Run on sentences for mothers. And bloggers.
by Andrea Mulder-Slater
It’s approximately five years ago and you - feeling particularly blank and sweaty - are feeding your pudgy infant for the umpteenth time that day when, in an exhausted stupor, it occurs to you that you haven’t changed a poopy diaper in oh I don’t know, two - or maybe six - days.
So you panic and immediately call the exclusively-breastfed baby help line at the hospital and the woman on the other end of the phone – who sounds inexplicably like your Aunt Trix – asks you if the baby seems happy. “Yes”, you reply, “I suppose so.” I mean, how are you supposed to know? You’ve never been in charge of a three-month-old before and sure she seems content. I mean, she eats constantly and sleeps whenever she wants, so yeah, she’s freaking ecstatic. Wouldn’t you be Aunt Trix?
“Does her belly hurt?” No.
“Is she passing wind?” Yes.
“Is she curled up and writhing in pain?” No.
You’re told that your child is not constipated and her bowel isn’t twisted and no, you aren’t a horrible mother. Your baby is just busy absorbing all the nutrients from her diet and breastfed babies are known to go as many as twelve or more days without a movement, so relax, keep on feeding her and when you’re nearing in on day ten, watch out, because you’ll be dealing with a soft serve ice cream machine.
All of this is reassuring until several days later when you’re walking through a TJ Maxx in Tallahassee, longing for a time when you might possibly be able to wear a pair of low cut jeans again when you look down at your daughter just as she makes THE FACE.
That’s when you realize that today is day ten and what the hell were you thinking going shopping with a time bomb who could blow at any moment but that doesn’t matter now because now you are running out to your car after forgetting to pay for the maternity t-shirt draped over your shoulder and who cares about a shoplifting charge because a horrific beast is about to unleash itself in a diaper with a surface area slightly larger than an international postage stamp.
But before you can get the car door open something unspeakable happens as your teeny tiny innocent smiles and coos while the odor overtakes you. So you begin to unravel the puzzle that is her onesie inside of which you know is a cross between a jumbo sized can of cheap dog food and death, but by the time you get to the diaper, your face is so scrunched up - like a dried apple doll - that you can barely see and by the time you open your eyes you stare in amazement and say to the child – your child...
“What? That’s all?”
My fellow bloggers, does all of this sound familiar?
No?
Maybe this will refresh your memory...
I get it. You’re busy. Life has taken over. You’ve lost track of time.
Lies, lies, ALL LIES!
The truth is, you’re blocked. I know it's true because I’m in the bathroom stall next to you.
Sure you’ve been tooting out 140 characters on Twitter, but your usual 500 word blog posts are nowhere to be found as you keep absorbing your surroundings, waiting to squeeze out a monster sundae worthy of a Pulitzer. Or at the very least something you can upload to your blog this week that doesn’t include the words wordless and Wednesday.
But what if the sundae never materializes? What if at the end of day ten, all you end up with is a teeny, tiny, melted malted milk ball?
And it’s then that you realize you no longer know how to spell the word Wednesday without help from spell-check and so you decide that maybe - just maybe - it’s time to turn off the computer and go for a walk to unplug yourself, probably at a TJ Maxx.
No, really.
It’s approximately five years ago and you - feeling particularly blank and sweaty - are feeding your pudgy infant for the umpteenth time that day when, in an exhausted stupor, it occurs to you that you haven’t changed a poopy diaper in oh I don’t know, two - or maybe six - days.
So you panic and immediately call the exclusively-breastfed baby help line at the hospital and the woman on the other end of the phone – who sounds inexplicably like your Aunt Trix – asks you if the baby seems happy. “Yes”, you reply, “I suppose so.” I mean, how are you supposed to know? You’ve never been in charge of a three-month-old before and sure she seems content. I mean, she eats constantly and sleeps whenever she wants, so yeah, she’s freaking ecstatic. Wouldn’t you be Aunt Trix?
“Does her belly hurt?” No.
“Is she passing wind?” Yes.
“Is she curled up and writhing in pain?” No.
You’re told that your child is not constipated and her bowel isn’t twisted and no, you aren’t a horrible mother. Your baby is just busy absorbing all the nutrients from her diet and breastfed babies are known to go as many as twelve or more days without a movement, so relax, keep on feeding her and when you’re nearing in on day ten, watch out, because you’ll be dealing with a soft serve ice cream machine.
All of this is reassuring until several days later when you’re walking through a TJ Maxx in Tallahassee, longing for a time when you might possibly be able to wear a pair of low cut jeans again when you look down at your daughter just as she makes THE FACE.
That’s when you realize that today is day ten and what the hell were you thinking going shopping with a time bomb who could blow at any moment but that doesn’t matter now because now you are running out to your car after forgetting to pay for the maternity t-shirt draped over your shoulder and who cares about a shoplifting charge because a horrific beast is about to unleash itself in a diaper with a surface area slightly larger than an international postage stamp.
But before you can get the car door open something unspeakable happens as your teeny tiny innocent smiles and coos while the odor overtakes you. So you begin to unravel the puzzle that is her onesie inside of which you know is a cross between a jumbo sized can of cheap dog food and death, but by the time you get to the diaper, your face is so scrunched up - like a dried apple doll - that you can barely see and by the time you open your eyes you stare in amazement and say to the child – your child...
“What? That’s all?”
My fellow bloggers, does all of this sound familiar?
No?
Maybe this will refresh your memory...
Sorry I haven’t posted in a while…
I haven’t had a chance to blog…
It’s been too long since I blogged...
I haven’t posted in months...
I get it. You’re busy. Life has taken over. You’ve lost track of time.
Lies, lies, ALL LIES!
The truth is, you’re blocked. I know it's true because I’m in the bathroom stall next to you.
Sure you’ve been tooting out 140 characters on Twitter, but your usual 500 word blog posts are nowhere to be found as you keep absorbing your surroundings, waiting to squeeze out a monster sundae worthy of a Pulitzer. Or at the very least something you can upload to your blog this week that doesn’t include the words wordless and Wednesday.
But what if the sundae never materializes? What if at the end of day ten, all you end up with is a teeny, tiny, melted malted milk ball?
And it’s then that you realize you no longer know how to spell the word Wednesday without help from spell-check and so you decide that maybe - just maybe - it’s time to turn off the computer and go for a walk to unplug yourself, probably at a TJ Maxx.
No, really.