Just like one of us

Whether you're excited about it or not, you have to admit that news about Kate Middleton and Prince William's baby is everywhere. In spite of all the buzz about the royal birth, people I talk to tell me that they fail to see the relevance of “just another celebrity baby."

I think these folks are mistaken. This baby is much more than “just another celebrity.” Aside from the fact that he has the potential to grow up and rule a large portion of the world, his birth is significant for another reason: the lovely Duchess of Cambridge will be able to learn what us regular moms have known all along.

Babies are unbelievably messy.

 

No doubt the royal family has a nanny to help with the baby care, but there are still going to be times when Kate will be engaged in caring for her child all by herself. In at least one of those moments, you know she will be hit with a stream of pee from her infant son, most likely when she’s either half asleep or dressed up and ready to go out. This happens so often that I’m convinced babies plan it that way, as if it’s a mandatory instruction written on their Y chromosomes. And royal or not, pee is pee. It won’t take Kate long to realize that she’s got to keep those baby bits under wraps unless she wants to receive a surprise shower.

 

Even though you and I will never see the photos, you just know that at some point, her wee little prince is going to smear her face with strained bananas or pureed peas and projectile vomit all over her hair. She’s going to wake up one day, fix her hair and her face and think she looks pretty fine. Five minutes later, that little bugger is going to ruin it all with one sticky baby hand or a tiny but mighty gas bubble.

 

We probably won’t see the dark circles under her eyes from lack of sleep either, but my fellow moms and I will know that they’re there. Even if she has the nanny take the night shift, eventually the baby is going to be sick or teething or anxious and she will selflessly give up her own sleep to comfort him. What she won’t realize at first is that the lack of sleep thing will continue until the kids move out. Gone forever are the nights of deep, restful, gonna-take-a-stick-of-dynamite-to-wake-me-up sleep. When you’re responsible for another human being, you tend to sleep a lot lighter.

 

Then there’s the whole attention thing. Before Baby, Kate was the one upon whom everyone’s attention was focused. Even Prince William has been completely upstaged by his wife. Now, even beautiful and stylish Kate will be shoved out of the way by relatives and strangers alike, all hoping to catch a glimpse of the new babe.

 

While I feel a certain glee in knowing that Kate is going to experience the less-than-pleasant side of baby-rearing, I’m happy that she’ll also be able to experience its joys. For example, I know that she’s going to fall fiercely in love with that little boy. His pain will become hers, and his joy will be multiplied when viewed through her eyes. She will be, at all times, utterly exhausted and yet completely revitalized by this tiny little person now sharing her life. She will have moments of feeling as if she’s the worst mother ever and then much rarer moments of feeling as if she’s finally figured it all out. And just like mothers everywhere, she will worry that all of those moments are passing much too quickly. She will wonder if she’s done enough.

 

In just a short while, she will intimately know what it feels like to be someone’s mother, and she will be forever changed by that role.

 

Just like the rest of us.

 

An Abundance of Birthdays

 

 

This week has been what we’ve come to refer to in our house as “birthday week.” My two oldest sons have birthdays within four days of one another right after the Fourth of July.

 

I do not recommend this birth plan for any wanna-be moms who may be reading. Having birthdays this close together is definitely not for the faint-hearted or the financially challenged.

 

I should know as I am in both of those groups. Still, each year, during the first week of July, I am forced to make all manner of birthday magic happen.

 

It's not always easy.

 

Even though the boys’ birthdays are so close together, we’ve always tried to celebrate them separately and in their own way. For example, the birthday child is allowed to choose the type of cake he wants (ice cream cake or regular,) as well as what we’ll have for dinner that night. The older two usually pick restaurant meals for their birthday dinners, but my youngest always asks me to cook him something special at home. I’m not sure if these choices mean that Evan really likes my cooking while the other two do not or if the older ones simply like eating out more than Evan does. Since there aren’t many kudos given out for this parenting gig, I’m going to imagine that everyone loves my cooking; Evan just loves it more.

 

When the kids were small, birthdays were active, noisy affairs. We’d have parties with grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins. Now, all these years later, so many family members are no longer with us; the older ones having passed on, and the younger ones busy with families of their own. As a result, our celebrations these days are much smaller and quieter. The hurried assembly of a roomful of toys has given way to presents such as music gift cards or video games that take up far less space and require no parental involvement.

 

Busted budgets and dinner choices aside, as each year progresses, I’m even more aware of how many of my kids’ birthdays are already in the past. Before long, I won’t be the central person planning the festivities. Soon they’ll have girlfriends, then wives, then families to do it for them. If I’m lucky, my role will become that of an invited guest. I will tuck some money into cards and join them for cake. I'll wear sensible shoes and chin hair, and I'll tell lots of stories about when they were little.

 

If they’re lucky, I’ll behave and keep the embarrassing ones to myself.

The Cat and Dog Train Me to do Their Bidding

I have finally figured out my purpose in life.  Although this realization took some time, today showed me with remarkable clarity the true reason for my existence.

Because of my ability to grasp doorknobs, I have apparently been entrusted with an all-important task: I am sentenced to cater to the ever-changing whims of my dog and cat and the 9,347 times that they must go outside each day. 

They do not bug the kids.  Oh no.  They save their most persistent neediness for me.

Take this morning, for example.  Within the first half hour of waking up, this is how my day went:  I let the dog out.  While she was outside, I fed her, the cat, and the goldfish.  I then let the dog back in to eat.  I heard the cat meowing outside the back door, so I let him in too.  The cat ate his breakfast and wanted to immediately go back outside so I let him out.  The dog, evidently feeling slighted by all of this letting-outside-business, decided that she needed to go back out, too, and the sooner, the better.  I have no idea why such urgency.  Did she forget something out there?  Just in case she was brewing a stomach virus, I hurried to let her out again.

When I returned to the kitchen to make my coffee, I could hear the cat outside the back door, crying - actually, more like wailing - to come inside.  He'd been outside for a whopping three minutes.  Judging by the way he was carrying on, you'd think he'd been out there suffering, with no food or drink, for HOURS.  No sooner had I let the cat inside, the dog was scratching on the front door to come in. 

Do I even need to tell you what happened next?  Right.  The cat wanted out.

This was all before I'd had my first sip of coffee. 

Medical experts say that having pets is good for your blood pressure.  I think what they meant to say is that having pets is good for developing high blood pressure.  In my experience, it's also good for angry outbursts, profanity, and illogical attempts at reasoning with animals.

Tomorrow I'm going to stay in bed until the kids get up.  It would be a shame to keep all of this early morning pet bonding time to myself.