This time around.

I recently sat down and did a bit of reflection on this piece I wrote a few years ago, but from my now second time mother perspective. Here’s what came of it..

Girl, I love you, but oh my goodness such DRAMATICS. Then again, I remember. Those days would be impossible to ever forget. First time motherhood was quite the significant headfuck for you. ⁣

⁣After your second birth, for the sake of sanity you realize you are historically close to loosing at that point, you choose a different dish. It is one that asks of you way less cooking and close to no prep — a delightfully easy meal of perogies, sausages and corn. Not the healthiest, but it was needed. ⁣

⁣I won’t fool you, things weren’t perfect while you made those perogies, and nor will they likely ever be, frankly. You were anxious and scrambling, but the results were about twenty million times less of a hectic gong show. And not only do you amazingly get to eat that meal together as a family (newborn sleeping in your lap and all), you manage it at two weeks postpartum, too. Perfection be damned. ⁣

⁣You could thank the gods that decided to listen that time around, but truth be told, just thank yourself. Second-time motherhood will instill in you the ability to handle (like a hot, graceful mess) 458634884 *more* things all at once. It is also quite the headfuck, just a slightly more manageable one. We even come to love it. ⁣

💚⁣ ⁣⁣

⁣P.S. I’d be remiss to finish this with out letting you know that here in the future you haven’t cooked this chicken dish in years. O, now a preschooler, has long since refused to eat it. Something about all the items touching (how dare us) and him being seemingly allergic to any and all cooked vegetables. We’re having LOTS of fun with that one.

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Asking the REAL questions.

Here are the questions I asked myself as I attempted to make sense of this gong show of a board book collection:

  • Why do we own this many board books? W H Y?⁣
  • You know you can’t even fit all the ones we own on this shelf and you should probably stop buying them, yeah?⁣
  • Where the hell is our Gruffalo book?! I guess I’ll have to get another. ⁣
  • You know what makes for great photos, Sarah? A black bookshelf in a hallway that has dungeness lighting AND it’s a dark + dreary night. Bravo. ⁣
  • E-readers are so much easier to sort. How old can O be before he starts using one?⁣
  • Wait. No. Never. I have to have a reason to keep buying him and M pretty books for all of eternity. RIGHT?!⁣
  • None of how you’re organizing this makes sense, I hope you know. Do you?⁣
  • Why do we still own Rainbow Fish? Donate that nonsense.⁣
  • You didn’t buy “such and such” when you were out thrifting last. Why? Next time, next time. ⁣
  • WHYYYY DOES NOTHING FIT LIKE I WANT IT TOOOOOO?⁣
  • Have you ever heard of a damn library, woman?!⁣

I am a mess. No lie.

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Where I have arrived to while #stayinghome.

  • Wearing a purse feels like a strange phenomenon of our society that has absolutely no bearing on reality.
  • Watching people gather in groups on *insert whatever TV series I’m bingeing* make me feel MOST worried for them.
  • I measure my gas mileage in terms of how many weeks per tank. I’m almost at four!
  • The once a week grocery run is actually kind of *exciting*.
  • My slacky home clothes are legitimately in shock with how much I’m using them, and are kindly responding by falling apart. I look *hot*.
  • The concept of doing my hair can fuck right off for the rest of eternity.
  • I nap everyday while my kid naps and I legitimately have no idea how I will function without said nap once the world goes back to normal. I’m gonna be SO screwed.
  • The lack of friends I have that I actually hang out with has yet to make this feel all that different, lol.
  • These words: “we can’t, it’s closed” have magically transformed my kid into: 1) being able to calmly stay at home ALL day while not really “going” anywhere and 2) into being a CHAMPION of long walks (as opposed to playgrounds)… When before he would have lost his *shit* on me about both.

These are *fascinating* times.

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Ceiling! You okay?!

