While my family and I are soakin' up the Hawaiian sun, you get to have some very special moms from around the blogging world, share their thoughts, stories and creativity surrounding the yummy topic of breastfeeding (and motherhood.)
This next guest blogger is the designer behind our favorite maternity line, Julia of Jules Ford Maternity.
{Does this gorgeous numba help refresh your memory?}
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| Julia & Baby Ford |
Anywho, this post originally came from Julia's hilarious personal blog Storks and Stilettos, the comedic misgivings of motherhood. I think you'll find it amusing and relate to the message at the end: sometimes we all need to just let go and let our significant others help out in any way they possibly can. So here it is...
Armani Doesn't Make a Blue "Tuxado"
I am not into decorating. It involves measuring which involves math (not my strong suit). My mother on the other hand thinks she’s freaking Jonathan Adler and every time she comes to visit, she confuses my house with the set of an HGTV show. As soon as she walks in the door she wants to rip everything apart. “Darling, your room is too square. You need to add some more circles." Add more circles? To this day I have no idea what the heck she was talking about. My house is an homage to all things gray because everything in my home is that hue with the exception of one room- the nursery. And so we begin………
I am married to the most heterosexual male one could imagine. He likes football, beer, books about war, and though he would never admit it, exotic dancers. “Honey, everyone went to the club but me. I went back to the hotel room and passed out." Sure you did Sweetheart. He dresses like a frat boy, acts like one, and uses the term “bro”. We actually had to plan our wedding around some stupid lame college football game.
So you could imagine my surprise when the one prenatal activity that he insisted on being a part of was decorating the nursery.
I knew it would be blue and classic because we were having a boy and although I am more of a mid century modern kind of gal, I did not want my infant sleeping in Studio 54. I had perused the usual stores and magazines and decided on the shade of blue, but really didn’t do anything else. Truthfully, I sort of forgot about it until one day my mother called me asking if I had gotten a crib. She asked why hadn’t I gone out this weekend to take care of it and she totally freaked me out for being unprepared. I hormonally took this as a direct reflection of my pending parenting skills... this baby didn’t have a call girls chance in church, and someone should just call CPS now.
So that afternoon, the hubs and I took a ride to the mall to check out the latest and greatest in baby gear.
Hubs: “So have you thought of a theme?”
Me: “A theme? A theme for what?”
Hubs: “The nursery!” the exasperation and annoyance in his voice was unnerving.
Me: “It’s a room not a Bar Mitzvah. And what do you know about themes and nurseries? Have you been watching Oprah again?”
Hubs: “Everyone knows you have to have a theme (eye roll)."
This should have been a clear sign of what was to come, but I was too busy trying not to throw up to read the writing on the wall.
As soon as we entered the store, my husband started skipping around like a school girl.
Hubs: “So, I’m thinking sailboats. A nice nautical theme. I love sailing and think he probably will too."
Me: “What the hell are you talking about? You’ve never even been on a sailboat. And I don’t think the theme is going to influence his life choices. What if we do a log cabin theme? Does that mean I’m giving birth to the Unabomber?”
He totally ignored me and then asked to speak to one of their "design specialists". This is when it went from Def-Con 4, to 5.
I had never seen such focus, such intensity. He was like one of those people who spray-tan their infants and enter them into beauty pageants- CRAZY. So here we have me, the size of Texas (and that’s only my cankles we are talking about), and my husband who has morphed into Franck Eggelhoffer (from Father of the Bride). Awesome. I found a little relief in a chair called a rocker (not the kind of rocker I used to know but this was Mommy world) that cost more than my car payment, while
Hurricane Window Treatment tore through the store. I swear, the employees must have thought I was the surrogate. I just sat there eating zucchini slices (a pregnancy staple of mine) while "Francky" danced around the store gathering up bedding, books, rugs, nightlights, you name it.
Hubs: “I like this bedding but I am not sure about the shade of blue.”
And that’s when I snapped.
Me: “SHADE? SHADE OF BLUE? The only shade of blue you’re going to have to worry about is the shade of blue your eye will turn after I smack you! What has gotten into you? You didn’t put this much thought into our marriage proposal and all of a sudden you’re going to start writing bad checks so we can turn the baby's room into the Never Land Ranch? YOU HAVE TOTALLY LOST YOUR CHICKEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
Clearly it was I who had lost their chicken (and mind) because now the entire store was staring at me.
Hubs: ”I just wanted to be a part of something," he said in this small little voice.
It was at that moment that I realized that I was the most rotten person in the world. I finished my zucchini (I needed a snack), got up from the rocker (took me about five minutes) waddled over to the counter, and threw down the AMEX.
From the day we announced our pregnancy, I heard from some mothers that as soon as the baby comes, the husband becomes useless. “It took him 45 minutes to give her a bath when it would have taken me 5,” they would complain. Well at least he’s helping I would think. That’s the thing. As soon as we hit
Mommy Mode we think we have to do it all ourselves, and then we try to do it all and then get pissed at our husbands for not helping. It’s a vicious cycle.
The hubs was just trying to help me out. Did he get a little too into it? Yes. Did he annoy the hell out of me? Yes. But anyone would have at that moment. As women, our job is to take care of the baby and we become good at it pretty quickly. Would you be able to go into your husband's office or whatever and be able to do what he does? Not without practice. So let him help. Let him clean your breast pump, dress the baby, whatever he is willing to do. I know some girls who have husbands who I swear don’t know they have fathered children. I don’t know who they think these small people are who sleep in their homes but again, that’s a blog for another time.
So let the husband bathe the baby, even if it takes twelve hours. We are supposed to be teaching our children patience, so maybe (just maybe) we should practice what we preach. Because if you are lucky enough to have him want to help, than you are lucky enough. Even if he does have a little Franck in him.
