A Vocabulary Lesson In Case I Die

At 21 months, Bubba is a talking machine. It’s downright adorable: he points out exciting things he wants us to see, expresses his opinions, asks questions, and even tells stories!

The bad news is that only about one out of every one hundred words he says is even remotely intelligible to the untrained ear.

As his mother, I have developed some pretty keen interpretation skills, and more often than not I am able to suss out what the hell the kid is trying to tell us without too much confusion. Others, though, including my dear husband, are not as linguistically talented as I. This is all fine and dandy as long as I’m around to translate, but what if I were to die of heat exhaustion tomorrow (our house is really, really hot) or fall into a diabetic coma courtesy of all the fountain Dr Pepper I drink (never mind that I don’t have diabetes)?! The poor child would be left with no one in the world who understands his pleas for “onk” or why he’s babbling about “berries” while playing with his tractor.

I cannot allow such a tragedy befall my sweet lad.

So in the same vein as my list of requirements for TFW’s second wife and the helpful childcare pointers I compiled in the event of my untimely demise, I’ve created a vocabulary list for my husband to reference in my absence:

What Bubba says: “be-bus”
What Bubba means: “speed bus” (Yes, I know there is no such thing as a speed bus. I think he got confused because I showed him a YouTube video of a speedboat one time.)
What Bubba REALLY means: “STOP EVERYTHING AND LOOK AT THAT BUS OVER THERE!!!!”

A speed bus is in the vicinity!

What he says: “anunner nun”
What he means: “another one”
What he REALLY means: He could mean that he sees another of whatever item he was previously discussing (if two be-buses go by, the sighting of the second will warrant an enthusiastic proclamation of “anunner nun!”), but it might just be wishful thinking, i.e. he hopes for additional be-buses to appear. Either way, the correct response from you is “yeah!”

What he says: “hurse” (rhymes with “purse”)
What he means: “hairs”
What he REALLY means: “One of the dog’s hairs is stuck on my hand or in my mouth and I really don’t like it! Get it off!”

What he says: “gug”
What he means: “bug”
What he REALLY means: He might be alerting you to an actual insect on the premises, or he might just be telling you a story about a bug he saw in that location the previous day/week/month. Regardless, you should be grossed out because bugs are gross.

there’s gugs in them thar mud.

What he says: “onk”
What he means: “milk” (hey, at least he got the “k” sound at the end)
What he REALLY means: “You have nine seconds to give me a bottle or I will make your life miserable.”

What he says: “beedeos”
What he means: “videos”
What he REALLY means: “Get your phone out and show me some videos of myself doing cute and funny stuff, please!” (He is his own biggest fan.)

What he says: “be-pull”
What he means: “be careful!”
What he REALLY means: “I’m doing something dangerous! I don’t know what be-pull means, but Mom says it all the time and I think it has something to do with me falling down, so prepare yourself accordingly!”

BE-PULL!!!!

What he says: “berries”
What he means: “berries” (duh)
What he REALLY means: There’s a slight chance he might actually be talking about berries, but it is more likely that he is reminiscing about a YouTube video we watched about tractors, during which I explained to him that the tractor was digging up the dirt so the farmers could plant some berries. Were there any berries involved in the video? No. Did I totally make that up? Yes. Does my son now think that the sole purpose of a tractor is to plant berries? Yes. Just go with it and fire up a video about tractors when he starts talking about berries, and everyone will be happy.

Unfortunately, this only covers about 2% of the nonsense this kid spews, but it ought to get you started. For everything else…just smile and say stuff like “yeah!” or “oh, really?”

How To Buy a “Mom” Bikini

Even though I’ve lived in LA for years (and San Diego before that), I am not a frequent bathing suit-wearer. We don’t have a pool and I’m not a huge fan of the ocean (fish are gross), so there’s simply very rarely any need for me to wear one — I have worn a bathing suit fewer than ten times in the last five years, and approximately eight of those occasions were on my honeymoon four years ago. Unfortunately for me, I now have a toddler who loves the water and would surely love to visit a pool or the beach, and worse yet, my sister’s bachelorette party is coming up this summer and the plan is to remain poolside for about 12 straight hours. As a result, I realized this weekend that I have no choice but to get myself a new bathing suit.

