Fun With Play-Dough

I’ve noticed the search “pregnant and bored” shows up on my website often. Apparently, pregnant women get bored a lot. I personally don’t remember this about being pregnant; I haven’t been bored in so long, I don’t even know if boredom is an urban myth or wishful thinking at this point. I do remember –vaguely- there was a lot of waiting involved during the last month or so, and I remember watching inordinate amounts of bad television, so I’m guessing I wasn’t too sure what to do with my time.

Oh, for a little boredom now. I would gladly trade some of the less attractive aspects of parenting for an hour of doing nothing here or there. Take this morning for instance, when, at 7 am, I woke my daughter up for school and she refused to get dressed. By 5 minutes past eight, she finally came downstairs, with no time to spare for breakfast, unless I wanted to be late myself. She went hungry, something for which she had not quite forgiven me when I picked her up eight hours later.  This is nothing new; when you wake my daughter up in the morning, you never know what you’re going to find. Some days she is the absolute picture of loveliness, other days she is as cranky as a hungry barn cat. Dull and boring, never; I wish.  You don’t know how truly nice predictability can be until you live with a six-year-old.

I think being bored while waiting for your child to be born is like that impatience we feel when we’re truly young, and can’t wait to become adults. We are so focused on all we think is good about being grown up, we forget there is a price to be paid for all this freedom. With being able to come and go as we please comes a job and a big fat mortgage. That doesn’t mean you’re a bad person for wanting to give birth already; nine months is, after all, a freakishly long time to carry around all that extra weight.  The problem with the pregnancy boredom is that all the fun stuff you now have time for requires energy. That pile of books you meant to read? Can’t focus. Those DVD’s still in their shrink-wrap? Don’t care.  All that shopping you meant to do, those borders you still want to put up in the baby room? Pa-leeze.  All you are motivated to do is put your big swollen feet up and bitch; even sleeping is too much trouble during the last month of pregnancy.

So what do you do when you find yourself in this position? One thing to consider is reading to your unborn child. She can already hear you, and language skills are incredibly important to a child’s development. Also, children’s books are perfect for your attention span right now. If you haven’t started building a children’s library yet, now’s a great time to start. Amazon does that one-click thing: minimum effort, maximum benefit.

Internet shopping period is a great way to waste your time and your money. Once baby has arrived, you’ll feel guilty spending any money on yourself, so strike while the iron’s hot. Your husband won’t dare to complain; by now he’s pretty comfortable with the whole “don’t argue-she’s pregnant” way of thinking.

Can you still eat? Have friends come over to your house and cook you fantastic gourmet-type meals.

Hire a masseuse to make house calls. You might also look for people to come to your house and give you pedicures, manicures, or haircuts; whatever floats your boat. If you pay them enough, they’ll come; you won’t have to get off your couch to feel fabulous.

Now is a great time to re-watch all those eighties movies you love so much. You already know them by heart; they don’t require any kind of attention span. (Bueller…Bueller?)

Even the most bloated and exhausted pregnant woman can still exercise her mouth. Forget those Lamaze-exercises; practice saying parental things instead. “Because I am your mother” should roll of the tongue easily before your baby has his first birthday.

If you’re a real trooper, read the papers so you can freak the nurses out when you are in the hospital. They’re not used to pregnant women going on and on about current affairs, believe me.

If you do all these things, maybe you won’t regret wasting all this fantastic me-time once you finally do give birth.

Babies cost money. It has been estimated that, raising a child from conception until graduation from college, costs the equivalent of a new Lexus every year, twice-yearly European vacations, and a spleen. Think hard before you say ‘oh never mind the condom, honey’, because once you go down that road, you will be sucked dry.

I know; you’ve done the math and decided it’s not so bad, and you can easily afford it. You’re even thinking about having two. There’s probably food and clothing on your list, birthday presents, maybe even private school. However, until you’ve welcomed the bundle of joy actually into your home, you have no idea about the ‘additional costs’ baby brings with her. Parents don’t tell you about all the extra stuff; it’s too depressing to discuss. Have you allowed for Barbies in your budget? Ballet tights? Horse camp? What about school supplies? Kids need a lot of junk when they go to school; take the amount you expect to pay in tuition, and triple it. You’ll spend at least that in erasers, Kleenexes, pencil cases, backpacks, lunch boxes, swim supplies, and so forth and so on.

Some of this money you’ll spend before they even go to school; they’ll need to be ‘entertained’, and so you’ll need to allow roughly $500 for crayons and such, $3000 for toys that usually break within a day and need to be replaced, as well as numerous DVD’s for when you need them to stay out of your hair (Basic cable won’t do the trick). Snacks, like cheesy puffs and juice boxes, are another cost you’ll need to figure in, as well as memberships (Zoo, Children’s Museum, and such) and wet wipes, the cost of which every new parent underestimates.

