They're coming for you Neo: Parenting and Paranoia. A Dirty Story.

While this was my favorite movie at age 13, I don't believe my children are evil robots. Yet.

Warning: For those suffering from weak stomachs or just cannot abide the thought of dirty diapers/ baby puke... read no further. You simply can't be a mom without having to wade through disgusting bodily fluids of some sort. I've found that the key is to some how find it funny instead of vomit inducing.

Knock, Knock Neo

I look like I'm smuggling watermelons

Every time I have a baby (that would be three times now) I develop an all consuming Persecution Complex. My initial symptoms began to crop up in the very beginning of pregnancy, right about the time morning sickness hit. First off, I would love to get my hands on the doctor that named it "morning sickness",  because obviously he/she never had my brand of "all-day-every-day-for-6-months sickness". Right about the time I realized I would be spending the vast majority of my day cultivating a friendship with the toilet, I decided that my unborn baby hated me. She obviously had serious beef with all of my food choices, and therefore spent all day just hitting the reject button for fun. Ham sandwich? Reject. Cucumbers? Reject. Ice Cream? Not in your dreams Mommy, Reject. My antagonistic relationship with my child grew as she outgrew her living space. Those gentle little flutters rapidly transformed into jabs, then punches and full out fist fights. As I would attempt to pry a little foot (or head or arm, I could never quite tell) out of my rib cage or try to persuade my child that dancing the rumba on my bladder was not a good option for either of us, I became more and more convinced that she had it out for me.

Luckily, my birth experiences haven't been too horrific. (Thank you God for epidurals). And out of consideration of those with sensitive stomachs I won't go into the gory details. Needless to say, after all that HARD work, and the little one actually arrived, I readily forgave her for all the reject button pushing and bladder punching she had done. All three of my little girls were perfect angels in the hospital. They barely cried, the first time around I smugly thought I had produced a miracle child. She didn't cry! This parenthood thing was going to be a piece of cake! (Do you notice a trend here?) Then we got home and the shock of their forceful eviction from their former home wore off and they discovered their lungs. And the parade of dirty diapers and spit up stained clothes began.


The Perils of Parenthood

Postpartum Psychosiss (PP)  is a real and dangerous mental state that can affect women after giving birth. In my opinion the DSM-IV should add another unofficial mental state to their lists, Post-Baby Psychoticness (PBP)  While this mental state isn't nearly as life threatening as PP, it is never to be discounted. Post-Baby Psychoticness can strike down both parents, although the mother is generally afflicted with a more acute case due to the physical trauma of child birth and a massively unfair dose of hormones (although the father can be equally traumatized by having to witness the birth and the verbal abuse directed toward him during the actual delivery.) Some of the tell tale signs of PBP include:

• Glassy glazed eyes, inability to focus, droopy eyes
• Tendency to stop in mid sentence, mutter "Must. sleep. no. sleep. gimme. coffee."
• Constant incoherent mumbling
• Hair trigger emotions: if refused chocolate/coffee/nap/anything, the parent may have a psychotic break which may be life threatening. Or they may just weep copiously 
• Ranting, raving, screaming,  and much wailing and gnashing of teeth 
• Paranoia/ Obsessive Compulsive Desires: parent is seized with the need to check that the newborn is still breathing, multiple times a day. 
• Amnesia: simple facts about pre-baby lives are simply forgotten, they've also forgotten what it's like to take a shower every day or sleep more than 3 hours in a row.  
•  Personality changes: a previously stoic woman may find herself tearing up at Hallmark commercials, Disney movies or anything that may hint at emotion. This will never go away.

No parent of a newborn escapes some form of Post Baby Psychoticness. Recently, when I was in the middle of my newborn haze with Kiki, a friend of the family was admiring my little family and innocently inquired how many kids I had. I gazed at her through bleary eyes, paused and said "I have... three? Yeah, *pauses to mentally count children* I have three girls." Yes. I forgot how many children I had. But to be fair, I had gotten 3 hours of sleep the night before and it really felt like I had alot more than three kids that day. 