Now, bathing suit shopping is never particularly fun — you’re essentially trying on underwear and trying to convince yourself that since the underwear is marketed as swimwear it’s perfectly acceptable to wear in public — but it’s a whole different ballgame when you have a toddler. Not only has your body changed since the pre-baby days, but you now have to factor the suit’s functionality into your choice since you’ll be lugging a squirming kid around and bending down to help with sandcastles and whatnot. On the other hand, you might not be ready to dive into full “mom” territory with a conservative one-piece suit. It’s not easy, but as usual, I’m here to help you with yet another one of life’s challenges!

Maureen Wachter’s 11-step guide to buying a bathing suit suitable for a 30-year-old mother:

Step 1: Try on all of the bathing suits you currently own. Laugh at how ridiculous you look in each one, either because it’s completely outdated, simply does not fit at all, or involves so many precariously placed strings your toddler is sure to accidentally disrobe you within moments of arriving at the beach or pool.

Step 2: Immediately disabuse yourself of any notion that you may still be able to get some use out of those old “hot young thang” suits and toss them into the Goodwill pile.

Step 3: Google “modest bikinis” and feel equally distressed by the hideousness of the options you’re presented with and by the fact that they still all appear to be extremely skimpy. Admit and accept that you are officially an old prude.

Step 4: Forget about the online shopping (how can you trust that those scraps of fabric will really cover your ass based on photos alone?) and go to Target.

Step 5: Do a few laps around Target looking for the collection of bathing suits meant for adult women. Realize in horror that the racks of tiny child-sized spandex panties in the juniors department are the ones you’re supposed to be looking at.

Step 6: Sift through the options until you find a style that looks like it provides more coverage than the average string bikini. Purchase it without trying it on because you have a toddler in tow and using those filthy fitting rooms is bad enough even when you don’t have a maniac companion picking disgusting crap off the floors and shouting “TRASH!”

Step 7: Get home and try it on. Realize you completely overestimated the modesty of your selection when you model it for your husband and he compliments you on your “sexy new lingerie.”

Step 8: Return to Target, this time without your trash-police child. Return the lingerie/bikini and take your sweet time scouring each and every rack looking for something more suitable. After 20 minutes, find one potential winner: a fuller-coverage bottom with some sort of a fringed skirt on it. Realize how heinous that sounds and engage in an internal debate about whether it’s even possible for a skirted bottom to be remotely fashionable, then decide you don’t care because it’s literally the only two-piece style you’ve seen that looks like it might cover you up enough to avoid a wardrobe malfunction. Purchase it without trying it on, because, seriously, trying stuff on sucks.

Step 9: Get home and try it on. Take a photo of yourself and text it to your little sisters to find out for certain if the skirt is acceptable:

Step 10: Stare at yourself for a few more minutes and decide you don’t believe your sister; there’s just no way a skirted bathing suit is OK.

Step 11: Return the skirted suit to Target. Give up and commit yourself to wearing denim shorts in the pool. You look great in denim shorts.

Happy summer!

---

Thanks to Mama Kat‘s writer’s workshop prompt (“Create a How-To post”) for the inspiration!

Bottle Addict

Today’s post is written by Bubba himself! Well, I transcribed it for him…but the sentiment is all his.

My name is Ryan Wachter, and I am a bottle addict.

It’s very difficult to admit to myself that I have a problem, but I can no longer deny reality: I am entirely too dependent on that sweet white nectar and the comforting silicon teat through which it’s delivered. In recent weeks it has become increasingly rare for me to even consider falling asleep without a bottle, and if another is not available to me immediately upon waking up, I have been known to turn into a screeching, sobbing maniac (even if the slumber from which I’m awaking was just a quick nap and I had just had a bottle prior to said snooze). Many’s the time that I’ve awoken with a jolt at 2am, jonesing for the good stuff, and flat-out refused all other comfort measures offered by my long-suffering mother until she finally gave up and produced a bottle (which I then sucked on for precisely 30 seconds before chucking it out of the crib and going back to sleep).

I am not proud of myself.

You’re probably wondering how I ended up this way. Like most babies, I’ve always enjoyed a good bottle — both for the tasty milk itself as well as the simple fun of sucking on it — but my innocent affinity turned into something darker only recently. I suppose things started to go downhill as soon as I mastered saying “BABA!”. How I love to say that word! I get such a thrill from barking it at my mom, demanding that she fetch me one. It’s so much better than non-specific whimpering, or, worse yet, giving up and just moving on to some other distraction. Then I learned where the bottles are kept, and I was able to up the ante by running over there, outstretching my hands in desperation, and issuing my plea. Like this, but with tears, because life is so hard:

Since my sweet, pathetic mom is so eager to please me, I always get my way, so I simply became accustomed to indulging in some bottle therapy whenever the mood struck!

