Which side of the rope are you on?

Before my maternity leave and when I was working full-time, it always bothered me to hear stay-at-home moms say, "I'm so sick of my kids." The women who bemoaned days at home and summer break because their kids were around all the time seemed, to me, to have a lucky problem.

Claiming you're sick of your children is a luxury; it denotes an abundance of time spent together. An overabundance, some might say.

As a working mother, I didn't have that luxury.

Now, after five months of being home full-time with two children under the age of five I can honestly say that I've reached the point at which I could pull out my hair and cry, "Make them disappear!" I know what it feels like to be eaten alive. There's no off switch for Junior's mouth. He questions everything. Diddly wants to practice standing and to see the world. He grabs for everything.

And for God's sake I can't count the times I've had to poop with both of them sitting in the bathroom with me—Diddly in the bouncy seat and Junior (who doesn't want to be left out) sitting on his stool, as if they're audience members at a silent and awkward show.

The thing is, they're happy sitting there. They're happy to do anything, as long as it's with me.

It's bittersweet then, this summit I've reached of I-need-a-break-they're-suffocating-me. I always wanted to be here because it's born of bountiful time together, but it won't go on forever. I only have two and a half months of maternity leave left. For a lot of women, especially those in the United States, they've had far less time than I.

So yah, the bittersweet summit. I'm not sure how to get down from here. Or if I even want to.

Everyone will be getting homemade ornaments this year. K?

I was all set to write a long, descriptive post about my trip to the proctologist (who wouldn't want to read about a pregnant woman's experience getting her buttcheeks spread by a Mullet-sporting doctor?).

Then D&W told me about Jenny McCarthy's book, Belly Laughs: The Naked Truth about Pregnancy and Childbirth, and how McCarthy not only covered hemorrhoids in seat-gripping detail, her story was a million times more horrific than mine.

Damn McCarthy for stealing my thunder.

Now I have nothing left to write about.

Nothing!

Well...

I guess I could write about how tomorrow marks the beginning of my last two weeks at work before I begin my maternity leave. And how I have chosen to take six months of unpaid FMLA leave so I can spend time with Diddlydoo and Junior (isn't Mulletville Corp awesome? Zero days of paid maternity leave. Zero). And how that decision has been keeping me and Chuck awake at night because it seems incredibly irresponsible given Chuck's precarious employment status.

And yet it is the only decision that is right.

We've talked about it. My God, since Diddlydoo was conceived. It's all we've talked about and planned for. We've decided we can survive anything for six months. Chuck can sell his functioning body parts to science and hell, I can finally fulfill my dream of becoming a cocktail waitress while the kids are in bed. We'll shear sheep. Pump gas. We'll make it on love, baby.

It will be an adventure. A gift. An uncharted path.

It will be scary.

But I have wanted to get off this ride of being a full-time working mother for two years.

So here I go.

The real truth is that women are more obsessed with breasts than men

I’m going to switch gears now. I’m sure you’re devastated that I’m leaving my sexy reindeer boots behind but trust me, it’s for the best. If I kept going on the boot topic, I’d eventually confess that I have an entire fleet of sexy animal boots. Then you’d probably break up with me.

Yes, now I'd like to talk about work. Specifically my co-worker Sarah, who came back to work today after her three-month maternity leave.

Three piddly months.

In the five years I’ve been at my job, I’ve seen a lot of new mothers come back to work. Some look chipper (it’s true, they’re overly happy to see you); others have that wide-eyed, freaked out look. The look that says Where’s my baby and how can I get back to him? Judging from the size of Sarah's bulging eyeballs, she was the latter.

When I ran into her, she was in the breakroom. She was hunched over, making herself a cup of tea, minding her own business. I was about to ask her how she was doing when a swarm of women burst through the door and started firing:

“Are you breastfeeding? I did for a year. Is the baby sleeping? I let mine cry it out. You should, too. How was your labor? Mine was 46 hours. Did you deliver vaginally? I did. Did you get stitches? I did. Have you pooped yet? I cried when I did. Split me right open. Are you going to have another? Mine are nine months apart. Get it out of the way. Who's watching your kid? Did you put him in daycare? Are you breastfeeding?”

I don’t know Sarah very well but judging from the way she was shrinking into her sweater, she’s not the kind of woman who would hold up a sign like this:



I wanted to grab her by the arm and whisk her away to an underground cave. Or at least fart or belch or pee on the floor—anything that would draw people’s attention away from her.

I understand that some people are genuinely curious about how a new mother is doing, but it seems to me (based on my own experience and that of my friends), that a big part of motherhood/parenthood is inquisition and subsequent verbal annihilation. Think I’m exaggerating? After our children were born, my friend and I were going to write a mommy book. Some of the chapters were:

Why do you care if I breastfeed? Really?

Don't hate me because I get out of the house a few days a week

Does hurting me help you?

Take your homemade organic, gluton-free, farm raised, free range, sugar free baby food and shove it

Motherhood: This shit is hard enough without your two cents

Now look, maybe my friend and I are hanging around with the wrong people or maybe we’re overly sensitive fuckheads who don’t know our leaky breasts from our stitched up anuses, but I was in flashback hell watching Sarah field questions then defend her parenting choices.

Why does this keep happening? When did the word "mother" become synonymous with "interrogate" and "judge"?

And holy divulge! Did Sarah (tired, overwhelmed, shell-shocked Sarah) really need to hear about another woman’s experience with cracked, bleeding nipples? Is the verbal vomit born out of a desperation for female camaraderie? Is it the equivalent of the locker room ass smack? If if is, I think we can do better. I’d give a million dollars to a woman if I saw her smack a new mom on the ass instead of hear her ask, “Are you breastfeeding?”

“Are you breastfeeding?”
“Are you breastfeeding?”
“Are you breastfeeding?”
“Are you breastfeeding?”
“Are you breastfeeding?”

It’s like we’re all trapped in a little tornado of verbal vomit serum and we keep circling and swigging, circling and swigging.

Right down the drain.