The Systematic Torment of Mothers Everywhere

Here's the scenario:

New mom.  Baby is still little, fresh, sweet-smelling; "bundle of joy"?  Still applicable.  The congratulations cards are rolling in, work isn't calling yet, inquiring as to your return.  Visitors are filtering through in the afternoons, and they bring little bags of goodies for mom and baby.  Among those, you can always expect to get a few books.  You know the ones.  "Love You Forever", "Guess How Much I Love You", "Someday", "You Are My I Love You".   The ones not even the most level-headed of parents (sometimes nonparents, too) can get through without a bit of weepiness.

...and I am your "I'll give you something to cry about!"

But these aren't given to the moms with the exasperating three-year-olds or the self-sufficient sixteen-year-olds.  These are given to the new moms, in most cases.  The ones with the hormones spilling over the brim of their sanity cup like a damn waterfall, drenching everything within a radius of ten feet.  It could just be me (Me, sensitive and dramatic? Lies.  All Lies.) but this is undoubtedly the WORST thing to receive at the one time (or more, depending on number of children planned.  or not planned.) when your emotions are completely out of the range of reason and well into "spontaneous combustion likely" territory.  You already cry at the diaper commercials, the baby shampoo commercials, the episodes of Baby Story that remind you so fondly of your pregnancy (which you probably hated, but that's in the past and it's a fuzzy, distant memory).  You're packing away maternity clothes and missing your belly, you're sad that intimate connection to your baby is gone; now you have to share her with everyone else.  You're wishing you had enjoyed the moment when you were in it, every moment, of every day, of those nine months.  Then someone is going to hand you a book describing in eloquent and vivid prose how fast time flies and how those sweet babies are going to grow up and move away and leave you alone with only their crap filling your storage space to remind you of them (because they'll never call), alongside these fracking baby books?  What the hell?

One of the top ten offenders, in my opinion.

Who the hell is writing these books?  They either have nerves of steel or never had to experience the heart-wrenching horror that is letting your babies get older.  And we can't only read them once.  God no.  We keep going back to them, opening them up out of nostalgia, or amnesia, or whatever.  There's a word for doing the same thing again and again and expecting a different result each time...  It's torture, pure torture, and we're some special kind of crazy for putting ourselves through it year after year.

I got this gem for mother's day, when N was 4 months old.  It's hidden and I refuse to open it ever again.

Not only do they create mass hysteria among mothers everywhere, but then we promise ourselves, SERIOUSLY this time, I'm never going to let another day go by that I don't cherish this little miracle I was blessed with.  This time!  We say.  This time, I'm going to march right into her room, hug her tight, run around the park with her for five hours after which we'll walk hand in hand down to the store to get some ice cream.  Then we'll cuddle together under blankets and watch movies until as late as she wants, because these days are going so god damn fast and I can't stop them and I need to be immersed in HER for every moment of every day possible.

Yes, when the wind blows just right, even THIS makes my mommy-emotions wig out and the tears come.

But then...it's quiet.  It's too quiet, you think.  So you put down the stupid I'll Love You Forever, or whatever you foolishly grabbed off the shelf, and peek around the corners.

.......*lots of expletives*

Yeah, you should've put the Easter egg dye a little higher.  All recollections of mortality and your deep, unfaltering adoration for said child is temporarily cast aside while you scrub the floors, and her face, and her hands, and soak her clothes and wipe the walls...only to resurface the next time you spot that book, and you will.  These things have a way of popping up everywhere, in any room you might be in at the time some divine power decides you need to be reminded.  I think that quality must be magically imbibed in the pages via some sorcerous printing press.  Because make no mistake about it, these books were written for the sole purpose of tormenting moms across the world.

So next time a baby is born, do mom a favor.  Do not bring her something like:

Instead, consider a more accurate depiction of what's in store for the next decade or so, something that won't cause her guilt at feeling ungrateful and gift wrap something like: