I’ve got a special treat for you today. Anybody read Julie C. Gardner from By Any Other Name? If not, you are missing out.
Julie’s posts have this way of starting very funny and then all of a sudden throwing you for a loop and then by the end you’re inspired or crying or booking a plane ticket to California so you can show up on her door step and yell— “SURPRISE!” And then she’s all like— “What? Who are you?” And you’re like— “Your new best friend! DUH!” And then she lets you use her phone to call your family and tell them you’re still alive.
Don’t laugh. Read this post about her son’s birthday and you’ll understand.
Anyway, Julie has what we call “teenagers” and she is here today comparing having a baby in 2011 to having a baby in the olden days of 1996. I know you have lots of questions like— “Did you have to outfit your horse with a car seat back then, Julie?” “Did your wooden stroller give you splinters?” “Did Doc Baker drug you with moonshine and poppy seeds in lieu of an epidural?”
So I’ll just let Julie get right to it.
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Hey there, readers of Mommy Shorts!
I’m thrilled to be here, although I’ll admit when Ilana first invited me to guest post, I questioned what I could offer you young folk. After all, I recently turned 43 and haven’t been with-child in this millennium. I’m old enough to be Justin Bieber’s mother and have a brain crammed with trivia regarding seminal TV shows like The Love Boat and Fantasy Island.
Jealous yet? Of course you are.
Therefore, I feel it’s my duty (as a representative of the Reluctantly Mature) to explore certain aspects of young-motherhood that have improved since I got knocked-up in The Paleolithic Era (A.K.A. 1996):
1. CLOTHING: In my day, pregnancy apparel embraced Peter Pan collars and floral prints reminiscent of Grandma’s bedspread. I received one hand-me-down top that sported a teddy bear claiming I’m not fat! I’m stuffed with love! and a Baby on Board t-shirt with an arrow aimed at my vagina (in case strangers didn’t know where infants emerge). By contrast, 21st Century-fashion embraces the stylish likes of Victoria Beckham and Tori Spelling. In fact their maternity ensembles are more flattering than my current wardrobe and neither lady appears to be stuffed with anything.
2. BABY MONITORS: Today’s parents acquire the latest video technology for their nurseries. But in 1996, such high-tech gear would’ve drained my kids’ non-existent college accounts. Instead, our cheap plastic set-up boasted prehistoric auditory clarity with transistors emitting sounds worthy of a space shuttle launch. Eventually, both pieces retired to the toy box to be used as pretend walkie-talkies. Until my kids located two soup cans and a string which worked better and didn’t require batteries.
3. ULTRASOUNDS: Modern sonogram pictures are now three-dimensional! (Or is it four? And does the Ford Modeling Agency accept pre-natal portfolios?) My own children’s ultrasound images were streakier than a Rachel Zoe zebra-print maternity dress. I took it on faith that I was staring at a human baby although I couldn’t identify a single body part. “Is it a boy? A girl? A cashew?” (What? I was unusually hungry back then. Oh yeah and every day since.)
4. COLD TREATMENTS: I’m chagrined to confess we doped our kids up on pediatric meds at the first sign of congestion. We had no idea that administering the correct dosage for an infant was impossible; that baby cold medicine was ineffective. Now, rather than squirting Dristan at your kids, you get the Nosefrida! This is, of course, preferable to placing your mouth directly over your child’s nostrils and sucking. Probably.
5. BREAST FEEDING DEBATE: Just kidding. We had this, too. No matter what your age, there’s always someone willing to make you feel like crap about your parenting choices.
Still, unwelcome judgment is not the only element of parenting that will forever remain unchanged.
Rest assured whether your kid spends his allotted daily screen-time enjoying Zoboomafoo, Teletubbies, Yo Gabba Gabba or Team Umizoomi, even perennially unpronounceable children’s programming is better than The Love Boat.
And how about guilt? Mothers of every age are hard-wired to question their choices, to lie awake at night wondering if they could do better. Experts suggest we need to forgive ourselves and let guilt go. But I say let’s wallow in our worries and ask for really great gifts on Mother’s Day.
Why, you may ask?
Because we crave the scent of baby scalp and avoid the smell of Desitin.
Because we finish soggy grilled-cheese sandwiches and sing “The Itsy Bitsy Spider.”
Because from the minute we first see the cone-headed, cheesy-skinned faces of our offspring, we are suddenly and irrevocably stuffed with love.
We give thanks to our own parents. We cradle eternity in our hands. We feel the pull of generations long after the CLOSED sign begins blinking above our uteruses. Or is it uteri? It really doesn’t matter.
Because this place called Motherhood remains OPEN for a lifetime.
And beyond.
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Editor’s Note: See??
Thanks so much for having me here, Ilana.
But how did you find that picture of me in my maternity wear?
I love the graphics (as always) and I’m humbled by your intro.
So you can show up in California anytime, my friend.
XO
I miss the days of drugging sick children to sleep. And being able to buy cough syrup without a phot ID and a guilt trip.
Even with the non-prehistoric twins I couldn’t wear cute maternity clothes because I was ginormous.
I just read I’m supposed to remove the boys coats before putting them in the car seats. The ones they have to ride in until they’re 16.
I think I prefer my old mom days to my new ones!
Ah, I was having babies back in the days before baby monitors, and I never had an ultrasound. Those were the olden days, all the way back in the 80’s! This was back in the day when disposable diapers were for special occasions, and the big debate was whether it was worse to dump diapers in the landfill or use all that hot water washing cloth diapers. I understand we’ve come back to that question again. I thought I had settled it when I had my second child and decided the earth could handle Pampers better than I could handle another round of diapers on the clothesline.
I’m now in the period of discovering that being a grandma is just like being a mom but better. A grandma is just as full of love but so much less inclined to question every parenting decision. Grandmas don’t lie awake and worry about being good grandmas. Because being a grandma just IS good.
Sorry to ramble; I just enjoyed your post so much it brought out all these thoughts. Thanks for letting me share.
Julie: I think you should wear that Baby on Board shirt backwards, Mix-A-Lot style.
As always, awesome. Ilana described your formula perfectly: ha-ha, reflection, sniffles, no that’s not a tear it’s allergies.
So when are you guys going to compare sizes?
I used the new school but I respect the old school kind of raising a baby. I combined both schools. Now my daughter is a doting teenager.
Ah, wonderful post! I love this blog! Kind of off topic, but what baby monitor is that where you can view it on your iPhone?? My husband and I have been wishing for that invention – I guess it already exists?!
Oh how I worship your words…
And my new handle is officially Stuffed with Love (I had a cupcake and a piece of fried chicken yesterday…am supposed to be working it off as I type…am confident I made the right choice in reading this instead…)
I was trying to think of a clever comment but failed in view of Julie’s awesome words.
Just know this Julie – you, I love.
I adore Julie. She always cracks me up and she is way smart. I had babies in the 80’s and it was a different time. Now that I have grandbabies…I long for the Dimetapp fix. She rivals Old Ben Franklin, with bigger boobs I am sure.
Great post! Thanks alot Shorts, now I have to follow yet another awesome writer! Seriously though thanks for sharing Julie with us!
I have to say I must have gone to an Old School hospital because all 4 (yes 4 for some ungodly reason) ultra sounds looked nothing like 3 or 4-D. Just fuzzy cashews…
“Julie’s posts have this way of starting very funny and then all of a sudden throwing you for a loop and then by the end you’re inspired or crying or booking a plane ticket to California”
Truer words have never been spoken, but Ben Franklin or anyone else.
What? I can’t drug my kids up?
That’s it. I’m moving back to 1996.
Julie.
Julie has become one of my very favorite commenters.
In fact, my life has now become one of chasing around the internet, trying to get to blog posts first, b/c if Julie comments there before me? I end up sounding like this, “me like your post.”
Great post, Julie. I remember those days. My first was born 1995. BUT I do have one millenium baby.
