Yep. My boys have been doing their own - and the family’s - laundry for YEARS. I don’t do crusty teen sheets.

They sort of weren’t a thing 20 years ago, when I was a new mom. The old ones like my younger sibs had - bottom folded up, netting on the sides - turned out to be death traps, and then restricting your baby in any way went out of fashion. Too bad, too.

Ha! My newborn slept past his usual every-two-hours feeding one night, and I lay in bed thinking, “Well, if he’s dead, he’ll still be dead in the morning,” and went back to sleep.

I stopped reading for a full year. Then I bought Wally Lamb’s “I Know This Much is True” and read it all in one weekend. I spoke to nobody. Husband did all baby things, including fastening the kid to my teat when it was time.

Or: One of mine did not want to sit on the toilet. Standing only. So I would have to put his feet on top of mine, and then gently put my finger underneath the base of his tiny penis so the tip wouldn’t touch that gnarly disgusting diseased filth-riddled strip of toilet rim at the very front of the seat in public…

It totally depends on your comfort level. Is baby safe? Perfect! Go ahead. Can you tolerate fussing or crying? You’ll figure it out.

Sigh. Yes. Sometimes. That’s how they get those horrible rashes in their mouths.

SO TRUE for me, too. For the first two weeks, my baby would be sleeping and I’d start crying silently and have to go get him and put him on my shoulder while I ate or did something else because I DON’T KNOW WHY IT WAS JUST THE WAY IT WAS FOR ME. New motherhood is SO WEIRD.

BRILLIANT idea.

Damn, you’re right. I shudder just remembering it. EVERY SINGLE TIME YOU LEAVE THE HOUSE it’s like an expedition to Mt Everest. Even if you don’t bring extra snackies and toys and amusements and music and videos. IT JUST IS.

“Honey - no - we do not play with our penis in the video store...”

It’s really hard, sometimes. Really, really hard. One kid wakes up. You get that one changed, fed, dressed. You think: While that one’s eating, I’ll grab a shower. The baby wakes up. Change, feed, dress. Older one needs something. Pretty soon, it’s lunch time. The day gets by you. The baby is super-fussy. One kid is…

Wonderful! I used to change my tampons in front of my boys when they were very young, and I’m sure they have no recollection of it. It’s what you have to do sometimes. One of them asked me, years later, if he could open a tampon and see how they work. I said sure. He thought the design was really clever, from an…

JEEBUS.

Elmwood Springs, MO. But integrated, please.

When I had my first baby, whose giant head ripped a hole all the way through my taint up to and including part of my asshole, he would be crying and I would be shitting my pants because I took too many stool softeners and he couldn’t nurse because my breasts were as hard and huge as basketballs and I was leaking…

I getcha ... mine was more a bitter commentary on why we have “two sides” to everything.

Or -gasp! - having sex with women, or not having sex at all! Bitches.

“Both sides” - the side that doesn’t give a shit about people being gunned down, and the side that does

Fascinating! And a great post. I loved nursing my babies. Thanks for this!