My kid talks to our fire alarms, whom he has dubbed as “ceiling”. This started back in April, after they went off twice while coking was happening in the kitchen with my best friend, Lynette. He was scared of them for quite awhile, and still sometimes is (especially when we go other places that have fire alarms above us), but now? O and ceiling have a full on dialogue.

“Ceiling! You okay?!” (when he thinks he hears a fire alarm, which he believes is the sound of the ceiling crying, no matter how many times we’ve told him differently).

“Ceiling is sad” (a continual belief on his part, to which we often reply with, “Ceiling is happy, actually!”).

“You have a good day, Ceiling?!” (after coming home from child care).

“I have to go get (such and such), Ceiling” (told to ceiling as he passes under it [which he often asks permission of it to do so]).

And this morning: “I see ceiling’s mouth.” (we have no idea about this one, though it is mildly terrifying).

There’s even some occasional sass:”Ceiling! You have to cut your nails!” (after he’s not let us cut his nails for the past week).

“Ceiling! *insert testy toddler trash talk here*” (we have realized that in terms of pecking order, O has placed ceiling on the lowest possible dominator).

This is not a part of parenting I expected, like, at ALL… but, I’m here for the journey. As crazy as it may make me. 💚⁣ ⁣

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A Dish of Victory.

This is a normal, probably too bland, basic as hell, dish of food.

It is also a dish of victory. Delicious (my husband better not argue that ;)) victory.

Many of you know that prior to giving birth to O, I prepped 10+ freezer meals to have food on hand that I could easily defrost and let our slow cooker prepare for us. Additionally, my lovely Douglas ladies came over two months ago and restocked my freezer full of even more food that I could quickly reheat and eat in a pinch. I was positively spoiled in that regard.

All of which meant that up until tonight, I didn’t have to legitimately cook a meal that followed a recipe for the past 4+ months.

Four months of not cooking (and I mean cooking where you chop veggies, prepare meat, add seasonings, ect.) it messes with your head. Yes, it allows you to be luxuriously lazy (#firstworldproblem), but it also leads you to wonder if it’s possible to forget how to cook. Will it even taste good? Will I enjoy cooking again? Will it be worth it? I’m not even gonna get into the anxiety I felt in trying to choose which recipe to use, making the grocery list and hoping D picked all the right things at the store while I looked after O. It was embarrassingly intense.

All of this also meant that up until tonight, I didn’t know what it was to cook a meal while also being a mom. Ha. Haaa. Hahhahaahaha. Holy effin’ GONG SHOW.

Those veggies? They were cut *days ago*, intended to be originally served several nights earlier but got thrown for a loop by a hostile infant that would not, could not (and what felt like SHALL NEVER NOT) allow me a few moments to be in the kitchen.

That chicken? It was defrosted, carefully cut up, tossed in a bowl and then promptly frozen AGAIN due to wrath of previously mentioned child. I’m sure any sense of tenderness or moisture it once had was sacrificed to the freezer gods long ago. Thank god for salt and pepper, and a doting husband who is too kind to call me out on it.

Speaking of said salt? While working on the rice, the realities that I am very much NOT a ninja became apparent as the container that once housed it went crashing down on our cement floors and shot shards of glass ALL FREAKIN’ OVER. Exactly what I needed, world! Thanks! Or thank freakin’ god O isn’t crawling yet.

And that rice? It was hurriedly and frantically made this morning between nap times (nap times which are even more achingly short as we work on transitioning out of the swaddle — a story for another time). The joys of listening to your baby monitor on high alert while cursing/staring down your oven to BOIL WATER FASTER, FAAASTER! Those joys are insurmountable.

Lastly, that bacon? It’s probably sacrilegious of me to admit this, but it’s totally the fully cooked stuff which comes in a chilled box from the store that you reheat in the microwave. Ain’t nobody got time to cook the real stuff with an infant. That is the one thing I did get right.

In the end, it happened. I made it, we ate it and while I’m 100% sure this is my denial talking, it tasted pretty dang good.

Victory!

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