Seeing as how I was just graduating high school in 1995, I still found this post hilarious and oh-so-true (like I would know anything about being a mom in the ’90s). Julie roecketh much.
I’m still stuck on the whole 1996 being “old school” thing… (I’m only 30, which I realize is not old, but still!)
Whenever any of my friends tries to dispute that we’re getting older, I say one thing: “Andy [from Toy Story] is going to COLLEGE”
Oh Bridget,
Sometimes, the more we know, the worse it gets.(Or something like that.)
I shudder at all the things I did “wrong” when I was a mom.
Still, I always did the best I could. And since I live in southern California, my kids never even owned coats.
(What a freakin relief.)
Cynthia,
Weren’t the olden days the best?
Oh wait. I mean, “Thank goodness we know so much more now!”
Yeah. That’s what I meant.
And I won’t EVERY worry if I’m being a good grandma. I KNOW I’m going to rock that scene.
(Go get Grandma’s purse. I have some candy and money for you…and also love. And more candy.)
Oh yeah.
Chase,
Don’t mess with the Mix-A-Lot.
Dude was ahead of his time.
But more importantly, I think I hear Ilana on my front porch now. With a tape measure…
(Wishful thinking…)
That sounds surprisingly close to LOGICAL.
Hmmm….
I kind of lost that word from my vocabulary when my kids were babies.
I operated more from a place of EXHAUSTION.
Which I suppose IS good preparation for teenagers, no?
(I actually love the teen years. So far. Good luck to us both, then!)
Melissa,
I have to say that of ALL the gadgets, the high tech baby monitor still doesn’t do it for me.
If your house is small enough (our was. hooray!) you can hear those babies even when you don’t want to.
Plus, can you play Words with Friends and still watch the monitor?
Something to think about…
Lori,
Cupcakes, fried chicken and reading?
That’s never a bad choice.
You could put that on a maternity t-shirt and sell at least one.
To me.
(Hello, business opportunity…)
Oh Alison my farthest-away-friend (I’m just assuming that. Like I assumed I’m taller than Ilana),
You make me smile.
And feel stuffed with love.
Which reminds me, I have a few maternity shirts you can borrow…
XO
Janie,
Don’t tell anyone, but we once tried to make Jack “sleepy” for a cross-country flight by giving him Benadryl.
We sat there in the airport reading the box:
“A small percentage of people will experience the opposite effect.”
Yeah. Forget drowsy. Jack was out of control all the way to New Jersey.
I’m sure Ben Franklin could have come up with a moral for us. Something like “SUCKERS!”
Brianne,
I’m glad I’m not alone here in thinking my kids’ private parts looked like mixed nuts.
Then again, I was voraciously hungry when I was pregnant.
Oh yeah and always.
Still, it’s nice to meet you. Because anyone with four kids is my hero.
(How DO you do all the laundry? Seriously.)
Cameron,
Oh how I wish I could have you here in California with me. Right now.
I’d hug you hard and we could fill up the room with talk about writing. And kids. And life.
Oooh. And I have coffee. A lot.
Think about it…
Tulpen,
PLUS, in 1996, we could wear those grungy flannel shirts over jeans and boots and call it FASHION.
That may have been the last time I was even remotely stylish.
(Besides, of course, the Baby on Board shirt. That thing’s timeless.)
Alexandra,
You just reminded me how very much I wanted a millennium baby…
But then I read this post and am reminded that I probably had my hands (and sanity) full with two.
Still. Sanity is overrated, right?
I’m pretty sure that’s going to be my first tattoo.
(It’s either that or “Smiles! Smiles everyone!” Sheesh, that Fantasy Island was scary.)
Moxie,
I love the edge of authority that comes with adding a “th” to the end of a verb.
We must useth this more often. Or something.
Because I have lots of authority. And stuff.
p.s. No joke: You’re one of my favorite recent internet finds. I’m so glad we met and I respecteth you like crazy. That is all.
Heather,
A Toy Story video(the original) was the Big Brother gift my sister bought my son when his baby sister was born.