Have you thought about laundry? You’ll be doing it often, and your children will constantly come up with weird and innovative ways to stain their clothes, so you’ll need the expensive detergent. Also, the sheer volume of this laundry will cause you to want to replace your washer and dryer six times before they’ll reach high school.

You’ll need obscene amounts of Drugs, like Amoxicillin for the ear infections; headache medicine for your husband, as well as massage appointments, nannies, and the oh-so important ‘therapeutic shopping’ for you. This is where you spend money on useless crap “just because”. Increase your current booze budget by two hundred percent while you’re at it.

If you are thinking about recouping some of your investments, don’t bother. The producers of baby gear still haven’t figured out a decent sponsor ship deal, even though I think there’s plenty of room for ads on those little clothes, and say, the back of the stroller. Maybe baby will grow up and become a multi millionaire, but who can wait that long? And who says they’ll actually plan on paying you back? “You wanted me”, they’ll say, and they’ll be right. The best you can hope for is a free dinner every two months or so.

You’ve had that baby, you’re sore and split in half, but oh-so proud, and can kick back in the knowledge that you’ve completed your mission. But before you congratulate yourself too heartily with a job-well-done, the knowledge sinks in: people want to visit.

You haven’t thought about that during the past nine months, and are thus wildly unprepared for the onslaught of family members, friends, neighbors, and complete strangers that want to pass by your bedside.

Truth be told, it sucks. Sure, you want to share you happiness with your loved ones; the problem is, those first days after your baby’s birth, your list of ‘loved ones’ is shorter than you anticipated. It consists of your husband and you; the end. Okay, maybe a nurse or two, since they seem to know where the warm blankets are kept and can help you change diapers.  Your husband can hold your hand and put the pictures on line, where interested ‘others’ can view them and leave messages about how cute your baby is.

Unfortunately, people don’t play by the rules; they have no sympathy for the fact that you look like crap and all you want to do is sleep and be left alone. They crowd your hospital room and expect you to be social. Social? You’ve never felt less social in your life! Why do the pregnancy books not prepare you for this? Oh wait; they haven’t prepared you for anything else, why should this be any different?

What’s worse, now that baby has made her entrance, nobody is interested in you anymore. They only want to talk about the baby, and that’s a hard truth to get used to after nine months of pampering.  Here you are, bleeding and bloated, and nobody asks how you’re doing. All those gift baggies, and all they contain is ‘stuff for baby’, just when a nice spa-certificate, or some great perfume-counter gift pack would be more than welcome. Not a single loofah is to be found amidst the booties, diapers, and cute little onesies. Bah. Maybe you’re one of the lucky ones who have a single good friend that drops off a bottle of wine, but honestly, one bottle? That isn’t going to make a dent.

Someone should provide visitors with a guide of appropriate gifts and behavior for the post-birth visit. First of all; ask how the mother is doing. Don’t go straight for the baby; pay the mother some attention, please. She is the one who did all the work; nobody should forget that. And hard work it is; gifts for the mother are appropriate. All that baby stuff –you can assume- has been bought and paid for; now it’s time to spoil the mom. That means: buy things mom likes. Booze, magazines, books, and R-rated movies she can watch while she has to get up 5 times a night to feed baby.  Donate your air miles and vow to baby sit; she can use a vacation; trust me. Cold hard cash is always welcome, but, for god’s sake; don’t tell a new mom to ‘buy something for baby’.  And if you do, don’t be surprised if this new mother bursts out crying. It’s not baby-blues, it’s just exasperation. That, and the newfound allergy to the visitor, who forgot she was already somebody before she became a mom.

There are two types of false labor.

There are the times when you think, this is it, and you call your support, you race to the hospital, they check you in, and it all turns out to be nothing but a storm in a shot glass.  If this has happened to you, don’t feel bad: you’re in good company.  Because no woman since the beginning of creation has been able to give a clear description of what actual labor feels like, we’re all just guessing. Plus, by the time you’re close to that nine-month mark, your nerves are so frayed that you can feel a sneeze coming on and think your water broke.

Who even knows what a contraction feels like before they’ve had any experience? There are a lot of ways to describe getting hit by a freight train, being ripped in half, or feeling like a wrung-out towel. Yes, we get it, it hurts. But when you’re pregnant, there’s a lot that hurts, and who knows whether that pain you’re feeling in your gut is the onset of labor, or the result of that taco you ate last night?  So you play it safe, go to the hospital, where they will shake their heads and send you home.  There you sit on your couch, with the remote in your hand. You’d like to watch a movie, but you don’t have the energy to get up, so you flip channels. There’s nothing on at 4 am, so you end up watching Full House reruns, wondering whatever happened to the Olson twins.