(I know addicts aren’t supposed to blame others for their problem, but come on: surely my mom deserves some castigation here, no? I am, after all, a goddamn baby. As my dad is fond of pointing out to her, she could say no to me every once in a while.)

Adding to both mine and the aforementioned pathetic mother’s collective denial was the fact that it all seemed so harmless. It’s just milk! And I’m just 16 months old! Can’t a kid drink a bottle? But the other night, I hit rock bottom. After drinking my usual pre-bedtime bottle, Mama put me in bed like usual, but, as has become all too common lately, I refused to sleep until she brought me more milk. A few hours later, I woke up and demanded another (my mom actually tried to trick me by giving me a pacifier — which I never liked, not even as an infant, and haven’t even touched in at least a year; I don’t even know where she found that disgusting thing and I sincerely hope she sanitized it first — thinking perhaps I just needed something to suck on; she thought wrong). Then, not three hours later, I did it again! And then at 5am, before the sun had even come up, I begged for yet another!

By the time my mom plucked me from my bed to get ready for the day, my floor was littered in half-drunk bottles (as previously mentioned, I like to throw them out of the crib as soon as I’ve gotten my fix — which could be anywhere from one sip to the whole thing, and there’s no way of guessing how much I’ll want at any given time), droplets of now-sour milk dotting the carpet. It was eye-opening, really: surely that mess wasn’t all from one night, right? And worst of all, I still wanted my breakfast bottle but all the bottles were on the floor of my bedroom and I had to wait in agony for an endless three minutes while Mama washed one of them!

Enough is enough. I can’t live like this anymore! It’s time to turn over a new leaf, a leaf wherein I’m capable of falling asleep and waking up without relying on this crutch. I’ll still drink milk, of course, but surely I’m old enough to just drink it out of a cup like a normal human.

Grant me the strength!!!

Wake Me Up When March F*cking Ends

March has been a rough month, and I couldn’t be happier that it’s finally over. This month has caused me so much distress that I felt compelled to write a song about it. Wanna here it? Here it goes:

(to the tune of Greenday’s “Wake Me Up When September Ends”)

March has been a total pain
And while I’ve tried not to complain…
Wake me up when March f*cking ends

Everyday it’s something new
And so I’m saying, “March, screw you!”
Wake me up when March f*cking ends

Bubba’s ears blew up again
And daycare said “stay out!”
Used vacation time again
I want to cry and pout

Then Mama got sick too
And I tried to power through…
Wake me up when March f*cking ends

Working, running, all while sick
Things got worse pretty quick
Wake me up when March f*cking ends

But sickness ain’t the only thing
That’s making me long for spring…
Wake me up when March f*cking ends

Daycare closed for spring break
Childcare’s a rough road
I thought I was gonna break
When my babysitter no-showed!

Now the Yankees are giving me spells
WHY WOULD YOU SIGN VERNON WELLS!?!
Wake me up when March f*cking ends

This weekend there’ll be no rest
Easter is work if you hadn’t guessed
Wake me up when March f*cking ends

March has been a total pain
And while I’ve tried not to complain…
Wake me up when March f*cking ends
Wake me up when March f*cking ends
Wake me up when March f*cking ends!!!

Bubba, at least, is unfazed by the March Madness.

Sick Baby Math Class: Pop Quiz!

I understand that most of you probably weren’t vice president of your high school’s math club (a volunteer position that required zero qualifications and came with but one duty: show up) like I was, but hopefully your skills with word problems haven’t diminished too much over the years, because it’s time for a pop quiz!

Sharpen your #2 pencils and remember to show your work!

1) In the past four months, Bubba has endured three ear infections, and each infection is accompanied by three days of crying. Assuming each teardrop has a volume of 0.05mL, what is the circumference of the hypothetical swimming pool Maureen could have filled with her son’s tears?

2) A doctor faxes two prescriptions to a pharmacy at 4:10pm. It takes Maureen twenty-five minutes to reach the pharmacy, at which time the pharmacy claims to have received just one of the prescriptions. If the situation is not rectified until 7:15pm, how many times has Maureen had to say, “no, I know you already filled that one, I’m calling about the other prescription” to an employee at Target Pharmacy?

