I know, I know. Articles like this one are clogging up your news feed, claiming to be the real, true, insider secrets of becoming a parent. No one tells you these things, they say, but I’m here to speak the truth.
Usually, these articles reveal “your heart will grow thirty-seven sizes!” and “your post-partum belly will grow thirty-seven sizes!” and “your ability to catch vomit in the palm of your hand will grow thirty-seven sizes!”
But if you have any true mom friends—or if you’re even remotely familiar with Google—none of this is news.
So today, as I am a wise, experienced mother of not even two years, I believe it is my duty to present you with The Definitive List of Things No One Tells You Before You Become a Parent.
Nobody cares about your birthday anymore.
“Date of birth?” asks the receptionist. You rattle off your birthday, and she furrows her brow. “1984?” she asks, looking at the carseat you’re struggling to carry.
You’re at the pediatrician with your one-week old, and nobody cares about your birthday anymore.
They’re not asking for my birthday, it dawns on you, but then you stop caring because you have a one-week old and she needs to eat (again).
You’re still a mom…even when your kids aren’t with you.
It’s here! You finally have 30 minutes of time to yourself, so you decide to take your laptop to a coffeeshop and peruse the internet or do some work without your beloved offspring chanting, “ELMO! ELMO!” and accidentally e-mailing 30 lines of gibberish to donotreply@oldnavy.com.
You sit down with your hot beverage, ready to comb through your unread e-mails, coffeehouse jams drowning out the conversations. You are just another coffee drinking adult. You do not have spit up on your shoulder or snot on your jeans.
No one is looking at you, because you belong here.
You open your lapto-LA LA LA LA LA LA, ELMO’S SONG LA LA LA LA LA LA LA.
Everyone is looking at you.
You’ll grow to love fish stick coffee.
As Dido once said, your tea’s gone cold, you’re wondering why. The answer is: your child.
Although the baristas at the aforementioned coffeeshop would clutch their pearls if they knew, you’re going to need to start microwaving your forgotten coffee.
And chances are, you’re going to start feeding your child frozen fish sticks that need to be heated in the microwave.
So when you reach in to grab your reheated coffee and realize it smells like last night’s fish sticks, roll with it. You never know, it might be the next pumpkin spice latte.
You’ll become bilingual…but like, the kind of bilingual where you’ve been studying so hard and then you get to Paris and you can’t quite figure out how to order the exact pastry you want at the patisserie and it sort of breaks your heart.
“Mama!” your toddler yells, tugging on your sleeve. She points in the distance. “I see a yeeeeeeee poo nub swish.”
“A what, honey?”
“A yeeeeeeee poo nub swish!”
“What is that? Can you tell me more about it?”
“Yeeeeeeee poo nub swish!” she shrieks. Her eyes bore into your soul pleadingly. Please understand me, mama, they say. This is the most important thing I’ve ever said in my life.
“What… what color is the yeeeeeeee poo nub swish?”
“YEEEEEE. POO. NUB. SWISH.”
She has such important things to say and much like the French pastry menu, you can’t quite decipher them. It will sort of break your heart (in either case, you can’t go wrong with a croissant.).
Crushes will end slightly differently.
There’s a skip in your step—your crush finally noticed you. Sort of.
It wasn’t a love interest finally noticing your quick wit and amazing hair, or a shy smile from a good looking stranger.
Nope, this was your mom crush. You know, the one who drops her kids off at the same daycare you do. The one who looks like she got 12 hours of sleep and had time for a professional blow-dry before 9 am.
She wasn’t at day care pickup today, but her son was. And when he saw you approaching, his eyes lit up, and he said the magic word:
Mama.
You won’t want to admit it, but you’ll replay that moment in your head more than once.
You will talk about quails more than you ever thought possible.
Seriously, can SOMETHING else start with a Q?
