Of fantasies and crushed spirits

One of my favorite lines from The Simpsons is when Homer observes of Bart: "He reminds me of me before the weight of the world crushed my spirit." I don't think of that when I look at my kids, but rather when I look at my childless friends and coworkers. You know, people with lives.

When I was married-but-not-yet-a-mother, I made many resolutions about how I would conduct my life, post-baby-birthing. Some of these resolutions were long-held from childhood, others from as recently as my first pregnancy, forged to steely resolve by observing Other People's Kids. Now, I see these resolutions for what they are: pure fantasy, spun from the purest hubris. Perhaps someday I'll release my attachment to them, but for now I continue to wallow in my crushed spirit.

When you're pregnant for the first time, people with kids, both known and unknown to you, bombard you with this message repeatedly, and unrelentingly: "It will change your life forever." They are completely right, of course, but you know what? It's not like one can prepare for one's life to be changed forever, and you wouldn't want to prepare even if you could. If anyone had a clue about the misery they were about to shackle themselves to, nobody would ever have kids again. If you listen very carefully, you may be able to detect that when they say "It will change your life forever!" they really mean "Oh man, your life is about to turn to shit! Shit I tell you! Literally, shit!" It's just not something you want to know about ahead of time. And so as a defense from this onslaught, you polish your resolutions, hone them fine, until they glint in your mind with the shininess and solidness of the Code of Hammurabi.

So here I offer to you, Dear Reader (that would be me), my top 10 fantasies (nee resolutions) about life after babies:

1. I will see my childless friends from time to time
2. I will still watch entire 49ers games on Sundays
   
3. I will never spend 60-90 minutes putting my kid to sleep
4. I will still travel, with baby strapped to my back
5. I will never go more than a month without sex
6. I will never allow myself to get fat
   
7. I will never seriously contemplate going out for milk and not coming back
8. I will never let my kids watch more than an hour of TV a day
9. I will not let my child scream on a bus/train/plane
10. I will never yell at my child for smearing jam/paint/soap/snot/shit all over her/me/the walls

Parenthood is messy (especially when there's shit on the walls). It's a good thing they are so damn cute when they sleep, and that my love of sitting on the couch drinking and watching Survivor is so strong. And that I'm married to Zen, who never seems to tire of telling me that we're doing fine, and it's all going to be okay. Yay Zen! Yay Chartreuse! Yay almost-series-finale-of-Lost! I've just found my will to live for another day.