3) TFW gets three times as many vacation days annually as Maureen does, but is twice as important at his job. When Bubba is too sick to go to daycare, how long should the argument over who has to take the day off to tend to him last? Express your answer in graph form.

4) Use the distributive property to solve the following: if 4 ear drops must be administered thrice daily for seven days and 5.5mL of amoxicillin must be given twice daily for ten days, how many times will Maureen panic over whether she may have forgotten a dose?

Extra credit: 12 other children attend Bubba’s daycare. Assuming each child is a carrier of six billion potential viruses and knowing that Bubba’s ears have been proven to burst at so much as a thought of sneeze or a cough, calculate the probability of Bubba suffering another ear infection before the end of cold and flu season.

Please submit your completed assignments, along with tissues for Bubba and wine for Mama, by day’s end.

How To Train Your Toddler To Clean Your House: Lesson 1

If you’re anything like me, you pretty much gave up on keeping your house clean as soon as your child(ren) came into the picture. What other choice do we have, honestly? You certainly can’t get anything done with a baby underfoot, so what are we supposed to do — clean up at night after the kid is asleep? WHEN IT’S DARK OUT?! Dishes can be done at night, sure, and maybe I can get behind wiping down some countertops or folding some laundry whilst watching The Biggest Loser. But who scrubs a bathtub or mops a floor after dusk?!

Crazy people, that’s who.

Or good mothers who don’t want their families living in filth, I suppose.

(I am neither.)

Unfortunately for me, I really appreciate a clean and tidy home. Not quite enough to motivate me to actually do anything towards that goal at the end of a long day (American Idol is on THREE TIMES this week, you guys), but the messiness and grime really does get on my nerves. On the rare ocassions when I do put forth the effort to really de-nastify my house, I take great joy in the results. There’s nothing like plopping down on the couch for one of the approximately 16 hours of Idol broadcast nightly on Fox and seeing nary a single crumb nor dustbunny in the periphery, the satisfying bouquet of Comet and 409 filling the air. If only it didn’t require so much effort!

Well, I may be a terrible housekeeper (and, by extension, a borderline negligent wife and mother), but I’m also a dedicated and creative problem-solver. I’ve found a solution that, if successfully implemented, will allow me to continue my own dilatory approach towards housekeeping and keep the house in order: I’m training Bubba to clean FOR me!

I’ve only recently begun the process, but the early returns look good, folks! So good, in fact, that I feel it is my duty to bestow my method upon you sooner rather than later so that you, too, can watch endless hours of reality singing competitions in a clutter-free living room. Behold:

Maureen Wachter’s Shameless Guide To Tricking Babies Into Doing Things For Their Lazy-Ass Sorry Excuse For Parents (Patent Pending):

Step 1: Lavish praise upon the child whenever he or she brings anything to you. THANK YOU for handing me this half-chewed chunk of banana — it’s just what I needed! Oh my, you are such a good boy, systematically yanking every single one of the baby wipes out of the container and delivering each one to me! Oooh, Mommy loves dirt — please do bring me a handful!

No matter how disgusting or objectionable the “gift,” do not waiver: you must reinforce the idea that bringing things to Mama is a fabulous and in no way tedious activity.

Step 2: Ask him to bring you specific toys and books. Start easy — if your child has the equivalent of a Bearski, instruct him to go fetch it:

Make sure to practice this skill often, and increase the difficulty by requesting lesser-loved toys.

Step 3: Make a game out of putting toys into the toybox. Toss them from a distance, dive in the box with the toys, whatever it takes. And praise! So much praise! If you don’t lose your voice hollering with excitement every time he tosses something in there, you’re not doing it right.

Step 4: Um…tell him to go clean up the kitchen or something? We haven’t gotten quite this far yet.

But the groundwork has been laid! Stay tuned…

Top Ten Tuesday: Celebrity Moms Are Just Like Us!

I like to think I’m an intelligent gal (humor me), but man do I love People Magazine. Celebrity-watching is a waste of time, sure, and the voyeurism is arguably quite creepy, but that doesn’t stop me from getting a little excited when I see that Jennifer Garner and those darling children ate dinner just two miles from my house last week. I’ve got my favorites, who in my eyes can do no wrong (Matt Damon and his adorably average-looking wife, Khloe Kardashian [don’t judge me], Alec Baldwin), and the ones I strongly feel deserve a smack in the face (Nicki Minaj, Gwyneth Paltrow, Alec Baldwin [it’s a love/hate relationship]). I love looking at the stupid paparazzi photos of these idiots out on the town, I love the superficial interviews and the “hard-hitting” exposés, I love the hookup and breakup rumors (I swear to God, if Matt Damon and Lady Average ever split up, I might cry)…it’s all one big delicious guilty pleasure.

