Royal Baby, Commoner Pain

Sorry for the long absence my blogtastic friends, I have been a little under the weather and on so much cold medication that every thing I tried to write came out a little Jefferson Airplane Starshippy, so I figured I’d just save my those thoughts for a spoken word album or something. 

I don’t know about you guys but I’m an avid royal watcher.  I was pleased a punch that the new little Prince made his appearance this week.  All the hubbub and framed announcements on royal easels was terribly exciting. It’s not everyday that a bonafide future king is born.  All the hype got me to thinking about when my own kiddos made their debut into this world; sweet, terrifying, and messier than I’d imagined.  

Childbirth is a great equalizer of men, errr… women.  Women have been doing it since the beginning of time, and childbirth has managed to suck equally between the classes.  Princess Kate has lived a fairy tale, commoner who fell madly in love with prince, got married and lived in a castle.  The End; nope, there is the nasty business of birthing an heir to tend to.  While I’m sure the future queen will have no shortage of assistance with child raising; nannies, tutors, chefs, maids, exorcists…. So she probably won’t get so fed up with her motherly duties that she lies to the Prince about running to get milk, and instead treats herself to a nice steak dinner, alone.  However, there is no way of delegating the birthing portion of motherhood, trust me I’ve tried.  

In the business of birthing, HRH has no advantages over the char woman laundering the royal bed linens.  (Char women, do they still have those.  My idea of England is heavily influenced by Charles Dickens, a little Doctor Who, but a whole lot of Dickens) This is why I have decided to write the Duchess a little letter of condolence and advice. Besides, every mother believes her child to be a prince or princess, so I’m super qualified to give royal advice.  It would go like this.

Dear Princess Kate,

Congrats on the birth of your little Georgie.  Also congrats on being about to walk down those steps in front of the hospital the day after you gave birth, you even wore heels, how nice for you, I myself wore two different flip flops for a week before I realized it, and another week after I realized it.

I was so sorry to hear about your ripped nether region, you should trying putting a frozen pack of peas in your princess panties, it will help a lot.  Just be careful to remember to defrost a different pack if you are ever making chicken pot pie for the church pot luck, I’ve.. umm… heard that would not be a good idea.   You’ll walk like a plow hand for a few weeks, but it’ll get better…eventually; and your lady bits will go back to normal, more or less.

I doubt you’ll get such advice from the queen, but it would probably be a good idea if you bought stock in a small but reliable panty liner manufacturing corporation.  Your bladder will pretty much never be the same again, and you don’t want to be laughing (or coughing, or sneezing, or standing, or lifting something) at the Turkish Ambassador’s joke and piddle a little on your throne.  Wars have been started by lesser occurrences. 

You’ll be extremely hormonal for a while, so it would be best if you didn’t make any important decisions (i.e. OFF WITH HIS HEAD) until you are completely better; beheadings are hard to undo.  The doctor will probably give you a little pill to make you feel better, take it, take all of them, then beg for a refill.  Trust me, rage doesn’t look good on a princess, and you don’t want to accidentally mouth off to your inlaws have them put you in the stocks.

You are the future queen of England: graceful, poised, delicate, charming… so I’m sorry to have to be the one to tell you that you actually did poop on the delivery room table.  Everybody saw, but they were just too polite to say anything.  In a few years one of the nurses will sell her story to the tabloids, probably with a few bootleg cell phone pictures too, but it’s ok you’ll be able to have her beheaded by then. 

Hope you are doing well,

Katie

p.s. Oh and don’t worry the hemorrhoids will go away.  (Yeah just keep believing that, sister.  Denial will help with the post partum depression)

p.p.s If you find any of the love letters I wrote Prince William when I was 15, sorry I was young, our imaginary relationship has been over for a long time.

p.p.p.s  No matter how hard you try to keep your little one looking nice, neat, and princely this is inevitably how they always turn out.

Vacations, Real and Imaginary

    First of all, thanks for such a warm reception to my very first blog post, if I had known I loved attention this much I would have released a sex tape years ago. 

