve often thought new moms should be given that t-shirt that says “opinions are like assholes . . .” and ends with “and you, for voicing your opinion for how badly I’m parenting, are such an asshole.”
Ok, seriously. I require an Aiming Low Baby Boot Camp Manual. I didn’t realize I needed to do so much in preparation, and should probably start now, before we’re even considering having children. Giving the fiance some practice time couldn’t hurt either.
Twitter Name: txtingmrdarcy
Also practice dressing up for an special dinner out (with the kid – you don’t get away that easy), then having to change the flour sack (AGAIN) as your husband shoots whole grain mustard directly at your face and clothes. Later, enjoy the THIRD shower of the evening because you missed the mustard in your HAIR and the waiter at the restaurant pointed it out.