That doesn’t mean I agree with everything these morons say or do, of course. In fact, a great deal of my celebrity gossip consumption involves copious rolling of my eyes (often accompanied by some serious tsk-ing), particularly when female celebs start yapping about parenting. More often than not, they come across as completely out of touch, condescending, or just plain dumb.

It’s great fun!

Enjoy the trainwreck along with me — here are my top ten favorite “are you serious right now?!” celebrity mom quotes:

10) “She’s my homey, my best friend.” – Beyonce, on daughter Blue Ivy.

No one talks about their children like that — this is the type of thing a teenager says about the cute cousin they babysit once a week. This does not make me think, “wow, Beyonce is a really dedicated and involved mother!” No, it just makes me think, “wow, Beyonce does such little actual parenting, she thinks this is what mothers sound like.”

9) “We have a rule in the house. Rule No. 1 is always to look cool, and rule No. 2 is don’t forget about rule No. 1. We have other rules … but the No. 1 rule is to always look cool.” – Heidi Klum.

Those kids will grow up perfectly normal.

shark hoodie, highwater sweatpants, and velcro Target shoes: COOL!

8)  “I’m kind of scared of baby monitors, because I believe in the paranormal, and I believe ghosts will come through it.” – Snooki

To be fair, I didn’t read the rest of the interview. Maybe the next thing she said was “HAHA! I’m totally kidding; that’s just something I made up for a ‘things that are so dumb no human could possibly ever say them’ contest I’m entering.”

7) “I love the smell of diapers. I even like when they’re wet and you smell them all warm liked a baked good.” – Sarah Jessica Parker.

Someone please call CPS, post haste. A serial killer is raising SJP’s children.

6) “I do believe babies are born potty-trained.” – Mayim Bialik

Have you and SJP been doing drugs together?

that’s water on his pants, Mayim, not pee. I think.

5) “I would rather die than let my kid eat Cup-A-Soup.” – Gwyneth Paltrow.

I sincerely hope the interviewer spewed water all over Gwyneth when he or she burst into hysterical laughter upon hearing this pretentious nonsense. I want to move to London, find a way to befriend those idiotically-named children, get them over to my house for a slumber party, and then: CUP-A-SOUP FOR EVERYONE!!!!

4) “If the Lord sees fit to let us have another baby…” – Michelle Duggar.

Oh, honey. There aren’t any J names left, I’m sorry.

3) “There’s always a little bit of a discussion about how short the skirt is…or is there some cleavage showing. And I always say to her, ‘Do you want everybody to be staring at your breasts, or do you want people to talk to you?'” – Madonna, on daughter Lourdes.

And then Lourdes laughed and laughed, and wore whatever the fuck she wanted.

2) “We went into Prada yesterday and she loved it. It was as if she was saying, ‘Mummy, I’m home!'” – Victoria Beckham, on her infant daughter.

Ya know, like all babies.

1) “I was like, ‘Well, I don’t want him to think that the sex is going downhill,’ so now we’re on baby No. 4!” – Tori Spelling, on getting pregnant again SIX WEEKS after giving birth.

Do people really believe that you can’t get pregnant again right away? (Millions of “Irish Twins” would beg to differ!) Actually, a more important question: do people really have sex that soon after having a baby?! No one tell my husband, please.

The good news is, both Jessica Simpson and Kim Kardashian are pregnant right now, so…see you back here for Dumb Celebrity Mom Quotes Part Two next year!

Look Who’s (Not) Talking

Like any mother worth her salt, I am wholly convinced that my child is exceptional. He’s obviously the cutest lad in all the land, and he’s probably a genius to boot (would a non-genius opt to chew on a book over some foolish toy?). And his athletic prowess! Surely the force and accuracy with which he throws food at the dog is an early predictor of his future career as a major league pitcher!

That said, I will admit that there are a few gaps in my son’s rich talent arsenal. For one, he totally sucks at using a fork. More troubling, his vocabulary is abhorrent. To date, I’ve heard him properly articulate just four words: baba (and we’re being generous in counting that, considering it’s really not a word), cookie (thanks, Sesame Street), yeah! (always delivered with with an exclamation point, no exceptions), and his favorite: dad.

