How Becoming A Mom Changed Me
Yes, becoming a mom changes your life in obvious, amazing ways. Yes, your heart gets bigger and unicorns burst into your home singing gospel hymns and all that jazz. This post isn’t about those changes but rather about the shifts I didn’t anticipate or the circumstances I thought I would somehow escape, even though all my mom friends warned me of the contrary.
I cry at everything. “Oh, just wait for your hormones to even back out,” they said. “It just takes time to get back to being you,” they said. Right. Well, my kid was born in 2016 and last weekend I sobbed at the end of a mediocre animated movie. So …
Sometimes logic escapes me. At the end of a long day I find myself reverting back to a childlike-level of solution-finding. (Oh, the irony.) I have a college degree and got into a physical altercation with an Amazon package yesterday. Frustration-free packaging, my ass.
I care a lot less about how my body looks. Old me worked out six days a week. New me makes it to work five days a week. (Also, once you’ve had enough people to field a football team staring at you naked with your legs spread open, modesty is a thing of the past.)
I haven’t slept in two and a half years. My kiddo is actually a great sleeper and always has been. (She has other terrible qualities, don’t you worry.) However, pre-mom me could sleep through hurricane-like weather conditions. Now, if a squirrel gnaws on a pecan within a 4-mile radius, I awake and lunge for the baby monitor, positive that some intruder is actively stealing my baby.
Almost nothing grosses me out anymore. All of those things other moms did that used to make me cringe? Yeah, I do all of them now. I’ve even added some new ones of my own. (What? You don’t pick boogers out of your infant’s nose with tweezers like a game of Operation?) Exceptions: Vomit + lice. If those two things are to ever converge in my home simultaneously, you will find me hospitalized, bald and sedated.
I can’t remember what I did/ate/said yesterday. This is a real problem when it comes to winning arguments with my husband. How am I supposed to yell at him for not picking up the dry cleaning when I find it on the floor of my closet weeks later??
The guilt is real. When I’m at home and my daughter is treating a light fixture as a piñata, I think about how lucky I am that there are professionals in charge of her behavior most days. Then, when I’m at work, I think about how unnatural it is that other people are responsible for her safety five days a week. (Insert shrugging shoulders emoji.)
Convenience is my middle name. If there is a service to deliver it, I am having it delivered. Groceries, clothes, air filters, razors … you name it. I think there was a time in my life I actually liked shopping but now that activity triggers an adrenal response that merits more stronger deodorant. (And Amazon takes two days to deliver that.)
What ways were you changed mamas?
