Motherhood Comes Naturally (and Other Vicious Lies) - Couverture rigide

Smokler, Jill

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 1476728348 ISBN 13 : 9781476728346

Editeur : Gallery Books, 2013

Synopsis

Book by Smokler Jill

A propos du livre

Extrait

Motherhood Comes Naturally (and Other Vicious Lies) Lie #1

MOTHERHOOD COMES NATURALLY

I am the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. I speak three languages. I have negotiated multimillion-dollar deals without breaking a sweat. However, just thinking about bedtime for my three kids makes me want to vomit.

—Scary Mommy Confession #208830

Once upon a time, I found myself unexpectedly expecting and scared out of my mind. If I clearly wasn’t responsible enough to practice safe sex, it was pretty safe to say that I wasn’t responsible enough to bring a child into the world. A few days after I peed on every kind of stick the drugstore had to offer, I found myself at the gynecologist for further confirmation. As I hyperventilated on the table, flashing back to that night of one too many margaritas, I was consoled by a kind nurse. She was a sweet older woman in faded Dora the Explorer scrubs, with years of experience and wisdom under her belt. “Honey,” she confidently told me in her soothing James Earl Jonesey voice, “motherhood is the most natural thing in the world. You’ll love it.”

That was the first time I ever listened to a grown woman in cartoon-themed hospital scrubs, and the last. She wasn’t all wrong; the latter part of her wisdom has certainly proven to be true. Almost ten years have passed since that day, and I love being a mother like I have never loved anything before in my life. I have three beautiful and hilarious and amazing children whom I would lay down my life for without thinking twice. It is, without a doubt, the best thing that has ever happened to me. But, natural? No, I’m afraid not. Motherhood doesn’t always come all that naturally.

Things that come naturally to me: Food. Sleep. Comfort. Privacy. Basically, all of the things that pregnancy and children have cruelly robbed from me.

Let’s start with pregnancy—not exactly what I would call natural. I spent almost all of my nine months puking my guts out. For the first time in my life, I couldn’t eat what I wanted to eat, since I was being held hostage by this mystery creature who dictated my diet. I craved tuna sandwiches on white bread layered with potato chips, and my normal staple breakfast of Cheerios suddenly made me queasy. The baby I didn’t know prevented me from finding a comfortable position to sleep in and ensured that I ran to the bathroom every three seconds to pee. I had a hard enough time getting used to sharing a bathroom with my husband when we first moved in together. My body—the only thing that was ever mine and all mine—now belonged to someone else. What’s natural about that?

Labor was another extraordinarily unnatural event for me. Sitting in a chair, legs practically over my head, I felt like some sort of freak show contortionist on display for the doctors and nurses. I half expected someone to start making popcorn. I spent much of my time in labor envying those women who sit on a toilet and shit out a baby. Bizarre, sure, but at least they’re alone, in a room where they’re used to expelling things, having gravity work for them rather than against them. That sounds a hell of a lot more natural to me.

Once the baby comes, you’re suddenly supposed to know exactly what is best for the child, as if mother’s intuition arrives along with the onset of breast milk. Guess what? It doesn’t. That first car ride home together felt as natural as me driving a spaceship straight to Mars.

The first few days and weeks home with a baby, I felt more like I was hired to play the role of Mother than actually be a mother. Wasn’t I supposed to have changed overnight, suddenly in possession of all the answers? That’s what I expected, at least, but I remained the same exact person I was before, except now I was responsible for a human being other than myself. I remember a friend telling me that cries were just the baby’s way of communicating and I could decode them if I tried hard enough. Was she hungry? Hot? Cold? Wet? Clearly, I didn’t speak baby because every scream sounded exactly the same to me: like a baby crying.

And it didn’t become more natural with baby number two even if I fooled myself into thinking that I had the hang of things. I didn’t. When Ben was a few months old, he got sick. Not really sick—just a lingering cough, thanks to a minor cold. I’d been through this sort of winter before with Lily, so I knew the drill. Hell, I was an expert by now! He was stuffy but smiley, and I knew in my heart that he was just fine. There was no sinking feeling in my gut and surely, there would be one if it were something serious. A week or two later, I found myself at the doctor’s office for a routine visit. The doctor knew within seconds that something was wrong and that the “minor cold” was now in my baby’s lungs. He was hooked up to oxygen while I sobbed, still not being able to recognize the wheezing sound that everyone else seemed to identify simply by looking at him.

