Lies (some) Mothers Tell Me

There are two extremely false statements I have found that people try to convince me are truth.  The first thing I am pretty positive is a complete falsehood is the following statement:  "Oh, you don't even remember the pain of childbirth."  Excuse me while I try not to choke on my coffee.  Were you in a land of rainbows and puffy clouds during those excrutiating hours or was I not given the correct drugs because I can tell you with sincere honesty I do remember and it is not fading into a distant memory. 

In fact, I remember quite distinctly that while some doctor's hands were stuffed up my crotch I had a contraction that seemed to go on forever, and a nurse said, "Oh honey, on a scale of 1 to 10 how was that?"  I think at this point I hissed at her, horns grew out of the front of my head and I said something along the lines of way more than a 10.  I hear her sing-songy response, "Oh well, yes, yes, I can see that that was, in fact, quite bad as it is way off the chart.  See here?"  She puts that piece of paper in front of my face so that I can see clearly that yes, yes, I guess I was right and the machine agreed that yes, yes, I am off the charts.  Excuse me while I don't smile and thank you for the confirmation, crazy nurse, but I am too busy trying to keep my body from turning inside out at this particular moment.  So I guess I'm one of those few people that remembers quite well their labor pains.

The second statement of which I am positive is a lie is:  "Oh, I don't even remember what my life was like before I had kids."  Excuse me again while I laugh at you and try not to pee my pants because I carried a watermelon around and I now pee every time I sneeze.  Maybe I'm just jealous of those people, but it's Saturday as I write this, and I most certainly can remember what my life was like before I had children. 

*insert daydream music*  It was a blissful Saturday morning while snow was falling quietly outside my window.  I lazily stretched in my bed and snuggled deeper under the covers hiding my head and falling back to that blissful dream state until my body said that it got all the peace and rest it needed to function for the day.  It was time to get up and leisurely stroll around the house until I had some pressing matter to attend to such as getting ready to go out to have dinner and drinks with my husband. 

Sounds totally fantastic as I type it.  I'm even staring longingly up at the ceiling as if my memory were encased in a cloud above my head.  Now there is no sleeping in and snuggling.  There is only this constant reminder that my kids decide when they think I've had enough sleep, and I can assure you that they are not on the same schedule as my body.  There is the soul-sucking 7:00 a.m. cry of mommy, mommy and the awesome job of changing a wet diaper with my eyes half closed, and if I'm lucky, I won't fall down the stairs going to get breakfast for the soul suckers. 

I also like to pretend I'm completely happy and that I am, in fact, something of a super woman, and while I make a cup of coffee, I repeat over and over to myself -- I can do this, I am awesome, I am super woman.  I quickly realize that I am not as awesome and super womanly as I believe I can be because as I start walking with my wonderfully smelling fresh coffee, I step on a train, stumble and catch myself only to find that I have spilled my entire coffee all down the front of my shirt and onto the floor.  I sigh as I wipe the coffee off the floor with my sock and collapse into my chair and close my eyes for a half a second.  How dare I do such a thing when there are cars to be played with or blocks to build a tall tower with, and how dare I forget this fact for a split second.

I see that it is, by this time, only 7:30 a.m. and half my coffee is gone and not because I had the luxury of drinking it.  It's 7:30 a.m. and already a tower as tall as my son must be built right this instant.  I'm thinking how this could be a terrific time for that shower that I must have.  It is 7:35 a.m. and said tower of blocks has not been built yet because there are trains, trains, more trains that just have to be brought into the station so the damn electronic conductor can scream at me and make my ears bleed.  I begrudgingly get up and go try to figure out a way to make that guy stop yelling when I feel my feet on the kitchen floor sticking.  It is, indeed, the coffee that was spilled that I so heroically cleaned up with my stocking feet that is screaming at me how no, no, no super woman, this half-assed cleaning shall not do.

So, you see, I quite clearly remember my life before my kids, and I will call you out on your crazy notions that this is a time of blissful motherhood.  You can't pull one over on this girl because there is no time in this house to live in such fantasy worlds.  There are trucks now for me to step on, and I pretty much think that there is a dirty diaper to be changed already.  It's only 7:45 a.m., and I feel that this is, without a doubt, going to be another long day. 

*cheers friends*