Momming: The Shit They Don’t Tell You About Having Kids

Today I tweeted, “I should start a blog called The Shit They Don’t Tell U About Having Kids and it’s just gonna be a bunch of horrible, loving, disgusting, wtf is this, bad, good shit” and here we are. 

My favorite thing to hear people without any kids say is “if I was a parent my kid wouldn’t do this”... “oh no, my kid ain’t never doing that”.... I love to hear it. Until you have your children, you never know what you will do as a parent. Once I went through the graham cracker box because my kid was screaming and crying because apparently the box I purchased, all of the graham crackers were broken in half. He wanted a whole one just so he can break it in half. This to me was crazy because it’s like if you’re going to break the cracker in half anyway, why can’t you eat the ones that’s already broken? I say all of that to say, when I found the whole cracker, his little eyes lit up and his smile made me realize that I spent 20 mins dumping out a box of crackers because what won’t we do for our kids? Seriously. His very specific happiness is what mattered most at the end of the day. I guess...

Up until you have a baby and on the delivery bed pushing, people are asking you “When are you having another one”, you’ll have many people telling you what to expect as a new parent. Scratch all of that. Because you don’t know anything. Everything you think you know, you don’t. And the thing that you do know, your child will show you that you don’t.You get that you have to feed the baby, keep them dry and alive. Basic, easy, simple, we can do that. 

Disclaimer. It doesn’t matter how your child(ren) got into the world as far as planned or unplanned, married, unmarried, in a family or a single parent. Working mom, stay at home mom. I have no judgement on how you mom. I just have to put that out there. There is no right or wrong way to parent. When I say this I mean, everyone is different so things work for you that may not work for others. Some things you’ll see people do with their kids and your like “Oh hell no, I would never” but hey it’s their way and thats okay. As moms we all have common parent goals that comes down to taking great care of your kid and making sure that they have everything they need to live a great life. Let’s agree to that. 

Anyway, okay so my first child was planned. Maybe I should name this blog AllDemKids because I have a lot. Anything more than one is too many. I was 22, my fiancé and I talked about having a kid. We didn’t even second guess it, why the hell would anyone want kids at the age of 22? I mean we were living together, had been together for 3 years, so our young asses are like we are going to be together forever, let’s have a baby now.  So my son is born. 

The Shit They Don’t Tell U About Having Kids: Babies want to be held all day. At the hospital, they give you your baby straight from the womb for skin to skin and from that moment on, all your baby will want to be is held. Doesn’t matter how you hold them as long as they’re in your arms. They won’t let you do a damn thing honestly. The first month is the hardest. You are trying to learn each other. Trying to differentiate a hunger cry from a “I need my diaper changed” cry.  Trying to get the baby to stop crying so much. Newborns cry a lot. Trying to remember to take a shower, mom 24/7, find some time to eat. People always tell you how much sleep you are going to lose. True. Expect little to no sleep. Actually you know when you blink, that’s when you’ll get the most sleep. Take advantage of rolling your eyes. I’ve gotten some of my best naps that way. Okay joking but seriously. 

Secondly, besides losing sleep, Prepare to be in the house for a good month. Newborns should be home for the first month outside of going to appointments. Get your lounge clothes, slippers and momming braids up. If anyone wants to see the baby, they should come to you. If you’re someone that’s use to going to different places including work or being around other people all the time, expect to be home chilling and being ugly in peace for a good month. It’s no better place to be. 

My fiancé and I had a routine. The baby would cry, he would wake up and change him and then wake me up to feed him. That lasted a good 3 days (week if I’m being nice). It was a good plan while it lasted. Turns out, babies only want their moms. I mean they have just been inside of us for 40 weeks, shit who else would they want?  The Shit They Don’t Tell U About Having Kids: Once you lay your baby on your chest, they fall asleep and then you try to put the baby down and yup you guessed it, the baby wakes right up. Complete bs. You spend a half hour to an hour putting the baby to sleep Just for them to wake up as soon as you put them down. AS SOON! They take long naps on your chest and you know what, we let them. So prepare to watch some TV on the couch or in the bed with the baby asleep on your chest for hours. Something about sleeping on your neck, babies enjoy. They also love to shit after you give them a nice warm bath and lotion them up, but that’s another story. They love to put a crook in our neck for some comfortable sleep in a weird position. It’s sometimes impossible to sleep when your baby sleeps because depending on your mood, you may want to do something for yourself while they sleep (eat, fix your hair, do things outside of momming) you know *Kim K voice* I just wanna do one fun thing for myself. 

