Happy St. Patrick’s Day, everyone! ☘️
In keeping with my “positively happy” theme, I thought it would be fun to write a “you know you’re a parent when” blog based on some of my experiences. A little levity in this dreary time, if you will. I’ve been jotting these playful pearls down for months and figured it’s time to share them. I know it’s been done before but I couldn’t resist adding my own twist (look, mom, I’m a poet, and I didn’t know it! 😊). So, grab yourself a Guinness, uhhh, I mean a cup of coffee, and let’s get to it!
You know you’re a parent when:
1. Your reading material in the bathroom consists of a talking “Princess” media player, Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?, and a flip-tab book on Noah’s Ark.
2. You know each and every tiny, miniscule spot on your hardwood floors that creaks as you sneak downstairs in the wee hours of the morning and you skirt around them like a ballerina on a minefield—even if it means breaking your neck, dislocating a joint, or, most importantly, spilling your luscious cup of joe.
3. “Shave” and “wash hair” suddenly show up on your to-do list—every.single.week.
4. You harbor some form of exotic illness 11 months out of the year and barely bat an eye—after dodging every sickness bullet for the few decades you spent on Earth prior to having kids.
5. You’re alone on your couch and find yourself glued to your child’s favorite cartoon show. And then you realize you’re singing (sometimes dancing) along and relishing it as if you’re Madonna in the ‘80s belting out “Papa Don’t Preach” on the picnic table in your parents’ backyard. Come on, don’t tell me I’m the only girl who did this?!
6. You’re willing to nosh on your child’s semi-chewed foods, or drink their backwash, like it’s nobody’s business, even though the thought of this in your past life would have induced an hours-long dry heave followed by an intense vomiting episode.
7. You’re no longer surprised or disgusted when you find a decayed, rotted piece of food in or under the couch. Moreover, you accept that your couch smells like a dirty, wet dog wearing sweaty month-old gym socks, and sometimes even enjoy it.
8. You find your child munching on some sort of crunchy morsel that she discovered while crawling on the floor underneath a chair at the airport—the same child who gags upon eating any healthy, delicious, homemade meal you place before her.
9. You find a pink baby doll spoon on the floor of your master bedroom shower (your long-ago one-time sanctuary) or a brown plastic chicken floating in a toy potty chair that’s now taken up residence in the corner of your downstairs bathroom.
10. You’ve assumed the role of “evening snack bitch” for a duo of starving wildebeests in the hours-long stretch between dinner and bedtime.
11. You’re willing to leave the house wearing clothes covered in food, spit, or other forms of mucus because “‘it’s not as bad” as what you’re used to walking around in.
12. You look forward to relaxing at the dentist and gynecologist.
13. Your idea of a great date night is browsing and schmoozing through the local Costco. Free dinner on Costco, biotches!
14. You own a Subaru (which you absolutely adore) and you’ve actually heard your husband mutter “You wouldn’t want a minivan by any chance, would you?”
15. It’s 7:36 a.m. and you’ve already gone to the bank and drug store, finished your grocery shopping (at TWO stores), folded two loads of laundry, made four different lunches, and gotten a jump-start on dinner. Then you’re yawning incessantly by 4:30 p.m. because you’ve already been up for 15-plus hours. But, hey, at least you’ve still got the evening snack bitch extravaganza to look forward to!
16. You find yourself picking up random snot rags all over the house. Not to mention dirty underwear and endless amounts of socks. Always the socks!!!! If you’ve ever read the book Hedgehugs then you’ll understand what I mean when I say we must have thousands of these little boogers around our property because socks constantly go missing around here. It’s bananas!
17. You write lists to keep track of the lists for your other lists because your schedule is so jam-packed. Lists you eventually can’t read because your chicken scratch is crammed into every available white space on the paper.
18. You’re willing to give up an arm, a leg, or even your firstborn if necessary, as long as you don’t have to hear the words “mom” or “dad” ever again—or at least for an hour.
19. Black and swollen “luggage bags” take up permanent residence beneath your eyeballs and no amount of medication or topical cream can make them go away. Same goes for those hot and heavy saddlebags these ragamuffins rode in on.
20. Adult conversations morph into a spelling bee on crack and your spouse (or whomever else you’re attempting to communicate with) can’t spell quickly enough to understand anything you’re trying to say.
21. You find yourself saying things like “Why aren’t you wearing underwear or pants?” or “Why are there boogers all over the wall behind your bed?” or “How did poop get smeared all the way down this indoor slide?”
22. Your liquor cabinet has never been so full—like, ever.
23. You vehemently swear you’ll never have sex ever again because 1) it could lead to further procreation and 2) the thought of being touched or hugged or caressed in any way sends shivers down your spine—and not in a good way—after having spent all day being pawed at and clung to by a double dose of preschoolers.
24. The sexiest words ever uttered by your spouse are “I’ll handle bedtime tonight.”
And finally:
25. You realize that no matter how crazy or angry or annoyed or paranoid or horrified or sad they make you, you love these beautiful humans you created more than anything in the world and you’d lay down your life for them in a heartbeat—over and over and over again.
And there you have it! I cracked myself up writing these and hopefully I made some of you chuckle, too. We may be quarantined and prohibited from, well, life right now, but we can still laugh and create our own moments of merry (maniacal or not)! Hang in there and keep smiling, my friends. Oh, and if you have any of your own personal “you know you’re a parent when” gems, please share them! We can all use as many laughs as we can get these days!