October 8, 2007
- Compared to before you had children, it will take you twice as long to get out the door to go somewhere. The time increases exponentially with additional children.
- You will have one-tenth as many opportunities for sex, and you’ll be too tired or irritated to take advantage of most of them.
- Your house will never be completely clean again because the minute you finish cleaning one room and move on to another, your children will go into the first room and spill juice or Cheerios, get out a game or puzzle with 1000 pieces, or, better yet, throw up.
- The kitchen will become your prison; the moment you have all the dishes in the dishwasher, the floor swept and the counters wiped, your child will announce that he’s hungry.
- You will no longer eat hot food because whenever you sit down to eat, your child will need a new diaper, a refill on juice, or help cutting their food. Very often, they will need all of the above at the same time. If you have more than one child, you may not eat at all.
- Even if you do manage to lose all your baby weight, you will not look the same as you did before you had children. You will have no time to do your hair or put on makeup; your clothes will all have stains of various hues. Many days, you will not even have time to take a shower.
- Forget sleep. One of your children will be sick or experiencing nightmares almost every night. And if they do manage to sleep through the night, you won’t sleep anyway because you’ll be waiting for them to wake up, and you’ll be worrying about all the things you didn’t get done for tomorrow.
- You will no longer be able to just watch the news. Every violent crime or natural disaster that is reported will send you into an emotional tailspin as you start worrying about the safety and well-being of your own children.
- However many children you have, multiply it by two. That is how many children will be in your home at any one time once they start school and start having friends over.
- You know how you can’t wait for your kids to be in school full-time so that you’ll have more free time? Forget it. Having kids in school means doing homework (yes, you too), chaperoning field trips, packing lunches, dealing with fundraisers, attending open houses and parent-teacher conferences, going through backpacks every night, and managing mountains of papers that get sent home daily.
- You will reach levels of frustration of which you did not even know were capable as your little one’s favorite word becomes “NO!”
- You will receive loads of advice, especially from people who do not have children.
- You will need to go back to school to get a degree in engineering so you can figure out how to extricate their toys from the “childproof” packaging, how to set up their stroller, and how to put their car seat in correctly.
- Every “expert” will give you a different opinion on every aspect of your child’s life. No matter what you feed your kids, how you put them to sleep, what toys you give them, you’ll be doing it all wrong.
- You will become an expert on poop.
- You will know more about Blue’s Clues, Dora the Explorer and Buzz Lightyear than about fashion, sports or current events.
- You will be able to recite “Green Eggs and Ham” (or some other Dr. Seuss masterpiece) by heart.
- The old saying, “Father works ‘til set of sun, but Mother’s work is never done,” is pure, unadulterated truth.
- Remember those grandparents who were so excited about having grandbabies? They’ll have plans every Friday and Saturday night and will, therefore, be sadly unavailable to babysit.
- You’ll adore your children, but you’ll constantly wonder, “What would life have been like if we hadn’t had any?!”
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