    I’m currently watching Dinosaur Train while my kids wrestle over some alphabet magnets— all in all, just your normal average Tuesday.  My kids have emptied out the contents of two toy boxes onto the living room floor, and mixed in a few crushed Fritos for good measure.   In about a half hour I will begin the arduous process of trying to make them nap. In about two hours I will give up and settle for just making them sit on the bed with enough electronics to keep them occupied, or successfully navigate a 747.  Mommy needs her quiet time or she might not be the kind, nurturing, homemaker it shows on the brochure.

    One of my most favorite activities during quiet time is to sneak away and eat the candy I’ve been hiding in my purse, and to surf the web.  I really like Priceline, which I use to plan imaginary vacations.  If you looked at my Priceline browser history you’d probably think I was some jet-setting travel writer, a drug mule, or a congressman with a secret family somewhere.  I plan imaginary vacations everywhere— to the beaches of Mexico, exciting European romps, weekends berry-picking in Maine, Dude Ranches in Montana, and I even explored a “Cruise to Lose” weight-loss cruise… but decided that a bunch of fat people on a boat with no food would end up like a fleshier version of Lord of the Flies.
   

    Once I pick a spot for my imagication (a term that I just coined and will be copywriting soon so don’t even THINK about jacking it), I then google popular attractions in the area such as local restaurants, and I even check Zagats ratings to make sure they are clean, because even I don’t want to find imaginary mouse droppings in the imaginary ice machine.  I then plan an imagitinerary! Ok, that one doesn’t work… an itinerary.  It might sound pathetic, but, well, it really is.  But what can you expect?  The closest thing to a real vacation I’ve had in 5 years is going to my husband’s grandmother's funeral in Salt Lake City.  Momma needs to get away! (Did you read that in Monique's voice? Because that is what I intended.)  It’s not like I haven’t been anywhere though. Every once in a while we’ll take an overnight trip to somewhere close.  That is when I actually get to use my beloved Priceline for something real.  Being the thrifty (nice word for BROKE) shopper I am, I bid for the absolute cheapest thing I can find.  So far that has been ok. I have had only one bad experience so far, but boooooy was it a doozy!

    For our anniversary last year, I drug my honey to a country music concert that he liked about as much as a root canal and a pap smear (if men could have their paps smeared) combined, but I loved it so he went along.  When the concert was over it was after midnight and too late to drive home, so i whipped out my phone with my trusty Priceline app! I was ELATED to find an amazing deal on a hotel pretty close, so off we went.  When we got there I thought it was a joke.  There were no lights in the parking lot, and it looked like we were the only people for miles and miles.  The chain lock had been broken off the door and it looked like an episode of CSI waiting to happen.  A dark and terrifying walk to the front desk to complain was no use.  The innkeeper (do people still use that term, or is it strictly for nativity stories and Shakespearian plays?) wasn't remotely helpful.  English was not his first language and he gave me an international scowl that said, “Hey lady, you got this room at 2 am for 40 bucks! What did you expect, bolted locks on your doors?”  I gave up and had another terrifying and dark sprint back to the room.

    The sheets were yellowed and there was only one towel in the bathroom, probably because the owner was planning on stabbing one of us in the shower… so obviously we only needed one towel.  Just doing his best to stay green.  After checking under the bed for dead prostitutes or hypodermic needles, my husband (who can sleep under ANY circumstance) snuggled up in the bodily-fluid encrusted comforter (or Exhibit A, depending on who you ask) and fell sound asleep.

    There was no way I could sleep, so I kept watch all night. I don’t know what I would have done if I were attacked, the only weapon I could find in the room was an ancient remote control with no batteries (or exhibit B, depending on who you ask.)  When morning broke my husband awoke fresh as a daisy and chipper as a Disney Princess.  I swear I thought blue birds were gonna swoop in and make the bed, but really they were probably just there to eat the bedbugs. 
   
