Unasked-for advice

If some poor soul asked me, not realising how much and how long I can go on about such things, what wisdom I had to impart about having a baby (a first baby, I mean), I would tell them, first, and then in great detail, how it is utterly impossible to underestimate the amount that this will change everything, totally and for ever.

Which isn't surprising, really, considering you're talking about being in charge of a new person, from scratch, just you and (if you're lucky) your partner. But we humans, we get the baby urge and we go all gurgly around small ones, and we tend to play down this aspect of procreation. It's Darwinian - if we thought about it too hard, nobody would ever reproduce. I'm (belatedly) reading Anne Lamott's Operating Instructions, and at one point she confesses that she thought having a baby would be a little more like having a cat. I think we all did, probably.

But then I would tell the person who had asked and was now probably already regretting it, especially if I was telling them in e-mail form because they'd get several chapters' worth in reply, probably replete with ennumerated, or at least bulleted, lists; on the other hand, I'd never know if they just closed the window and went on their merry way - at least until the pop quiz arrived the next week - I'd tell the person that they should do as I say and not as I do about this next bit.

Try to keep some things that don't change, I'd say. Whether it's some semblance of an exercise routine, or going shopping with your best friend, or having a date night, or even all three and something else as well, you should do your utmost to continue with some regular activity that was part of your life before the baby, albeit a bit less often. But not as un-often as I've managed to do this: to wit, taking two years to go back to my one puny weekly exercise class ("not that there's anything puny about advanced pilates, thank you," says my core; also "ow"), we've averaged about two date nights a year so far, and my shopping-companion best friend is still in Dublin, so we have an annual shopping trip, if lucky.

It's the guilt, you see. The maternal guilt. On the rare occassions when I'm out of the house and away from the children, even with them in the very capable hands of their father, I constantly feel like an escapee from the asylum, liable to be caught and returned at any moment, and that if I tarry one minute longer than the shortest time possible, something terrible will happen. The only time the guilt subsides is when they're asleep, and my entire body relaxes and and a Pavlovian desire for a cup of tea and something very chocolate rushes over me. Even then, there are so many things I should be doing in this "down time", from blogging to laundry to relaxing and reading a book (Books. I remember them.) that it's not long before the nagging feeling comes back. Oh for the days when I had one thing to be doing at one time (work, or drinking, or lying on my bed listening to my new CD) and even extra time in there when I had to invent things to do, like trying on all my clothes (not at once) or playing with eyeshadow or reorganizing the bookshelf according to publisher/edition.

These are not those days, is what I'm trying to say. Some day, no doubt, I'll be bored again. Until then, my books will remain in haphazard order and I'll just be happy if they're not chewed on. Too much.