by Una LaMarche
So ask yourself, what has four thumbs and is fucking up his or her offspring no matter what? You and me, baby! Now give me a high five and let’s go do some more unwitting damage to those precious little angels.
To Sleep, Perchance to—Nope. No Chance. Give Up Now.
(See also: the betrayal of Ryan Gosling, recounted earlier.)
Sleeping through the night doesn’t seem like such a hard task. Not to brag, but I used to do it all the time. One minute I would be struggling to decode a Will Shortz pun, the next minute: Sunlight! Garbage trucks! Some jerk honking! A new day dawned.
Babies, however, appear not to have gotten the memo. There is no kind way to say this: they sleep like assholes.
There is literally nothing you will obsess about more in the first year of parenthood than your child’s sleep patterns. At social gatherings, it will be all you can talk about. You’ll want to know who’s getting it, how often, and how deep. How long does it last? you’ll ask friends breathlessly over cocktails. Twenty minutes? Three hours? Six? Sleep is to the rest of your life what sex was to your twenties: you talk about it much more often than you do it, and your roommates present a considerable obstacle.
At home, more tired than you ever thought possible, you will read studies in small print by the light of your iPhone. You will make logs of night wakings only to find in the morning that you accidentally used a lo-mein-encrusted chopstick and a DVD case to record this vital information. You will volunteer nap schedules—without prompting—to total strangers. You will study the creaky floorboards in your house like a military operative searching for land mines in Afghanistan.
I can’t stop you from doing this. However, I can tell you that no matter how your child sleeps or how you choose to address it, sleep for everyone will probably suck for the first year at least. If you don’t sleep train (i.e., suffer through the dreaded “cry-it-out”), it will suck because it’s unpredictable and erratic, and if, like me, you give up and let the kid into your bed, you run the risk of getting head-butted in the night. If you do sleep train, it will suck because you’ll be sentenced to live out the same schedule over and over, like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day only with less imminent death (and sleep-trained babies love to relapse, especially during tropical vacations). So chill. It sucks for everyone. Find peace in the knowledge that you can’t really fuck up baby sleep, because it is inherently fucked. Anyone who says otherwise is not to be trusted.
Your Life Will Resemble a Michael Myers Movie More than a Nancy Meyers Movie
Thanks to a brain steeped in decades of neat and tidy pop culture parenting, I believed for the first few months that it was only a matter of time before I was back to my old self—having weekly drinks with girlfriends, wearing clothes not exclusively made of jersey, sipping lattes and buying baguettes while somehow pulling off a beret and then returning home to type away on my laptop for hours. Never mind that my life had never been like that to begin with. I stuck my fingers in my ears and indulged in hallucinations of motherhood as a shiny, happy montage of HAVING IT ALLness, with a child who would fit right in as the adorable, character-building sidekick who would dance with me in the kitchen to upbeat Motown songs while we made cupcakes and licked the batter off the spoons. Everyone needs life goals, and mine, apparently, was a Kate Hudson movie.
I don’t even think I included “showered every day” or “didn’t cry once for a whole half hour” in my fantasy, because those were givens in my rosy, perfect life, in which the fridge would overflow with bowls of ripe organic fruits, and someone else’s poop would never accidentally get on my pants.
[Needle-screech-on-record sound effect.] Ha-ha, no. Parenthood is basically the opposite of everything I just said. Of course there are plenty of transformative moments, but those generally take place when you are on the toilet by yourself. The rest of it is messy, both physically and emotionally. You will survive it, but it will not always be pretty. This is normal.
It Pays to Treat Your Partner Like Doug E. Doug
My relationship with my husband, Jeff, was rock solid before our son came along. We used to be able to say things to each other like, “Okay, today’s agenda is: smoke pot, have sex, and get haircuts. Which order should we do them in?” We loved spending time together but we also relished our time apart. We thought we would make the coolest parents.
