Before I had kids.....

You know it's true that the only time in your entire life when you know absolutely everything there is to know about parenting is before you have kids. That's when you feel supremely confident in your parenting abilities and have no problem informing those who actually have kids exactly what they're doing wrong and what you would do if you were them. Then, of course, the kids come along and you realize what a fucking idiot you've been. Not only do you realize that you were actually completely clueless before the kids came, but now that they're here, you're STILL totally fucking clueless. It's amazing any of them manage to live past their first few weeks.  I remember once being at Safeway and watching a mom pull a container of formula off the shelf and silently judging the fuck out of her. "I would NEVER feed my kids formula. EWWW! GROSS!" I thought. One of these days I'll tell you guys about my double breastfeeding failures.

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SHAMEFUL PARENTING STORIES INTERLUDE

Child 1: Once when he was around 18 months I was holding him on my arms which were outstretched, he was on his back looking up at me, and I was swinging him around by turning myself in circles. He was having a blast until I jiggled him the wrong way or something and he rolled right off my arms and onto the ground.

Child 2: In the very first hour that he was home from the hospital I had him on the changing table and I was cutting off the ankle bracelet the hospital put on him. I was using giant office scissors and cutting the band with the tip of the scissors and I didn't realize that one of his little toes was stuck in the other end of the blades. I snipped that band right off his ankle and the top layer of skin on his little toe right along with it.

END OF SHAMEFUL PARENTING STORIES INTERLUDE

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Anyway, my actual point in all of this is to relay this lovely incident that happened the other day:

I stepped on something on the rug in the bedroom with my bare feet; it was cold and squishy. And BROWN. It was stuck between my toes and I reached down to get it out and I say to the hubs "Holy shit I hope this is a raisin" and I smelled it to make sure. I fucking smelled it. To make sure it was a raisin. And not a piece of poop.

Hubs started laughing at me. "Can you imagine ever doing that before you had kids?" I hadn't even thought about it, really; I just wanted to know what it was so I smelled it. But no fucking way in hell would I have ever done that before I had kids! Before kids I would have scraped my foot onto the trashcan so I didn't even have to touch it, much less pluck it out of my toes with my hands and bring it to my face. Now, I guess, it's just second nature for me to smell every cold, squishy brown thing that gets stuck between my toes. Just to be sure.

It was a raisin. Good thing I smelled it.

Hey, did I ever tell you guys about the time I hit my kid over the head with a frying pan? Good times.

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