And that’s the thing about parenting.  The Shit They Don’t Tell U About Having Kids: You make your own shit up along the way. You do what you need to do. I never give new parents any advice because it’s nothing I can tell you to prepare you for all of this. So experience is going to teach you all that you need to know. Trial and error. Scream, yell, figure that shit out. 

You’ll find your left or right arm doing things you didn’t think you could do prior to having a kid. You be holding the baby while vacuuming with the other. Holding the baby while eating, yup, I got plenty of food in my kids hair. Only because they wouldn’t let me put them down, and it was like well I need to eat at some point today. Once you get out of that first month bid, momming gets easier. You’ll find yourself a pro and feel like you been doing this for a long time. That’s how much of a natural you’ll be. It’s something about women, it can’t be explained. You’ll have this mommy game in the tuck. Can’t nobody tell you a damn thing. In fact you’ll be telling people things. Catching yourself in those same “I can’t stand people who talk about their kids all day” people talking about their kids all day conversations. Your life will start to slowly get back on track. Do the damn thing. 

So far we have babies love being held and expect no sleep. I joke and tell people not to have kids. Why? I never had baby fever. My first kid was planned. My daughter, I actually didn’t find out I was pregnant until I was 16 weeks. I had her at 32 weeks. She just snuck in there. She wasn't planned and I don’t say that in a bad way or a way where you know you’re doing things that duh, will lead to pregnancy. I’m saying when we found it, we were like hey we have a family anyway shit what’s another one? Be one and done. It went from like okay now we have two kids. How the hell do we parent two babies at once? Like 2 babies in diapers, crying, needing our attention? As if one wasn’t enough, now I have 2??? I had my kids 2 years apart and even though my oldest was 2, having a toddler and an infant, whew. But ok we can do this. And then we had a third one, I was just like now somebody just dropping kids off at our house. 

Honestly parenting is beautiful, horrible, funny (there’s gonna be days when you and your partner are gonna clash about parenting because of course different views and everyone was raised different but you work it out); it’s also disgusting, loving, everything but quiet, growth, patience, and everything that you make it. Most of the time you don’t know what the hell you are doing. Before having kids you would hear kids in the store and see them having tantrums, swearing up and down that wouldn’t be you. Until it’s you in Shoprite with your kid screaming and hollering all because of some damn toy that’s down the cereal aisle. First of all, who said I was buying these expensive toys and secondly why the hell are toys down the cereal aisle? You totally understand and feel for the mom who you walk passed and she’s begging and pleading with her kid to behave so she’s bribing them with snacks. You understand that shit sometimes we just need the kid to be quiet so we give them what they want. It’s horrible I know. Sometimes you have to do things like that. Things not considered normal. Actually there is nothing normal about parenting. 

The Shit They Don’t Tell U About Having Kids: Babies cry just because. They could need their back itched, could need some adjusting, could be crying just because of the fact that hey, that’s what babies do. Nothing be wrong, they just cry. We just don’t know. When my newborns would cry, my fiancé would ask me what’s wrong. Most of the time I made things up. Oh the baby is probably crying because he want you to walk around with him; the baby wants to sit up, the baby wants to lay down, the baby wants this or that. Not like the baby can tell you so shoot I don’t know. 

In conclusion, you won’t know what to do with a kid until you have one. There is no book to read. No amount of baby sitting to credit for. No advice to take outside of the basic things. Expect to feel like you could be doing things better. Expect to feel like you’re a great parent.  Expect to feel like your reaching your parenting milestones. The baby is healthy, you’re killing it. Expect to feel like damn I just wish somebody come get the baby. Frustrated, happy, sad, positive. Accept the happy and sad feelings (seek help though if need be) and understand that as long as your kid is cared for properly and loved, then if you’re doing that, then you’ve already done everything. Because in a way no matter how much they tell you about momming it’s still so much more shit that they don’t. 

Nefer