I have this theory that for each child you have, your body (and that of your mate) will age about ten years in the span of just one. Since I suck at equations (leave it to the person that majored in their own native language), I will assume that with my oldest being nearly three and youngest about one and a half, let's see.......umm......two kids times so many years........I am roughly twenty-two thousand and four years old right now. Translated into square footage, my ass might be about the same size around too, if I ever worked up the courage to let thine eye wander in a dressing room. Or that horrendous funhouse mirror from hell on What Not To Wear.
Ahem. Back to this awesome theory of mine that everyone else already knows when they have kids. I swear it's the most uncanny thing, but I should start keeping a log with "Before" and "After" pics to prove it because it's gotten worse recently. At first, with my oldest, it wasn't so bad.......you're sapped after a pregnancy, and maybe your mate is a little plump after those sympathy donuts (and beer), but it's not too bad. Then the kid starts walking. And climbing. And poking. And then you have another one. And even if they make you tweak out seventeen times a day and cause several heart attacks in a row when they dash out into the road to chase a flying hairball (apparently I need to vacuum my front lawn), you love these kids to pieces and keep an eagle eye on them every moment to ensure their safety. In fact, I read a while back that your brain chemistry actually changes when you have children, resulting in lesser productivity from the higher-functioning areas that control, say, speech or ability to calculate an appropriate tip for your hairstylist. Apparently those qualities that make us intelligent beings are sacrificed in the name of honing our most primitive instincts to keep the little ones from killing themselves. I would add the link to said article, but that information was stored in the "trash bin" section of my brain and was tossed in favor of my new Spiderman Leap that I acquired after the little guy decided that a flaming hot oven would be the perfect place to crawl into and relax.
Let me preface the following paragraph by stating yet again that I love my kids wholly and to the point that I want to give them belly zorberts until they laugh themselves into a coma...HOWEVER.....I have noticed that the end result of such devotion and aforementioned "primitive tunnel vision" is an extreme version of putting all of one's eggs in a single basket; in short, I have turned into that manic hovering mother. Case in point, my hair began to turn gray last year. At 27. Oh, and that pesky "blood pressure" thing? Mine's bad enough but my husband's is something like three thousand and six over five hundred, thanks also to his stressful job and our dietary habits that should realistically have us talking to Dr. Phil via satellite since we can't fit through the goddamn doorway.
The best thing about my theory is that it's applicable across the generations (and may explain why my father suddenly started losing hair pigment very quickly about the time my sister and I entered middle school). A while back, one of my favorite bloggers, Metrodad, posted a request for people to send in embarrassing childhood memories. Here's what I wrote him:
Hi Metrodad!
I loved reading your post/comments regarding terrible moments from childhood. Very amusing...and although this is kind of a delayed reaction, I have one to add if you decided to do a new post about "Things We Did To Our Parents To Get Them thisclose To Being Arrested":
I was about 10, coming back from my soccer game with a friend in the back of the family van. My dad was driving, and back in the day he did a lot of carpentry, so he had on some scrubby clothes and hadn't really shaved, and the van had a bunch of his tools and equipment in the back. A pretty picture.
So we're coming up to a toll booth on the highway, and he stops to hand the cashier money. All of a sudden, she looks towards the back of the car and her eyes go wide, face aghast with horror. He looks at her like,"what's the problem", and turns around towards us in the backseat........there we were, two little ten year-old girls in soccer uniforms, with our hands behind our backs and duct tape over our mouths, banging our heads against the back window........
He laughs about it now, only because I have two kids of my own and he can't wait for revenge......
My only hope is that my own little angels will spare me the heart-stopping foolishness that I regularly thrust upon my poor parents. Considering I was such an asshat, though, I'd say the best we can do is stock up on Tums and hide the matches. Or, in the very least, the duct tape.