Then we bought Toy Story 2 during a birthday week and watched it repeatedly all snuggled on the couch.
So when I took the kids to see Toy Story 3 a DECADE after the first movie, I cried my eyes out. Snot and everything.
College? COLLEGE? I swear I wanted to write Andy on the bottoms of all of my boots just to keep my kids young.
But that kind of didn’t make sense.
Nevertheless…
Even the six-year span between my two babies is a generational span. I look at things in Target and thing, GAH, I could have used something like that six years ago.
Baby gadgets are so cool it almost makes me want to get pregnant again, just to see what they’ll come up with next.
And you have 8″ on me even when I wear heels. You can excrapolate my bust size from that, if you want.
I don’t know where I fit, because I had both kids in the 2000’s – yet I still drug them. Also, since we did not want to know the first born’s sex until born, we referred to him as Smudge – based on the first ultrasound.
Julie rules the world. Next to Ilana, of course [your blog, you win.]
OH no Ms. Julie, I had 4 ultrasounds for ONE baby!!
I guess this falls into “new school” because they wanted to “monitor” her because she was “so small” (I’m 5’1 and about 100 lbs how big did they think she would be?!). Turns out she was born a normal healthy size and all those extra ultra sounds were only good for depleting my bank account since we had to pay for the extra ones. And I think she looked like a cashew the whole way thru the damn pregnancy.
Sorry I can’t be you’re hero, I’m in the one and done camp here. But you can be my Yoda as she gets older and I’ll need all the help I can get when she’s an angsty teen!
The image of a breast pump and you is forever burned into my memory bank, as well as SR’s, I am sure!
Ha! We actually do have a video monitor. Paranoid first time mom of an infant…I like to look at him. But as we carry the video unit around, both DH and I have wondered if an iPhone compatible unit is available. First world problems! 🙂
You. Are. Funny.
Mother’s Day is my favorite holiday of the year by the way!
XO
The blog! I would be in jail for child abuse or addicted to sedatives if it wasn’t for the blogging community… writing my blog and reading other Mommy Blogs keeps me sane! (semi-sane)
llana, you are so right. now, please pass the tissues.
I just googled Julie Gardner and muumuu and that’s what came up. Spitting image, no?
Thank you so much for posting here.
Really? I had no idea about that coat thing. That would solve a lot of problems actually.
I pretty much adore you Julie.
ADORE.
My mother is always shocked at my maternity clothes. they’re so TIGHT and I’m not wearing the Peter Pan collar that decency demands…and so I guess what I’m saying is…I’m glad you didn’t enter motherhood in the conservative 80’s or this would be more of a rant. And I’m not saying you’re my mother, because that would be IMPOSSIBLE…I’m trying to say YOU ARE AWSOME. Actually I’m trying to shout it.
I have never heard of the “hot water defense”. I am using it! Disposable all the way! I’m saving water!
If Mrs. Gardner is 5’6″ then she is two inched taller than me. But I bet I have bigger feet.
There will be no extrapolation of bust-size here, Jess.
Math and I do NOT mix.
I am, however, mad that I never capitalized on inventions I came up with with newborns…
I could have made millions by copywriting my plan to duct tape sippy cups to the sides of my strollers.
Oh yeah.
Ha ha ha ha…
The Tylenol pics killed me.
My mom and I were discussing the other day how when I got pregnant I immediately quit smoking and my house has been a strictly non-smoking house ever since. Whereas, when she was pregnant with me, she smoked a pack a day. Then after I was born, my aunts and her would sit around me smoking cigarettes, drinking coffee, with my little baby chair in the middle of the table they were sitting around. Thanks, Mom.
MK,
We didn’t find out the gender of either of our babies…Not that we could have it we’d tried.
I thought everything was an elbow, pretty much.
But Smudge is the Best Name Ever.
It almost makes me want to be pregnant again…Almost.
XO
This is back in the day when putting on a leash on your kid was acceptable right? Nowadays it needs to be some sort of cute teddy bear backpack contraption to get away with it!