    I keep this experience in mind every time I read the online reviews of hotels: “I give our stay a -1, the pool was too cold…” or “The lines at the continental breakfast were VERY long…”  When I read comments like this I have to stop myself from responding, “At least you didn’t have to take a round or antibiotics after check out,” or “Have you ever heard a cockroach scream in terror?” But it’s ok, our anniversary is coming up soon, and this year we’re going to find a great place: a place with locks, at least two towels, and a continental breakfast that consists of than Mountain Dew and methamphetamines.  What can I say, I’m a dreamer!

Moon Pies and Monistat

   

    Since early girlhood I have loved Jane Austen. Her romantic tales of plucky young misses cleverly nabbing rich gentleman from their cigars and brandy and turning them into dashing heroes is the stuff that my pudgy, four-eyed dreams were made of.  To this day, a man in a cravat and waistcoat will get my pudgier, still four-eyed gears a-going.  Many a tearful diary entry was written regarding how I would never find a man who loved me as much as Mr. Knightly loved Emma. Mostly I loved Pride and Prejudice, and the brooding Mr. Darcy who loved the beautiful Elizabeth. I was certain I was to end up an old-maid, like Jane Austen herself, who died old (aged 40) and alone. Then one day it happened, I met my Mr. Darcy (who is currently eating leftovers on a paper plate so I can write this blog) and had a whirlwind romance that culminated in a beautiful wedding in a bona fide (maybe not literally) castle. *Sigh* The End. Not hardly! Four months later I learned that I was expecting a little bundle of poop, I mean joy, and the real fun started.
    There is a reason Jane Austen always ended things with a wedding, and it wasn’t to satisfy an innate desire to give her heroine a happy ending— It was, in fact, that Queen Jane, in her infinite wisdom, could not realistically romanticize what the next chapter would inevitably be. I’m referring of course to Real Life, a life in which instead of Elizabeth and Darcy exchanging smoldering glances across a ballroom, or experiencing spine tingling attraction when their hands touched while dancing a quadrille; nay, rather, they fought each over the bathroom after getting food poisoning at Joe’s Crab Shack, resulting in Mr. Darcy barfing in the tub. After that experience, the quadrille was never the same. 
    Picture a pregnant and hormonal Elizabeth murdering Mr. Darcy with a hammer because he messed with the thermostat!  (ok, that didn’t really happen in real life, but Elizabeth had a pretty vivid fantasy about it, I promise you!)  And then the children would come.  How could Miss Austen have ever imagined that The Darcy’s darling children, Eustace and Mildred, would ever be anything else than cordial and mostly absent? Elizabeth would never have to say, “Eustace, darling, please eat your Cap’n Crunch (or porridge)” only to have him scream “No, Moon Pie!!!!” (or, I dunno... figgy pudding?) over and over at such a shrill squawk that pterodactyls were being risen from the dead. She would never have to write a scene where Elizabeth and Darcy were having tea with some of the local gentry only to have Mildred toddle in and toss a half used tube of Monistat in the middle of the drawing room floor!
    No, those chapters are better left unwritten. Like the poetry in my seventh grade journal, they never need to see the printed page. Let us have our happy endings, and imagine that for the rest of their lives Elizabeth and Darcy had a continual picnic in field of wild flowers in the verdant English countryside. But, lest you think that you’ve somehow failed because you’re life isn’t mimicking a Sandra Bullock movie, or a romance novel with a Viking on the cover, please continue to read this blog as I explore happy middles (or sometimes explore awful terrible middles, that will eventually make way for happier middles) and the funny things that happen as I learn to parent, find my niche in this big old world, teach little humans how to use the big potty, find inner peace, and make homemade bread.  (Maybe not in that order.)
    For any of you out there who find yourself one day combing scrambled eggs out of a toddlers hair and thinking, “I can’t be the only one!” Guess what, you’re not, been there done that and have the therapy bill to prove it.  I’m hoping by putting my stories out there, we can find sanity in numbers, and begin to enjoy our “unwritten chapters” which for the most part they are a heck of a lot more fun than taking a turn about the estate gardens with your betrothed, even if there is a chance you’ll end up doing a lot more laundry and scrubbing pop tarts out of your carpet.
  
    I still love a good quadrille though!