Someday you will wake up and realize you are disgusting. You will open your eyes and the realization will hit you like a 40 ton diaper pail- you, bitch, are fucking gross.
Why? Because you used your shirt as a burp cloth some time in the wee hours of the morning. You were laying on your back, baby on your chest, and you were trying to burp your child after nursing. You knew it was going to happen, because it always does, but you were exhausted… so you burped him lying down. As always, he inevitably threw up on you. The puke rolled like a tide– down your boobs and up to your throat. Only then did you have the energy to bolt up in bed so you didn’t drown in your baby’s sick. You used your clothes to clean up the amazing amount of puke. You felt good that you obviously produce enough milk. Cling to this information. It’s all you have to keep you going.
Some mornings you might notice the baby is naked when you wake up– because you waited too long to change his diaper and his outfit was soaked in urine. Somehow you got him out of his wet clothes. Good for you! Go wash your hands and get yourself a cookie!
Night time baby changing is a conundrum– If you change him in the middle of the night, you sure as shit aren’t going to get out of bed. You aren’t one of those SuperMoms who is 23 and eager with kid #1 and a brain fresh full of childbirth education classes and working on your blog: Raising your Organic, Vegan, Attachment Parented Child in a Safe, Holistic Home. Nah. You’re F-Bomb Mommy. You’re on your third kid. You’re 34 and have the parenting style of someone who has already put in for retirement so you’re just going through the parenting motions. Love without the constant effort is your mantra. As long as no one dies is another thing you say. You don’t get up to shit in the middle of the night so you reason your baby won’t either. Pee won’t kill him. That’s what those newfangled super absorbent crystals that are slowly choking our planet were invented for– extreme amounts of urine. Anyway, if you DID change him, you’d just lay your baby on your legs and change him on the comforter instead of changing him on his changing table.. Even if he had a changing table you wouldn’t get up to use it. You know that if you changed baby at night, as soon as his pecker hit the air he’d piss all over your white down comforter. You know, the one that doesn’t fit into the washer? The one that is so impossible to get clean since it doesn’t even fit in the industrial sized washers at the creepy laundromat around the corner? The one that might still have a suspicious yellowish looking spot that might have been from the previous male infant that you gave birth to? Yeah. Change him in the morning. Unless he cries the cry that even your titties can’t soothe. Then you’re screwed either way. Wait until about 7am when he is ready to nurse again. Then just pitch his pee-pee clothes in a pile with yours. Snuggle in nothing but undies like naked weirdos. Filthy, happy, naked Oedipal weirdos. Except not sexual. So… erm… just weirdos, I guess.
Oh yeah… and sometimes you will wake up shirtless, the baby is naked and you wonder why you are still so sticky…because you were puked on again after taking off your shirt. As you snuggled “kangaroo-care” style with your little bundle, he barfed on you again. Sometimes you think he only eats so he can barf it back up on you. You tried to sop it up with the clothes he puked on earlier but you suspect it only served to smear it around more.
You’re gross.
And just… where, for the love of God, are all the mother loving burp cloths in this house? I mean, for shit’s sake… where ARE they? Oh… in the laundry? You mean that giant, hulking mountain of sodden filth in the basement? Maybe I should just spend the money and go get some more… and by “go get some,” I mean “order some from Amazon” so I don’t have to put on pants.
You are so freaking gross!
And the really sad part is that you won’t fucking care. There’s a defining moment to this level of depravity- you are lying in bed in a large wet spot that is most likely baby puke or leaked breast milk, baby sleeping naked on your chest, his diaper bulging with peeps. You know it’s gross. You don’t want to be lying in a puddle of vomit, but you are also exhausted from a long night of feeding your baby all that milk he has been puking up all over you all night. If you get up, hell, if you move, the puddle will cool and then you will be forced to get up for the day. Instead, YOU STAY WHERE YOU ARE IN THE WET BED SO THE PUKE PUDDLE DOESN’T GET COLD. So. Effing. Gross.
You make me sick.
You know that rolling back into a cold wet spot inadvertently is worse than staying in it for a few minutes… Or hours… Hey, it’ll probably be dry in just a few seconds. Just give it a few… a few more…
Just be glad the baby is letting you rest for however long he gives you. The pleasant feeling you get from the infant sleeping peacefully on top of you trumps any gross, damp discomfort on the back of you. When you finally muster the strength to drag yourself out of the bed (or, when the baby tells you it’s time to get up) you will put your hair up into a pony tail. You will wash your face and brush your teeth and put on a new shirt. You will stay in the same underwear because, well, you’ll just be glad you are wearing underwear. Hey, why don’t you treat yourself by putting on a bra, pal? I mean, you work hard… you deserve it! (Seriously, there are days when being able to find and put on a bra feels like such a gift to yourself… )
When you finally get out of bed, don’t think about how long it’s been since you’ve changed the sheets. You could easily find out if you counted the rings of breast milk/puke stains but why in the hell would you do that to yourself? Your husband is still sleeping and he’s not complaining. Not that you’d care if he was complaining. You’d actually prefer it if he was complaining so you could say, “Why don’t you change the fucking sheets then!” And then it’d be done. But he’s not complaining. He was a bachelor for a long time. He knows from filthy sheets and, apparently, his idea of filthy is MUCH different than yours. It’s probably more similar to a squatter’s idea of filthy. Trust me, it’s easier just to walk away and forget about the grossness… until you go to bed the next night and see what looks like a calcified chalk outline of your body on your sheets. No way in hell they’re getting changed unless they’re crunchy. It’s not that you don’t WANT to have clean sheets, but your third-shift-working husband has left for the night, the kids are in bed and the baby is ready to be nursed to sleep in your quiet, shared room. You have no clue where the clean sheets are and even if clean sheets still exist in this new, disgusting world. And if you could find them, you’d have to put them on by yourself… Basically, it sounds like a whole lot of stupid-assed trouble just for the sake of cleanliness… And baby doesn’t like being made to wait. If you put him down, he knows there is no one here to help you. He will scream. He will claw at his own face until he draws blood. He will turn himself red in protest of being your son. He will scream until they approve his request to be transferred to a new mother. Just turn out the lights. If you can sleep in a hotel room you can sleep in your own milk stains. At least you know where they came from. Just be glad that you’re wearing pajamas so your skin doesn’t have to touch the dirty sheets…
and then think about how gross you are again in the morning.
And, hey, if you happen to be one of those SuperMoms who have clean sheets and clean kids who always eat their veggies and floss every fucking night, I’m so proud of you! You go, Glen Coco! But me, I’m gross. Someday you will be gross, too. I don’t know when and I don’t know how but someday the gross will get you. And then you will think of me. And you will know I was right…
F-Bomb Mommy 