The cold/tylenol thing made me splatter coffee on my computer screen – to whom should I send the invoice? Ilana or Julie?
Di –
That two-sided, hospital-grade Medela breast pump was my ONE high-end piece of equipment post-baby.
Just think of the scars I’ve left in my wake…
(Master Keys are NOT a good idea.)
Jamie,
That’s because you’re SMART, my friend.
AND young.
So I’m a little bit jealous.
But mostly I just love you.
It is the Withings Smart Baby Monitor and after some research, it appears like it has not yet been released. (I’m so cutting edge and I didn’t even realize!)
Here’s a link to their latest press release- seems like they just demo-ed it at a convention (Nov 3rd) and it should be out soon.
http://blog.withings.com/en/2011/11/03/highlights-from-the-live-demo-of-the-smart-baby-monitor/
Evin,
I feel the same way.
And semi-sane is pretty much the best I can hope for.
So you can imagine the seriousness of my blogging need…
Denae,
Thanks for reading. And luckily, we DID have tissues back in 1996.
Because I’ve been a teary-eyed mess from the minute I gave birth.
My hospital didn’t have 3-D ultrasounds either and went to Colombia Presbyterian which is supposed to be the #1 Baby hospital in NYC.
I also had to get lots of extra ultrasounds – one a week to be exact. Due to complications that I’ve never got into because it doesn’t make for a very entertaining post and everything turned out just fine, as you know.
(Thank god they were covered.)
So by Julie standards, I have about twenty kids.
JoAnn,
I won’t say I was bitter that Jennifer Aniston’s character got pregnant on Friends AFTER I had already surrendered to the maternity mu mu.
Because really? No one needed to see my bare stomach. As it turns out, FAKE pregnant bellies look much cuter on television than my actual one in real life.
But you’re the cutest of all.
No matter what you’re wearing…
Danielle,
My parents nailed folding chairs into the back of a Chevy station wagon and drove my sister and me around in it (without seat belts of course) for years.
How did we survive?
Oh right. It was all the preservatives and high-fructose corn syrup!
Nobody said anything about putting whiskey in a baby’s bottle, right? That’s still fine, I’m sure.
Sara,
My memory is dimming in my forties, but I’m pretty sure we didn’t do the leash thing. I’m thinking we used bungee cords and/or duct tape.
Ah yes. The generation of “Make it Work!”
Nothing beats a Julie comment. Except possibly an Alexandra comment. I’m calling it a tie.
My new office is making me feel ridiculously old. I’m surrounded by CHILDREN (aka 25 year olds). I made a Charlotte Rae reference the other day and they said “Who?” And I said “from Facts of Life” and they said “What’s that?”
!!!!!!!
Oh Julie, so many LOLs in this one. And MommyShorts is right! You ALWAYS bring it all together to something especially poignant. Have to tell you I’m still laughing picturing the teddy bear “stuffed with love” short.
Holy craps, that was a funny post! I’m putting you on my Google Reader, Julie! Good job.
A sidenote: my baby monitors are my thin walls. I can hear EB in her room just fine…unless I put a pillow over my head in the hopes that she forgets why she woke up in the middle of the night. I do use monitors if I’m going over to the neighbor’s house for a “dinner out of the house” without needing a babysitter. Their living room is as far away from EB’s bedroom as our living room is, i.e. NOT.
Should I be admitting that?
Oh the old lady is whoring around again. You not me.
Love ya more than my own children. Today anyway. Probably.
When do I get to see your breasts?
xoxo
Nina,
Baby Nate is so lucky to have YOU for a mother; you know what’s actually necessary in the world of parenting and what’s nonsense…
I’m still trying to figure it out.
And that teddy bear shirt did not help matters.
At all.
XO
Oh I hear you, lady! (That’s ironic, huh? Or is it NOT ironic? I always get confused by that since Alanis Morrisette. DANG it.)
Anyway, we didn’t use monitors either. Yes, we had a small house so that helped.
