A Public Service Announcement

I’ve been sitting on this post for a while. Debating on whether I should even put it out there. It’s got some unflattering pictures (not referring to the baby) but the more difficult part to reconcile is the truth it contains. I don’t know if you’re ready for it, but I feel a tremendous sense of obligation to pass this on.

Here’s a picture of me looking amazed at a baby:

This is a CUTE baby. We didn’t even have to lie to her parents about that; it’s true. I think she’s awesome. She has tater-tot feet and she wears mittens.

I was surprised that when CC and I got married, people began asking me when we were going to have kids.

Me: We have five kids. I think we’re good.

Them: No, I mean your own kids.

Yeah. Because I’m so on top of everything, so incredibly organized and overloaded with resources such as money, time, and patience, that I think what’s truly missing in our lives, with our five kids and two dogs, is an infant.

Nevermind the best twelve bucks CC ever spent.

Nevermind the insult both to me and the kids.

I’m going to tell you something about babies. Something that no one is talking about. It’s the Big Secret About Babies that isn’t discussed in polite company. I already told Little O’s parents, so they knew from way back. My sister, who will be giving birth any second now, knows this truth because it’s already happened to her twice.

We’re talking way beyond narcolepsy, drooling and poop. Lots of people go into the baby thing not knowing this part and they’re shocked when it happens to them. There’s a conspiracy of silence around parenthood that prevents most people from talking about it. The advantage of being a stepmom and jumping in right in the middle is that you don’t have built-in fairy tale fantasies about your babies. You’re faced with stark reality from the very first day. I’m objective. That’s why ima tell you this now.

The best you can hope for, and this is only if you are very, very lucky, is this:

Folks, babies turn into teenagers.

I am not making this up.

You’re welcome.

Doing the Math

Yesterday morning CC and I were sitting at the table, improving our minds via the internets on our laptops after the kids had gone to school. This week I came across a really funny blog that I started following, and then it got picked up on Freshly Pressed. I was reading the follow-up post out loud to CC because it was totally cracking me up. I clicked back twice on my browser and Freshly Pressed refreshed.

And there was Brickie, staring up at me with his purple curlicue and really goddamn big smile.

I cracked up all over again.

Wow and thanks are all I have to say. Because really, The Good Greatsby is way funnier than me and you should read his acceptance post. I tried to commission him to write my FP follow-up post but he’s wisely put multiple layers of protection in between his greatness and everything else, and he wasn’t willing to be paid in candy, which I feel is remarkably short-sighted of him.

Y’all left me a billion comments and I think that’s way cool. I am reading them, and checking out your stuff.

#5 is our resident math genius. He assured me, when I presented him with yesterday’s statistics (even though I claimed they were “just numbers” and refused to say anything else), that I got forty times the best traffic I’ve ever had.

I would use a calculator, but the kids have broken them all. I could find one on my computer, but I believe him for two reasons:

1) One time we came home from work and saw that the kids had been outside drawing with chalk on the driveway. Upon closer inspection we discovered that it was completely covered in numbers. The powers of ten, to be precise. It’s a rather large driveway. The babysitter mentioned that while they were all outside #5 disappeared. He had finished filling in our driveway and had started in on the next door neighbor’s. He was six at this time.

2) At the beginning of this school year, I was checking all of #5’s homework every day when he finished with it. One day I paused to check the math sheet he brought me in between loads of laundry and told him that all were correct except the last one. I carried on folding clothes. He came back and said, “What’s wrong with it?” and I snipped, “It’s the wrong answer.” I went back downstairs to switch laundry again. He came into the laundry room. “But which part of it is wrong?” and I snapped, “The answer part! The answer part is wrong!” It was typical early 3rd grade stuff, adding up a series of three numbers that were in the ten thousands. Finally he came back to me and said, “I’ve added these up every way I know how and still get the same answer.” So I looked at it again, and of course he was right. Because when I did it I didn’t carry the one.

There are moments as a parent when you can’t hide your assholery, and there’s only one thing to say.

I said, “Don’t ever let me check your math homework again.”

I have to break it to him tomorrow that he’s doing our taxes this year.

My 15-year-old-self never dreamed MTV would do this to me

There are two things I don’t do: go grocery shopping during peak hours, and bring the kids with me to the store. These boundaries are necessary to preserve whatever shreds of my sanity are left. I’m convinced that I have a genuine grocery store disorder, and when I don’t follow these rules, I’m liable to walk out of the store having spent a hundred bucks but without the ingredients to make a single complete meal. Like I’ll have frozen waffles and no syrup; marinara sauce but no pasta.

(This never happens to CC. He can walk into a grocery store at rush hour and walk out in fifteen minutes with our next six meals, all fresh food. He can also pull a meal together for the seven of us with enough for last-minute guests and have it on the table in twenty-five minutes. Husband Contest: I Won It.)

So what does an accidental stepmom do on a rare Sunday off when she discovers there’s no food in the house? If you answered order takeout you would be correct, except for the fact that we have to go look at cakes for #4’s upcoming birthday.

This is how we end up at the Shop Rite at 4pm on a Sunday afternoon, along with 22,012 of our closest neighbors.

The aisles are packed. There are no carts left. I can feel my tenuous grip on reality sliding away. Jersey broads are serious and hardcore, not to mention pointy, and they handle their shopping carts like they do their SUV’s. It’s terrifying. I’m from Indiana. I am out of my league here. Thank god my roadie training kicks in and I go into damage control mode.

The first thing I do is decide to make CC deal with the cake tomorrow.

The second thing I do is decide that everyone will be given lunch money because there is no way I can handle the mob scene at the deli counter to get lunch meat.

The third thing I do is let the kids pick dinner. They choose:

frozen pizza

frozen french fries

frozen bagel bites

I manage to pick up fresh salmon and spinach for CC and I. That’s all I can manage.

In the checkout line we wait for a while, and eventually get close enough to read the tabloid headlines. This sparks a lively conversation about Teen Mom, which I’ve never seen, but am vaguely aware of solely due to time spent waiting in checkout lines reading tabloid headlines.

#2: It’s stupid. It totally sends the wrong message.

#3: No, it shows how hard it is to have a baby when you’re, like, sixteen. Like, who would want that?

#2: Yeah, but then they give these idiots a TV show! What kind of message is that?

They proceed to argue about this. They are thirteen and fifteen, and I’m pretty proud of both of them right now.

#5: Julie, how does somebody get pregnant and have a baby when they’re sixteen?

This is the point where I should probably remind you that #5 is our only boy and eight years old.

Me: Because either they have sex without birth control or they have sex and their birth control fails.

He grows very quiet and tilts his head at me. The puppies do this when they’re trying to figure something out.

I turn back around and there’s the cashier, standing there, staring at me with her mouth open.

In my defense, it was a pretty deep question for the checkout line.