Then the baby came, and our marriage, like everything else, changed completely overnight. I’m not going to lie, during the first few years we took a few detours into some Edward Albee territory. Sneers and eye rolls replaced high fives and steamy make-out sessions. Suddenly, all the attention and patience and affection we used to save for each other was going to the baby, and things often got heated (in the unsexy way). Not everyone will have marriage problems after having kids; don’t get scared. But if you do, know that you’re going to have to work hard to learn how to nurture the relationship again. Like everything else about parenthood, it will be messy and tiring, but ultimately rewarding and even kind of life affirming. I think it helps when things are bad to think of the two of you as Derice and Sanka from Cool Runnings. You’re out of your element and up against almost insurmountable odds, but if you maintain a sense of humor and trust in John Candy, you’ll make it to the finish line one way or another.
“If Mama Ain’t Happy, Ain’t Nobody Happy” Sounds Like a Crappy Tyler Perry Movie but Is Also Totally True
All the organic, fair-trade, pasture-raised Play-Doh and eight-hundred-count recycled hemp crib sheets in the world won’t matter if you don’t feel at least reasonably happy and cared for. This means taking time—by force or even, God forbid, Yo Gabba Gabba! if necessary!—to eat, sleep, and do things that matter to you, whether that’s work or crappy reality TV or a manicure or a spin class. If you find yourself flailing, or fantasizing about getting into a nonfatal car accident so that you can finally “relax” in the hospital, please get help. See a therapist; get meds if necessary. Or just shell out for a sitter and schedule a night with friends when you can bitch about your problems and get tipsy and feel like the old you again. Whatever gets you to a better place. Your happiness matters. It matters just as much as your child’s happiness, because your child’s happiness depends on you. Everything depends on you. No pressure or anything, Jesus.
But seriously, if there’s one thing I want you to take away from this, it’s that in two-plus years I have learned really only five things. And one of them is not how to stop sleeping in my jeans so often.
On the plus side, I wake up fully dressed. Being a mom is all about shortcuts.
TEN CHILDREN’S PRODUCTS I REFUSE TO ORDER BECAUSE THEY SOUND TOO MUCH LIKE BDSM ACCESSORIES AND I NEED TO KEEP MY NSA PROFILE LOW
1. Vinyl Punisher
2. Double pounding bench
3. Ring and trap combo
4. Deluxe Monkey Bouncer
5. Hammer Balls
6. Whipslammer
7. Elephant harness
8. Drop-seat pajamas
9. Glow-in-the-dark Gimp
10. Erector set
Book Club Cheat Sheet
First of all, congratulations for being in a book club. That is totally great. I was in a book club once, for about three months. I made it to two meetings, ate about eleven free bagels, and “read” one of the books—by which I mean I read the first chapter, skimmed the middle, and glanced at the ending. That, I have found, is usually enough to get by in a book club, especially if yours serves booze. I hope you arrived at this page because you actually read the whole book chronologically, stopping only to binge-watch your favorite TV show or make nachos, but just in case you weren’t able to finish it in time, here are some things to say or ask that will make it sound like you read the whole book really closely:
Is Una a reliable narrator? Would the book have been better told from the perspective of someone else, like Holden Caulfield, or Janice Dickinson?
Una compares herself, physically, to men many times in the book. Is this just overcompensating for her rampant insecurity with aggressive self-deprecation, or does she suffer from traditional Freudian penis envy?
Based on the rampant lies she admits to in “Late Bloomer,” is it possible that “Jeff” does not exist? Assuming that’s the case, who helps Una zip up her ill-fitting Anthropologie purchases?
I felt the book was Kafkaesque in its surreal distortion, sense of impending danger, and copious references to The Real Housewives franchise.