But I figured if I couldn’t hear it with my own ears, it couldn’t be that important.
This philosophy serves me now with the teens, too.
There is little I want to hear going on in their bedrooms. Pretty sure.
Tracy,
I may or may not be standing outside your living room window flashing you right now.
(Don’t let Astrid see!)
Would you believe I raised my ’98er without a Bumbo? I’m fairly certain this will surface later in therapy.
As always Ms. JCG, you are perfection. And this Gardner Shorts combo? A real treat. Awesome Ilana.
I always do what I can with accompanying visuals. Julie made it easy.
You probably don’t have to preorder the fancy one. Mount a wireless webcam on the ceiling and just aim it at the crib. Admittedly, it won’t tell you the temperature or turn on the nightlight, but you will get to spy on your baby.
I’m not kidding. When I saw the Baby Monitors, I stared at them for more than a couple seconds thinking, “What the hell are those things?”
Thanks, Julie.
And yes: Ilana’s graphics make me look funnier than I am.
By a lot.
Now if I could only find that “I’m not fat I’m stuffed with love shirt” I’d be GOLDEN…
Liz,
I know! I see that confused look whenever my kids watch a movie or TV show where someone grabs an old cell phone that’s bigger than a dress shoe and has antennae sticking out.
The good old days. Or something like that.
Next time try Dramamine! 🙂 Another old school remedy….
Loved this. And the graphics are perfect. Meet the old school, pretty much same as the new school.
Ah teenagers… I am blessed to have a teenaged son, and elementary school daughter and a preschool daughter.
So I lie awake at night wondering: 1)what drama my teenager is going to throw at me in the next 24 hours; 2a)whether my elementary schooler is going to finish her project in time and 2b)if that boy really does like her (then what am I going to do about it); and of course, 3a)whether I am a good mother to the preschooler, 3b)if she gets lost in the shuffle, or 3c)if I am hopefully spoiling her with all of my fabulous craigslist finds…
it’s a balancing act… but if I’m going to lie awake at night, at least I have three fantastic people to think about!
I also have my kids 6 years apart in age, but to add to the mix my first was born in the land that never left the 80s, Holland. Where you get one ultrasound to get a due date at 8 weeks and thats it, there are no drugs in the delivery room (not even an epidural) and you are going home within 4 hours of birth no matter what time of the night it is (yes they sent me home at 12.30am in January). Talk about lack of gadgets, I’d never even looked at a carseat until my daughter was 3 years old and we moved to the US.
I also never drugged her, but that’s because they didn’t exist there, and I didn’t baby-proof the house because there was no such thing. No need for a baby monitor in a 400 sq ft apartment either. Oh and this was 2004.
Fast forward to today and my 18 month old has every gadget known to man, you need a phd to pee in my house, and I could write a book on carseats.
Oh sweet Julie, how do I love tee? Like a lot. A perfect post, as always!
(And omg, I die at the photos and captions!)
xo
Having stood next to the lovely MommyShorts, I now realise that it wasn’t that I was so short next too her that made her seem so tall and svelte .. its the fact that she is svelte and I am … not 😉
Hi Julie, always lovely!!!
I now think I love Julie.
No.
I KNOW I love Julie.
Nice. I’m not afraid of a little medicine.
Probably.
“When the world never seems…to be living up to your dreams…”
Loved that show. I couldn’t decide whether I wanted to be Blair or Jo.
Because obviously Blair was gorgeous. But Jo kicked ass.
Unfortunately, I ended up more like Mrs. Garrett in the end.
Maybe.
Ilana give great graphics.
And forget about the pie charts.
She’s a master.
Oh Dawn.
I know all about that “lie awake at night” worry.
Why is everything so serious when it’s dark out?
I wake up and think, “MAYBE I didn’t need to be so stressed out about accidentally buying my kids the wide-ruled spirals instead of the college-ruled.”
I mean, Staples will be open today, right?
Jen,
Forget the book on car seats.
I’m gonna need the dissertation on peeing at your house.
I have my priorities, after all.
