I'm a Mother, fucker!

Whew. Could somebody please stop this ride? I'm getting a bit nauseaus and i'd like to get off. What did you say? You can't stop the ride? And i can't get off? Ever? Not even after my son is grown, married, and has kids of his own? You're saying that i'll be on this dizzying ride for the rest of my life and that i better get used to it? Well, if that's what i've got to do, at least someone hand me a pail to catch the vomit...

Being a parent is a lot harder than it looks. And there is nothing, NOTHING in the world that prepares you for being a parent. You can know its time, you can feel you are ready, and you can believe you're up for it. But you're never "prepared." Its like never knowing or seeing what water is, and then having someone toss you into the deep end of the pool. On a 30 degree day. The only way to know how to parent is to be thrown into the deep end and start treading water even though you're not sure how. But fucking A, its amazing when you realize that you seem to instinctively move your arms and legs and manage to stay afloat, at least most of the time. But you have no fucking idea how you are doing it and you're terrified to think too hard about it, lest you stop moving and sink.

The most important lesson i learned when Baby Head came into this world a month ago was that all expectations about anything and everything must be checked at the door. Labors and deliveries are longer and harder than expected, breastfeeding doesnt quite work out like expected, getting your child to sleep in your carefully decorated nursery and shiny black crib doesnt always work out like expected, you dont fall immediately head-over-heels-in-love with your baby like expected. Therefore the first lesson of parenting is GET RID OF ALL EXPECTATIONS. I've never lived more in the present, in the moment than i do now as a parent. And i've also learned to embrace a "good enough" lifestyle. If it works, do it. If it moves you in the slightest way toward the right direction, do it. Even if its half-assed. And it usually works extremely well especially if its half-assed. The worst thing that ever happened to parenting are TV shows and commercials and stories depicting mother and baby as this overly idealistic fuzzy pink and blue lace fog with smiling babies and well-dressed and rested mothers who stare into their shiny cribs in a motherly bliss watching baby sleep and sleep their babies do for 12 hours at a time and everybody does everything by the book. The problem with all this is that its not real, but when we dont achieve it in our lives (because its NOT real), we feel like failures. Until we realize that its all bullshit. Nothing goes by the book, except maybe the problems! Am i madly in love with my son? No, not yet. Relationships take time, and i'm mourning the loss of my free-time, independence and Self that i traded for a one-sided relationship with a warm, screaming bundle of constant needs. Do i learn to love him more every day? Yes. Have i attended to his every single need since Day 1? You bet. Once again, there is the beautiful instinct inside a parent that no matter how sleep-deprived, indifferent or resentful they feel about parenting, they are on autopilot: feeding, changing, cuddling, protecting, smiling at, getting pissed on and ensuring that everything within their capability is done to provide comfort to their child. Maybe this IS what it means to be madly in love with your baby--its just a different type of mad love that doesnt manifest itself at the cognitive level yet.

And remember how hormones are the hired goons of the brain, bitch-smacking a person's biological clock into WANTING a baby only to continue sucker-punching your grey matter for the entire 9 months of pregnancy? Well they are nothing compared to AFTER giving birth. My hormones turned into full blown terrorists that have not only raped and pillaged my brain now, but they've dropped nuclear warheads on my old noodle. There's nary a coherent cell left. Just ask the Head--the first week after delivering Baby Head i'd go from crying my eyes out about how "happy i was" to quickly crying my eyes out about how "i'm a failure as a mother." Or crying my eyes out about something completely unrelated, perhaps involving the cats. It was actually pretty funny to watch, even from MY perspective. A month later and i'm much better with the crying jags thank you, but those chemical terrorists still fuck with me whenever they get the chance and are still leaving their mark on my poor pregnancy-ravaged body.

So the world marches on for everybody else, but for the parent it begins and ends with their children. That's not to say that some of their own life, hobbies, occupations, interests, etc arent thrown into the mix, but it really does become offspring-focused. And while its hard to reap the rewards of parenting at this early age where Baby Head takes, takes, takes and doesnt really give back except in the form of bodily fluid expulsions, there are some benefits. Its hard to explain, but when you lose people you love during your life, certain "lights" go off in your psyche, soul, whatever. But when Baby Head was born, it was like a light came back on in me for the first time. And its weird because its subtle, not euphoric or obvious, but just this strange warm glow that sort of makes you find just a little bit more peace about those tragedies you've experienced in the past. Death is such a profound event that i think we often forget how much more powerful Life actually is until we experience its emergence.

As much as i denied before and during pregnancy that i would ever lose "myself" after i had children, the reality is that the old me is gone. And there was no point to even fight it. But that's okay--there's a new version now: Lady Head 2.0 with all new advanced features like zombie mode where i can perform all the functions of the average human on 3 hours of sleep, super-sterilie saliva where my mouth is the most effective cleaning agent for my son's pacifiers, a defensive-rage function where anyone who looks remotely cross-eyed at my boy or cuts me off while i'm driving with Baby Head in the car (in an obvious and personal attempt to kill him, certainly) will face certain death and dismemberment by me (the Head has an even more advanced version of this feature). This version also has a disgust firewall where i am not repulsed in the least when my boy pisses in my hair, vomits on my chest, or gets shit all over his ankles, and high speed capabilities of performing most tasks with one hand (since the boy is usually precariously balanced in the other arm). So version 2.o has all these new and wonderful features, and in the coming months, i hope to explore which features have still been left intact from version 1.0...