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(still a) bad mom

10 November 2011

I'm sure you recall when I was a bad mom
well having two kids has only made me a badder mom
and maybe moved me right on into just plain bad person territory

por ejemplo

The other day when Sebastian was in the middle of a frantic feeding sesh Julia dropped a toxic bomb in her diaper. She insisted on remaining cozily close to my perch with the feedling so instead of setting myself up for a failure of a diaper-change-while-nursing I sped walked to the bathroom, found my fanciest (and only) perfume and doused the little piglet from mullet tail to sock heel. It merely and poorly masked the putrid but flowery toxic was much better than straight toxic at the time. 

When Julia was Sebastian's age, she was rarely more than a stone's throw away from my person. She even sat in her little bouncy on the bathroom floor while I showered. The tiniest peep was answered with a hearty cuddle and an immediate feed. Poor, uncoddled Sebastian is banished to the upstairs for his sleeping hours so that unless he is clearly and loudly upset, my day is not unnecessarily interrupted.
{that sounds more heartless than I really am...I think}

While this really has nothing to do with parenting...I'll include it because transparency is the best policy in my humankind handbook. A few (or more) days ago someone kindly brought me some Starbucks coffee. I have been rinsing (if time allows) and reusing the cup with lid combo every day since then because Julia is far less likely to dump out the entirety of a cup with a pea sized opening than a mug with a fist sized opening. Gross? definitely. definininitely.

The other day I found an 11 minute (eternity) clip of Barney and Friends on Youtube in Czech. I rejoiced when Julia was completely entranced by the show not because I needed to do anything important like feed Sebastian, bathe, clean or use the facilities. No...I was just desperate to clip and paint my nails (toes and fingers). Selfish sally and shallow hally be my besties. 

And the last and worst example can't be blamed entirely on my conscious self. The second night/early morning we had Sebastian home I was still making the rookie mistake of getting up and rocking him while he ate (now he just gets pulled into bed with me). I groggily fed him, changed his diaper and urine saturated outfit, swaddled him tightly and was just about to put him down when he obviously (loudly) soiled his disposable unders all over again.  I woke Simon up to ask him what I should do...leave him or change him? (answer: silence) and then kind of don't remember the rest. I opened my laptop the next morning to find this exact Google search staring me in the guiltiest face: 
"newborn poops in diaper late at night...can he sleep in it?"
a new low.
a new ugly low. 
it will be a wonder if we're ever blessed with a third ray of poorly tended sunshine.

14 comments:

  1. The fact that you ran that Google search is the funniest thing I will ever read. Ever.

    And the best thing I've hit on to deal with what you seem to be describing is thinking of it as "mature flexibility", rather than "increasingly alarming negligence". Probably you'll never be in the position again where, with one fell swoop, you've suddenly doubled the number of children you have. Unless next time it's twins. Then I've got nothing.

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  2. The Google search... :) Thanks for making me laugh.

    Funniest thing I've read all day.

    I need to paint my nails.

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  3. Hilarious.

    Did your Googling come up with anything helpful?

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  4. Dying of laughter so much I read it to my husband and we both died again...The part about googling can newborns sleep in poop?...there is nothing quite like just getting them to sleep, clean, and warm and then the "sound." You know well in your head that will entail many cold wipes, probably a change of outfit and guaranteed you being awake the next two hours.

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  5. When our twins were newborns, we woke up in the middle of the night, because one of the girls were crying. My husband got up to get the cryer, but instead of going to their room, he sat down on the couch wrapped himself in a little blanket and fell asleep sitting up. Sleep deprivation and stress make us do crazy things.

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  6. I've done the same thing! well, I never googled that, but I have debated changing or not changing the sleeping baby.

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  7. So funny! I'm sure you're doing a wonderful job, Grace. Two younglings are certainly enough to cause a great change in your way of doing things, and take some time to get used to!

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  8. Sitting here reading this at midnight while trying to get my newborn to sleep, and I say, nope, I probably wouldn't wake her up to change it! I definitely laughed out loud when I read that you googled it!! You are too funny!

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  9. and did you find any answers on the google?

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  10. haha made me laugh....yes #2 doesnt get the instantaneous reaction. mine is currently sleeping on my lap with my legs crossed...yes you read that correctly. john bought me a hugE coffee mug with a top, i mean gargantuan, but i could suck down the pot of coffee in about 3 minutes, just like it was being IVed in.....also baby einstein SAVES me daily, miss you:)!

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  11. that was awesome. Not a bad mum at all! I actually remember when I was younger saving any McDees or Burger King drink cups I got and bringing them home with me so I could drink out of them again (we got fast food once in a blue moon) they made me feel cool haha :)

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  12. oh gosh. I needed. NEEDED a laugh tonight! Love it!

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  13. I read this initially at 2 am with a fussy, feeding baby in my lap... I laughed so hard I scared the poor child and woke my sleeping husband. I understand EXACTLY what you're experiencing. You aren't a bad mom... Just a bit sleep deprived! I think you've taken "green living" to a new level with the Starbucks cup, and I'm pretty sure that makes you hip! And a poopy diaper never hurt anybody...

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  14. I think you might be picking up on the secret of successful parenting ;) Learning what's a big deal and what isn't... and relaxing accordingly. I thought for a long time that Joseph was a much less loved baby than Greta because I didn't freak out about him as much as I did with her. Well, almost a year after he was born, he is the happiest, sunniest, most confident, strong little fellow ever :) Yes, loving mommy talking here. As long as you love them, they'll never remember if you changed the poopies before or after nursing.

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