And you solemnly swear to yourself that next time you go to the hospital, it will be for real.  Unfortunately, you find yourself in the exact same position three days later (it’s those damn Braxton-Hicks contractions, how are you supposed to tell the difference?) and the medical personnel treats you nice, and says things like It’s okay, we see this all the time. Don’t worry about it! Of course, their eyes tell an entirely different story; they think you’re stupid and hysterical and decide for the gazillionth time that they just have to change careers, right now, so they won’t have to deal with you ever again.

The hardest part about labor is waiting. You’ve already waited for so long, and it’s not just your imagination, those last days really do take forever. Having said that, it’s easy to see why pregnant women fall for the false labor signs so easily; a trip to the hospital covers at least a few hours, and what else are you supposed to do to entertain yourself? You’ve already yelled at your husband 5,726 times, none of your friends still want to talk to you because you have nothing new to say, and even your own mother has her cell phone permanently set to voicemail.

The second type of false labor happens when you want to get rid of visitors, or you are forced to go somewhere and you really want to leave. You pretend, and if you’re ballsy enough, this can be done as soon as you are seven months along. Put your hands on your lower back; put your hands on your stomach; go to the bathroom and splash just enough water on your face to make it look like you’re sweating. Refuse all food.  Sigh deeply, pretend to have a cramp. Most people don’t know what to expect, and those of us who know what labor is like won’t dare argue with a woman who says: “It’s Time.” Honestly, this will get you out of anything with lightning speed; just writing about it makes me almost sorry I’m not pregnant anymore. It’s such a handy excuse to have.

People that are visiting will want to help; you need to tell them your husband is on the way and right now you’d like to lie down and be alone. If you are somewhere else, make sure you have a trusted friend available, who can pretend to drive you to your hospital.  Otherwise you won’t know who is going to volunteer, and then you are stuck. Once in the car, you can go shopping or see a movie. If you run into any of these people later, you just tell them you were having BH contractions; they’ll understand. Or not; who cares?

The only advice I can give you about all this labor business is this: when labor really starts, you’ll know. You really, really will. 

I think.

Maybe.

You went for that check-up and found out the gender of your baby; congratulations, you can finally decide on a name and finalize the décor in the nursery.  In case you are having a boy, there are certain things to consider.

This is a good time to take a closer look at your homeowners insurance; also, if you own any glass tables, get rid of them now. You can’t have those around boys, whether they’re two, or seventeen years old.

One big advantage: no need to worry anymore about decorating the baby room; paint the walls blue and call it good. More is not required, since pretty things will be destroyed as soon as baby can walk. You might want to put some pillows on the floor; boys will climb on anything, and can scale walls with their bare hands. They’ll need something soft to fall on.

Find all things that are remotely stick shaped (brooms, snow shovels, curtain rods, you name it) and lock them in the garage. If you own a baseball bat, take it to goodwill. Little boys will sense it if there’s a bat hiding somewhere and break down the door to get to it. Then they will use it to go after either the fish tank, or your head.

Wet wipes need to be everywhere, not just next to the changing table. Keep them at your desk, in the kitchen, the basement, and the living room; keep them in your car, your dining room, anywhere baby will go. You’ll use them five times as much if your baby is male; at the age of five, it sort of evens out.

Take boxing lessons; it’s a handy way to learn self defense, which mostly consists of being fast on your feet. You need to know how to duck, or you will get punched and have your hair pulled constantly.

Boys like a place to hide; maybe it’s that caveman-thing. They want something that roughly resembles a fort; sometimes a sheet thrown over the dining room table is enough. Once inside their ‘fort’, they don’t do anything exciting or secretive, although they’d like us to believe they do. Mostly they just sit there. Hiding. Thinking about god-knows-what.

Boys instinctively know how to kick a soccer ball smack in the middle of the flowerbed that you just planted yesterday. They never miss.

Boys will not potty-train unless you threaten to throw away their favorite toy; don’t wait too long with that. A twelve-year-old who still needs a diaper is unattractive and won’t have any friends. You want him to make friends; it guarantees he will be out of your hair at least part of the time.

Boys will laugh hysterically when they burp or pass gas; it’s genetic. They miss that oh-so important extra X-chromosome; you guessed it, the chromosome that holds the key to manners, shopping, and the ability to pick up your dirty socks and place them in a hamper.