Your Plans Are Garbage
“They might as well be the coffee can you put your fried chicken oil in”
This is a fake picture.
OK it’s not a “Fake” picture like photoshopped or anything but it DOES give the illusion this cute baby here, my Luna (around 8 or 9 months old), actually spent any substantial amount of time….in a crib.
We messed up. Screwed the pooch. Took a deep left turn.
We had her in this co-sleeper bassinet thing that attached to our bed to create one seamless bed, like an infinity pool for poor people. When we broke it down and packed it up to transition her to a crib, we had the crib frame and mattress…. but no screws and bolts.
So we put her in our bed.
NEVER EVER I repeat, EV-ER put your baby in your bed at night if you even wish on a teeny tiny star they will sleep in a crib.
And why the hell would they?
They have their servant, I mean Mama, RIGHT THERE.
You know how Luna got in this crib?
I put her pacifier on her crib mattress, she reached in to get it and I grabbed my phone to take a pic because I KNEW it was the only time she would spend time in there.
I tried to lay down on the bed and watch “There Will Be Blood” from Netflix (when you actually got movies in the mail) and she cried so hard before the beginning credits were over, I just gave up and got her out.
Yeah go ahead, call me soft…at this point in my life I accept and embrace it.
I asked my mother in law about the crib thing. She said my husband (as a baby) slept in a drawer…. DRAWER!!!!!
My childhood homie just looked at Luna in our bed and said “You’re gonna pay for this”.
She was right. Luna slept in our bed til she was four years old.
One day at pre-school, her friends got wind she she slept in our bed and teased her about it. She asked for her own bed because Peer Pressure WORKS.
When I had our son 5 years later I was determined to not go down this road again.
We got a bassinet from my brother and sister in law . Four months in, we found out our apartment had bed bugs.
So after I cried for about two hours, I bagged up everything and threw MOST of it away.
- Bed bugs, yeah you think it’s gonna be from a movie theatre or a grimy guest but it came from a romance novel I borrowed on vacation. That’s what I get for reading romance novels past the age of 30
Anyway…Bye Bye Bassinet.
And we forgot to buy a crib.
There goes 3 more years of a kid in our bed.
When you’re pregnant there’s all kinds of books that tell you exactly what you should be doing, but the truth is — Your Plans Are Garbage.
They might as well be the coffee can you put your fried chicken oil in.
Because kids don’t give a damn about your dreams, wants, career, youth, effects of sleep deprivation and most of all… your pithy little plans.
When she was 2, my daughter threw up on my head right after fresh, expensive, took-10-hours braids.
My son went through a phase (around 3 years old) where he played with his crap, yes, his damn feces and ran up to me and smeared it on my face.
I had shit on my mouth.
I cried…cause that’s what I do.
Then I scrubbed my face 4 times and put my pajamas on in anticipation tomorrow would be a better day.
It was was 4 in the afternoon and I was done. I put on Sade and remembered when I was child free, a size four and my face hadn’t met shit.
I didn’t plan for that.
I didn’t plan for the fact that NEITHER of my kids would let me breastfeed.
Luna had a maternity ward nurse give her a bottle on day two and that was it for her.
Razi had a high palate.
And don’t even try to say “But did you REALLY try?” cause I will find you and strangle your smug ass.
YES I TRIED…IT WASN’T IN THE CARDS.
Silver lining —For one year I became a world class pumper. I pumped so much milk I donated gallons of it to the International Breast Milk Project…I saw it on Oprah.
In contrast, Razi got 5 months of breast milk, then the well dried up…..not in my plans either…sorry Dude.
How could I know ANY of this was gonna happen?
My plans were destroyed and I felt sorry for myself….until a new friend told me her daughter’s father went out to run errands for their baby shower and never came back.
Straight up…he bounced. Said he couldn’t do it.
Yeah…Plans
If I want a good laugh I watch a young couple pregnant with their first kid make all these plans like ….
- “We’re never gonna give our kids junk food”
- “TV is terrible. No TV for them”
- “Only private school for my Hayden and Chloe. Public schools are DANGEROUS”
and my favorite…
4. “We plan to phase the baby into OUR LIVES. We can still do everything”
Here’s the reality
- Junk food is your goddamned friend. How else will you bribe them?
- TV is a necessity when you’re on a deadline. And the Backyardigans are DOPE.
- Private School? You have 36 G’s for that?
- “Phase the baby into our lives” ….Ha!!!!! You must be high!!!!!
Your time spent parenting will be just like your birth.
You’ll take Lamaze, watch 10,000 videos for your water birth, some complication will happen and everything goes put the window.
The doc will tell you “We just need to get the baby out”.
And that’s pretty much how it is with parenting — You need to get the baby out.
You need to get the baby out of colic.
You need to get the baby out of needing your breast.
You need to get the baby out of throwing toilet paper in the bowl and flushing it down.
You need to get the baby out your house and into a school.
You need to get the baby out of that damn “public tantrum phase”. This is where they fall out on the floor and let everyone in Target know your shit is not together.
You need to get the baby out.
And however you do it is how it gets done.
So I say the ONLY Plan that works is…..
A. Take it as it comes
……….there’s no B. Just take it as it comes.
Roll with it. See what tomorrow brings and don’t cry too hard because when all is said and done
Your MUST remember…..
Your Plans are just your way of convincing yourself you’re in control of life’s twists and turns.
Which you aren’t.
You’re just lucky something worse hasn’t happened and blessed all that great stuff did.
Write ALL your parenting plans down in pencil.
Because Life will be your eraser.
#TheStraightTruth
#YesIamThatMom