Then, there was the time Lily fell off of a bunk bed, and I was 100 percent sure her wails were nothing more than a performance. Her arm didn’t look broken in the least, and she’s always been one to seek attention. Mother knows best, kid. Stop your crying! I gave her some Tylenol and put her to bed. When she woke up, her arm had swelled to twice its normal size and she couldn’t move it without tears springing to her eyes. I’m quite sure that the only reason they started making obnoxiously fluorescent casts was to remind mothers like me just how poor our intuition can be. In my case, it was an eight-week reminder of how very much I sucked.

After nine years of motherhood, I still don’t have that sixth sense concerning my children. I keep them home from school when it’s clear an hour later that they simply didn’t feel like going, and I send them with the sniffles only to have the school nurse instruct me to retrieve them shortly after drop off. It still doesn’t dawn on me to feed them breakfast unless they ask for it and I never remember to tell them to hit the potty before we depart on road trips.

The good news is that, unlike when they were babies and the cries were indistinguishable, these days my kids tell me exactly what they need, when they need it. Lord knows, I need all the help I can get. The bad news? Now they never shut up.

Momfinitions

MOMMY’S LAW: The inevitable fact that only clean sheets will be wet, that fully snow-suited children will need to pee, and that the moment you sit down with a cup of coffee, all hell will break lose.

MOMLUSIONAL: Convincing oneself that the possibility of a restful sleep actually exists.

MSP (MATERNAL SENSORY PERCEPTION): Knowing from the very first ring of the phone that it’s school calling to report a sick child.

MOMFLEX: The act of instinctively squeezing one’s legs together while sneezing/coughing/laughing in an attempt to prevent inevitable bladder leakage.

MOM SLEEVES: Sleeves that have been rolled up to the elbow, to serve as tissues to snotty children.

MOMSONIC HEARING: Knowing exactly which child is coming down the stairs, based on their pace and stomp intensity.

MOMPREHENSION: The ability to perfectly comprehend multiple loud, obnoxious children competing to speak at the same exact time.

MOMMY-TASKING: The ability to do a hundred times more at once than a nonmother.

MOMNESIA: The act of forgetting where you put your keys, your sunglasses, your purse, your shoes, while simultaneously knowing the details of each child’s schedule down to the minute.

MOMPIPHANY: The realization that you have no idea whatsoever what the hell you are doing.

Revue de presse

“Get ready to ditch those Prada shoes (and anything else nice you own) and face reality--you haven't had a brutal boss until you've had a baby. Confessions of a Scary Mommy is hilariously, outrageously truthful about the hardest job I know. Put this book at the top of your diaper bag!” (Lauren Weisberger, New York Times bestselling author of The Devil Wears Prada, on Confessions of a Scary Mommy)

“Jill offers up the perfect antidote to overly earnest parenting guides. It's like comfort food for anxious moms, served with a side of snark.”
(Cynthia Copeland, author of The Diaper Diaries and Really Important Stuff My Kids Have Taught Me, on Confessions of a Scary Mommy)

“Jill has blown the lid off of what should and should not be said when discussing the experience of motherhood, using her sense of humor and the occasional “F-bomb” — and in doing so, Scary Mommy, has actually made motherhood a little bit less frightening... [Confessions of a Scary Mommy] dares to say the things most mothers have thought, but few have had the courage to admit.” (ABCnews.com on Confessions of a Scary Mommy)

"Smokler’s “scary mommy” version of motherhood makes no apologies, which is precisely why it succeeds ... If motherhood is starting to feel like a story without a plot, my advice is to pretend you’re sick and lock yourself in the bathroom with this book. Highly recommended." (Library Journal on Confessions of a Scary Mommy)

“Hilarious, brutal honesty about parenting.” (New York Times bestselling author Michael Ian Black on Confessions of a Scary Mommy)

“Funny . . . speaks the truths about motherhood when other mothers aren’t willing to admit it.” (Parenting on Jill Smoker's Scary Mommy blog)

“Any mother who doesn't stifle a million knowing laughs while reading Confessions of a Scary Mommy needs to make sure her funny bone wasn't accidentally sucked into the diaper genie.” (Julie Klam, New York Times bestselling author of You Had Me at Woof, on Confessions of a Scary Mommy)

“It’s the same kind of honest, heartfelt wisdom that has lured thousands of readers to Smokler’s Scary Mommy blog and given untold numbers of parents the comforting knowledge that they’re not alone.” (Baltimore Magazine on Confessions of a Scary Mommy)

“Thousands upon thousands of mothers grasp onto her every word.”
—The Baltimore Sun on Jill Smokler’s groundbreaking blog

"If you need an irreverent, hysterical and oftentimes too-close-for-comfort look at motherhood, you need Scary Mommy." (The Huffington Post)

À propos de cette édition

• Éditeur: Gallery Books
• Date d'édition: 2013
• ISBN 10: 1476728348
• ISBN 13: 9781476728346
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 176