**Disclaimer: I am not a psychiatrist, and in case you didn't pick up on it already, Post Baby Psychoticness doesn't really exist (although in my mind it does). I wouldn't recommend waltzing into a doctor's office and demanding happy drugs to deal with your severe case of PBP.

 Getting my hands dirty...

But back to my Persecution Complex. Perhaps it is due to the fact that I am generally massively sleep deprived (and I like my sleep) but my half joking belief that my child "has it out for me" turns into a deep seated conviction after we leave the hospital.

And this is where it gets gross.


I frequently complained to my husband that "_____ (fill in child's name here) hates me". Yes, my paranoia had reached epic proportions. But between the constant "diaper surprises" (open diaper, get peed on) and the uncanny accurate aim of the spit up, the only logical conclusion I could come up with was that my child popped out of the womb with a life long grudge against me. This time around, my paranoia soared to even greater heights, I began to suspect my children of somehow holding secret meetings while I was otherwise occupied. I'm not sure how or when they arranged these clandestine pow-pow's, I just know they had to have happened. Because everyday, without fail, the minute I would get one child down for a nap, the other child would immediately start hollering. Literally.the.very.same.second. Their timing was utterly diabolic. And I don't think it's possible without some sort of planning meeting.

Taking a stroll down memory lane, I vividly remember my very first diaper change. I was nine years old and my baby sister had been home for a few weeks. Up until that very fateful day, I had adamantly refused to change all dirty diapers but had very gamely handled all wet diapers with a great deal of expertise. One afternoon, I laid my sister down in her crib and began to change her, fully expecting a wet diaper. Much to my horror, it definitely was not wet. I quickly dashed down the hall screaming "Mom, Mom, Mom, the baby has a dirty diaper, come change it!" My mother had just survived a particularly horrible c-section with several complications and was in no condition to change said diaper, she said "Go ask your dad." So I frantically scurried down the hall, yelling "Dad, Dad, Dad, the baby has a dirty diaper!" His reply? "Go tell your Mom." This game was played several times until it became clear that the time had come, I was going to learn how to change a dirty diaper. I hesitantly reentered the baby's room and found her laying in the crib happy as a clam. But in my haste to get my parents, I had forgotten to refasten her diaper. She was covered in poop from her little neck to her tiny little toes. And it was my job to clean her up. I spent the next 10-15 minutes resolutely cleaning the child up, I used about half a box of baby wipes and spent a good portion of the time gagging. Eventually she got clean, and I'm very proud to say I didn't throw up. My first diaper change definitely left a lasting (and scarring) impression.

Ensuring the propagation of the species, one smile at a time

Generally by the time the child in question started sleeping through the night (around 3 months old), my paranoia (and Post-Baby Psychoticness) slowly abated. The child in question also got much cuter. Now I'm not saying any of my children weren't absolutely beautiful, but from a purely objective viewpoint, most newborns look like, well, wrinkled old men. They are squished, wrinkled, red and their skin doesn't quite fit them. I've heard Bill Cosby liken them to lizards because they change color so often, and I don't think he's far off. By the time my kids reach 3 months old, they've developed those pinch-ably cute chubby cheeks and thighs and they've also learned one important defense mechanism: the smile. I firmly believe that children are cute because if the weren't so adorable their parents would:

         A) never ever have more than one child (unless they happen to be the martyr type or just like pain)
         B) most children wouldn't make it past the first few months of life.

Deceivingly innocent

This might sound unbelievably harsh, but after my impish two year old has broken the third glass of the morning or somehow rooted through the fridge and spilled a whole gallon of milk on the floor, I am quite tempted to toss her in the yard with a sign around her neck that says "Free 2 year old to good home". Enter the "cute defense mechanism". If these children weren't born with the innate ability to be so gosh darn cute, I firmly believe our species would have died out centuries ago. There's something about the innocent smile of an adorable two year old that tugs at your heart strings that some how makes you ignore the pool of spilled milk that surrounds her.

Well, most of the time you can ignore the spilled milk.

But to all my friends with newborns or friends soon to have newborns, I wish you luck during your Post-Baby Psychoticness. And if you ever need a shoulder to cry on or a nap, give me a call. With three kids, I don't have a social life.