Notice anything missing?

No mama. No mom. No mommy. Not even a ma! I’d happily accept a mumbled “meeergh” at this point, but I’m getting NOTHIN’. Meanwhile, I can’t go two minutes over here without hearing some more dad practice (“dad! DAD! Dad-dad-dad! Dada! DAAAAAADDDD!”).

What’s worse is that his fondness for dad (the word, not the man; I remain the favored parent and I intend to keep it that way) appears to be calculated, deliberate, and cruel. He knows exactly what he’s doing (I told you he was smart) and he’s drawing some sort of sick pleasure from tormenting me.

Exhibit A:

So until he broadens his lexicon, I’ve decided I’ll just be Dad.

You Is Such A Good Talker!

Whilst wasting time in the parenting section of Reddit recently (after spending 2 hours looking at dogs in the “aww” section, of course [a habit I highly recommend everyone develop]), I came across a scathing submission from a young childless woman. She ranted that she hated hearing parents talk to their kids in “baby talk” and she wondered why it’s so ubiquitous — can’t we all hear how stupid we sound? When she had kids someday, she assured everyone, she would never lower herself to speaking in that annoying sing-song voice, and she would always use proper terminology and formal grammar with them.

Condescension and laughable naivete aside, the uptight shrew got me thinking. She did have a point: baby talk is totally unavoidable. I honestly don’t think I’ve ever come across a parent who doesn’t say cutesy things (usually in a cutesy voice!) at least occasionally. Babies like it! And it’s fun to talk that way! Plus, in the beginning at least, all the sleep deprivation depletes your brainpower and forming coherent sentences is just way too difficult.

So sure, I say “baba” and “milkie” and often speak in the third person like I’m my son’s personal Life Narrator (“Mama loves Bubba!”). But I’m not that bad. I’m an intelligent, normal adult with adequate social graces. I’m definitely not annoying like the obnoxious parents to whom that insipid harpy was referring!

Or so I thought when I first read her diatribe. But now it’s been on my mind for a few days, and I’ve made some alarming discoveries. Like, for instance, the fact that I replace an awful lot of words with what can only be described as “nonsense sounds.” And I’m apparently under the impression that even the simplest grammar conventions no longer apply to me. Over the course of just one hour tonight, I caught myself saying the following:

“No-no, Bud — that’s an ouchie for Mama!” (Sidenote: why must he bite me?!)

“Awww…why you be a sad boy? You no need a new dipey!”

“Uh oh! Now you gots no sockies!”

And then I gave him “chickie” for “din din” and brushed his “toofers”…

Goddammit, that condescending bitch was dead on. I sound like a moron.

Still better than being a dreary wench, though. “Pardon me, Son, but it’s time to extricate yourself from that receptacle, suit up in your nightclothes, and settle in for a period of slumber:”

My way’s better. Night-night!

PS: My only dream in life now is for that woman to have a baby, be secretly recorded, and subsequently forced to watch/listen to herself say “baba” and “blanky” and “binkie” on loop.

PPS: Spell check hated virtually every word of this post.

I’m Dreaming of an Unemployed Husband

Last November, when I was 8 months pregnant with Bubba, TFW was informed that his department was being downsized and thus he would no longer have a job as of January 1. What awful timing for such terrible news, right?

WRONG! I’ve never been so happy in my life.

Prior to getting that “bad” news, I had spent the duration of my pregnancy in a constant state of stress about what would happen after I had the baby. Thanks to this country’s horrific lack of reasonable laws regarding maternity leave (thanks a lot, Obama*), if I wanted to keep my job (and I sure did), I was going to have to return to work precisely three weeks after giving birth.

Which of course meant that I’d have to start looking for a nanny approximately 3 minutes after giving birth (I felt that I couldn’t hammer it down ahead of time because I didn’t know exactly when the baby would be arriving and thus couldn’t give anyone a firm start date, and, more importantly, because I was a nervous wreck throughout my pregnancy and was superstitiously convinced that too much planning would surely result in disaster; yes, I realize how ridiculous that sounds now and yes, the sheer pathetic-ness is making me cringe). And then prepare to hand my three week old newborn over to a virtual stranger every day.

I cried stress-tears every day for about four straight months.