Sometimes when I'm in a waiting room with my children, (or a restaurant, grocery store, parking lot...you get the idea), I feel like apologizing to all the pregnant women present.
Not to the childless present. For all I know, they are swinging single, or have an empty nest, or whatever. After dealing with my whiny, shrieking tots they get to go home to...I don't know...read novels, go to the movies, clean their grout...whatever. No apologies from me, they can put up with a few annoying minutes in a waiting room.
Not to the other mothers and fathers. With them I share a silent eyeroll and shrug. I know they are thinking, "Thank God it isn't my kid for once."
But I DO want to apologize to the pregnant ladies. It could be their first pregnancy. In which case, watching my kids be...well, normal kids, is akin to telling a 5 year old there is no Santa. Shattering a dream that has inevitably formed in their head. They sit at home, their every need catered to by an attentive husband/mother/sister/anyone in the nearby vicinity. During all of their copious free time, they put their feet up and stroke their swollen belly fondly and imagine life with their precious little one yet to come. These dreams are not of sweet potatoes that are found in ears 2 days after it was eaten (seriously...it spreads like a fungus). These dreams do not include vomit clean-up at 2 am. Or mouthy comebacks. Or spitting or kicking or picking noses or poop up the back of a onesie and how will you avoid the hair as you take it off or reading the same book/singing the same songs/watching the same movie 1,000 times...a week.
After watching my children, I can only think of two outcomes. #1- They are horrified by the demon-spawn that they have wriggling inside them. They panic wondering how they will manage not to kill their children before they reach adulthood. #2- They look at me scornfully and think, "I'm going to be a much better mother than her. My child will never have food on their face/scream in public/eat things off the floor/ etc etc. I'm so lucky I won't have to deal with kids like hers."
Most new moms probably fall under outcome #2...so I guess I shouldn't feel too bad after all.
2 comments:
They've been duped just like we were. Everyone asks, "When are you gonna have kids?" like it is some great, exclusive country club. Secretly, they just want you to be as tired, frustrated and boring as they have become since they had kids.
Damn DNA forcing us to want to reproduce when all logical thinking tells us not to.
I laugh at my pre-schild self thinking MY kids will never run around a restaurant, or scream as though I am kidnapping them when it's time to leave something fun...
Now I just kind of smile at pregnant women and then think to myself "your kid will do the same thing lady so don't judge me!"
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