This book changed my life. After reading it, I deleted my online cart full of Old Navy formal gaucho overalls and filled a garbage can with expired Nair bottles, cheap liquor, and Adidas shower shoes, which I then set ablaze. Mistake. I had to call the fire department, but while they extinguished my lawn I had time to reflect on my residual feelings for Rider Strong from Boy Meets World. Then, once the firefighters left, I resisted the urge to text my friends with an invented sexual encounter, and instead binge-watched old Friends episodes while eating a replica of the Taj Mahal I had constructed out of Pringles and Marshmallow Fluff. I feel pretty much the same as if I had gone to an ashram or been struck by lightning. I’m a better person, a better friend, a better lover, and I’m more respectful of others when sharing a public restroom experience. How can I nominate this book for a Nobel Prize, preferably via text or e-mail?
*FactGrabber.com, “where curiosity meets accuracy.”
*User “Wikko,” mmo-champion.com/threads/1237262-Unibrow-Thread/page2.
*Uncyclopedia.wikia.com, “the content-free encyclopedia.”
*I wrote this before you got engaged, George; please forgive me.
*And do not talk to me about the “pregnant man.” He had a uterus. I will be amazed when a man carries a baby in his scrotum, okay?
*I realize that’s not very specific, since the forty-week pregnant belly casts a significant shadow. So, for clarity, what I mean is, in the genitals.
*I gave birth in my house. On purpose. It was a little awkward telling the neighbors beforehand (it helped that I gave them wine and earplugs) but otherwise great.
*In 2013, it would be identified in a study as the saddest geographical spot in Manhattan.
*My computer teacher at the same school was Ms. Klitnick. Coincidence or hiring policy?
*You can safely assume that if you’re reading about anything that happened to me between 1989 and 1992, I was wearing troll doll earrings at the time. If it was December, they were dressed as Santa.
*Many years later, I would include this line in a young adult novel, and my editor would tell me it was too “on the nose” to be believable.
*This one, possibly, was invented just so they could see my boobs. I will never know.
*His worst offense? Introducing an eight-year-old to the word “cockmaster” during a burst of road rage. That or the star-spangled overalls; it’s kind of a toss-up.
*And also because I was rejected from Swarthmore. One more place I can never go back (see page 50).
*I.
*Science fiction aficionados might refer to this as “teleportation,” but since I spent my leisure time listening to Garrison Keillor tapes instead of watching Star Trek, I believed I had come up with the concept.
*Now that I read the words out loud, it doesn’t actually seem that responsible. But apparently teetotalers have shorter life spans, so my hands are tied.
*As of this writing, Girl Scout cookies were not available online, but in December 2014, in what I can only assume was a response to an early galley disseminated deep into the organization’s headquarters, they relented and justice prevailed. You’re welcome.
*Why, for instance, do the movies shown on Greyhound buses appear to have been selected by a panel of blind people who have recently emerged from comas? A true story: I was once on a bus from Washington, DC, to New York, and my friend and I had forgotten to bring reading material. As the bus started moving, the driver announced over the intercom that he would be starting a movie momentarily. My friend made an excited noise, at which the intercom once again buzzed to life. “You say that now,” the driver cautioned. My friend and I laughed and looked at each other. How bad can it be? we asked ourselves. Was there really a movie out there that could make a three-hour bus trip worse? Actually, yes. Its name is The Adventures of Pluto Nash. Another time I was subjected to Agent Cody Banks 2.
*It’s in silhouette, and most people assume it’s a camel, which is somehow even worse.
*I have never interviewed Dave Coulier. I wish!
*I feel that this phrase requires all caps because when I think it in my head, it’s in the inspirationally angry bark of Coach Eric Taylor from Friday Night Lights.
*Also: making up words.
*This heartwarming moment was tempered somewhat by the following exchange:
ME: Didn’t Chet Baker die young?
JEFF: No, but he was a heroin addict. He hid out in Europe in the sixties and lost all his teeth.
*This is a trick question, as they are the same thing.
*This is also what vaginal childbirth feels like, from a structural standpoint.
*Unless you have more than one child, in which case you know all this already and are probably giving me the “talk to the hand” gesture, because in my mind it is forever 1994.
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