Galit –
I couldn’t WAIT to see what Ilana cooked up for this post. And she didn’t disappoint.
I’m completely in love with that grinning baby and I kind of want to get pregnant again just to wear that black leather maternity outfit.
(But not really.)
Nicole,
Maybe if we tried that black leather get-up from the first graphic?
That’s got svelte written all over it.
Or something.
Awwww, thanks Kim.
So nice to meet you here.
Ilana with the Love Connections for the win!
Brilliant as always, Julie.
I swear, baby technology and rules change like computers: the old version is obsolete before they can even walk.
Love the baby scalp smell. Do you think my children will mind as teens if I make them use Johnson’s baby shampoo?
That iPhone camera looks sweet. I need one just to spy on the kids when playing upstairs so when I hear crying and ask, “Ok, what happened?” I can verify if I’m getting the truth…
So much wonderful just exploded all over my screen…Julie in Mommy Shorts.
I love it.
They look good on her.
Also? I was a teenager in 1996 and my aunt was having babies. I totally remember all this stuff.
And I also remember my mom telling her how easy she had it compared to having babies in the late 70’s and early 80’s.
Julie, I love you!
But now you have me very very worried…you think Tori Spelling has fashion sense?
Put your kid’s cold medicine down. Once the Nyquil wears off you should be able to see and think properly again.
I really think you may have given the Ford Modeling Agency an idea here with taking headshots from a 4D ultrasound. You may have started a trend. It is funny how quickly things change when it comes to having a baby!
Sniff, sniff. Being a mommy is great. oh, my precious little angels…. now shut up and go to sleep because grey’s anatomy is about to come on and Mr. Pinot Noir is calling me!
There’s a Bucky Covington song that sums it all up. lead paint on cribs, watching tv, riding with no seat belts. And yet, here we all are. I remember my hairdresser saying she wasn’t too worried about how she ate during her pregnancies because there are teenage girls eating spaghettios and twinkies having perfectly healthy babies and they turn out fine, so she could do no worse. Ironic, but absolutely true.
I <3 Julie. A lot.
What's all sorts of awesome is, if you show up on her front porch all "here I am," she's so very kind, plying you with wine, explaining how it's a little freaky that you just showed up at somebody's house uninvited.
Ahhh… 1996 pregnancy – I remember it well. Maternity clothes were ugly. I think they got cute about 5 minutes after I gave birth to my son. Of course they were cute 3 years later when I was pregnant with my daughter but I was too fat to wear the cute ones!
Great post. (As always!) I’ll follow you anywhere. (And I likey Mommy shorts blog too!)
BTW… I used to have a huge crush on those Kratt brothers. (And what’s wrong with The Love Boat?!?)
*sigh* perfect. Another perfect post by Julie Gardner.
Kelly,
(Move in close so no one can hear because my kids will be mortified that I’m saying this….)
i still smell their hair. and my kids are still delicious.
Of course ONLY when they’ve just gotten out of the shower.
After that, it’s all teen scent.
Oh my. How the time has flown.
Faster than truth, even.
Much.
OMG. Love her!
Katie,
You’re right! “Easier” is all relative, really.
My grandmother likes to talk about when my mom was born and my grandma was knocked out completely through the birth and handed a baby afterward.
Then, she had to wait about five days in the hospital before they even let her dangle her legs over the side of the bed.
And I’m thinking, “That sounds freakin’ awesome.”
So yeah. It’s all relative!
XO
Tonya,
Oh My Gawd youareright.
I’m now mortified and thinking back to Beverly Hills 90210.
And today.
I can’t believe I used her as an example. Of anything.
Except how to maybe make the most of creepy cleavage.
Oh yeah.
No more NyQuil for me.
Elena,
I wonder what Lanagan would say about Beyonce and Jay Z’s new baby…
They could totally hang out and make beautiful music together.
Or not 😉
Also, I’m holding my almost-sleeping son with one hand and wiping tears with the other hand because I clicked on her son’s birthday post. Holy God, that is some incredible writing.