We have great children. Of course, nearly every parent you talk to will tell you the same about their children. It's rare to find a parent who doesn't enjoy regaling friends, family, and even strangers with stories that explicate just how smart, cute, funny, and in general 'amazing' their children really are. People without children most likely find this tiresome and at the least, annoying, and I apologize on behalf of parents everywhere. But honestly, we can't help it. Those cute little anecdotes and dozens of pictures taken with that horrible fake mall Santa just seem to fly out like a soapy kid down a Slip-n-Slide. (And thanks to modern technology, you can be instantly alerted and inundated; which means creepy mall Santa picks sent right to your smartphone!) Anyway, I digress.
My husband and I love our kids and there's not much we'd rather be doing than spending time with them. That being said, there are a lot of things no one told us about parenting. As expecting or even new parents, you receive a lot of unsolicited advice. Even the person in the checkout line in front of you will, at some point, better know how to raise your child than you. Some advice turns out to be great. Some is well-intentioned but outrageously impractical. However, of all these advice-givers, not many will give you the true gems of parenthood. The things you need not only for the big picture, but for daily survival. So let's talk about what really happens when you become a parent. The things no one wants to tell you about beforehand because if they did you would hide in a hole, terrified to come out lest these things they call 'children' slather you in bodily fluids and eat you alive....
Sleep when the baby sleeps. Let's be real. Your first few weeks at home with your newborn will be spent standing over his/her crib, bassinet, or other napping place staring intently at said newborn's chest checking for signs of life. 'Are you sure she's still breathing?? Should we poke her just in case? Oh no, wait, her chest just moved!' (And insert both parents' simultaneous exhales here.) Never fear, this phase will pass and you will soon be able to check on the infant at 3am, find and return the pacifier to that tiny mouth, and fall back into your own bed for the next twenty minutes of uninterrupted sleep, all without ever having opened your eyes! As an added bonus, you will also find you ARE able to function the next day on those twenty minutes of uninterrupted sleep! Yay you!!
Bio-hazard containment. You will quickly become accustomed to all manner of bodily fluids and functions. At one point or another, you will accidentally ingest vomit, poop, snot, slobber, or likely, all of the above. The first time it will be gross. You might gag or even get sick. The second, third, fourth, fifth....you get the picture? All the times thereafter,you will perfect what I like to call 'wet wipe efficiency.' This is the practiced swipe of a single wet wipe to ensure all bodily fluids are removed and contained in the small pre-moistened rectangle that surely was an invention of God himself. You will, in fact, become so proficient in this skill, you will be able to perform it without looking at your target, one-handed and backward, while driving and in a manner that will save the fluid from ever making contact with your children's clothes, thus saving their super-cute church outfit just in the nick of time. (HINT: It's all in the wrist.)
Never say never. NEVER utter the words, "When I have kids, they/I/we will NEVER......" Don't say it! Don't even think it! By doing so, you will be dooming yourself to the very thing you want most NOT to happen. Trust me. It's a dangerous road. Before we had kids, I swore to everyone and everything that our children would NOT sleep in our bed. No way. Not going to happen. Due to my horrid indiscretion in voicing this NEVER thought, my husband and I currently sleep on approximately four to five inches of bed space while our two-year-old daughter stretches sideways and/or upside down across the remaining area, snoring soundly while she uses my face as a pillow and rests her feet on my husband's ear. (Word of warning: Moving a child in this position is a delicate operation and needs to be undertaken with the utmost care. If the transition is not a totally smooth one, the child will wake shrieking when her body hits the ice-cold, razor sharp, flower-patterned sheets of the dreaded toddler bed and you will be forced to endure thirty more minutes of squirming, kicking, twisting toddler before she is comfortable enough to sleep again; in your bed.)
Make friends with clutter. Cleaning is something I do on a daily/weekly basis, depending on the chore at hand. De-cluttering is a rusty skill remembered from a time when I didn't own any Thomas trains and there was no baby-doll play food picnic held in my kitchen every day. There's a large difference in clean and clutter-free. Find it, understand it, and make peace with it. In our house, clean dishes, laundry, and toilets ALWAYS supersede floors free of kid-litter (books, dolls, cars, trains, and pirate accessories). On the other hand, keep in mind some clutter is dangerous and should always be attended to before lights-out. Prime example: Legos. Legos are great toys and provide my son and husband with hours of enjoyable time together. However, a stray Lego in the kitchen floor after dark will sprout Ginsu knife blades and shards of glass.
Home-economics anyone? All those things you thought you 'couldn't' do before you had
kids (i.e. cooking, baking, sewing, and any other domestic achievement you had no interest in)? Yeah,
you'll wake up one day and find you've learned to do them all. At the
same time. And when your kids are grown, I expect you'll actually have time to enjoy doing them. In the meantime, you have
the next twenty years or so to perfect your skills. The product of the countless hours you will spend in the kitchen, covered in flour and sweating profusely. The hours spent poring over cookbooks and sewing machine manuals and wondering in the end why
the hat you're sewing for the baby doll has parsley sewn into the hem and
the chicken breasts smell like Pledge. And then one day, years from now, you'll be a super-cool grandma who not only can whip up some awesome chocolate chip cookies, but can sew a pair of shoes at the same time!
Most importantly, and in spite of everything I've listed above, you will love your child more than your own life. There will be times when you won't be sure you have what it takes to parent them. There will be times you will feel like you don't have any more patience, understanding, or even sanity left to face the remaining hours of the day. There will be days you may not like your children very much (you will feel this especially as you navigate a shopping trip with a smart-mouthed kindergartener) and days you feel like a failure (days like when the Easter Bunny left the goodies under mommy and daddy's bed instead of in the baskets). But you will always love them. You may not realize it until they are asleep at night (still and quiet go along way toward nurturing good feelings), but parenting is one looong labor of love. Our kids demand a lot from us (namely candy, just five more minutes of TV, apple juice, candy). And though we know better than to give them everything they want, we can always give them what they need; love. In His infinite wisdom, God tells us, "Love suffers long...bears all things...endures all things." And when you're mopping up the third cup of hot chocolate spilled in a day or desperately searching for the Poison Control hotline number because your daughter might or might not have ingested nail polish, you're going to want to remember this tidbit of advice:
Love never fails.
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