8 Basic Amenities Your Children Will Ruin
Before you had kids, you were probably well informed as to how much you’d miss certain things: sleeping in on the weekends, being able to go out at night if you felt like it, the sweet sound of silence. But there are a lot of other, more subtle things you’ll have to kiss goodbye once you reproduce, too, and no one warned me about any of those. Goodbye, sleep, of course; but a very fond farewell to these eight basic household amenities as well. (No, not #basic, just basic – luckily my kids haven’t figured out a way to ruin pumpkin spice lattes for me yet.)
1. Curtains and blinds
(Aimee Ogden)
Hope you like not having any privacy from your neighbors all day long! Elevating your window coverings out of a baby’s reach also mandates raising your standards with regards to what you’re willing to wander around the house wearing on a Sunday morning. That, or Mr. and Mrs. Wilson next door are going to get a fun show of you and your favorite flannel pajama pants with the giant hole ripped in the butt.
2. Dry footwear
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The first time you don a shoe that has been puked in, or put on a sock that has stealthily spent part of the morning in a baby’s mouth, you will shed a single tear. The second time, you will silently curse yourself for not remembering to check first. The third time, you will decide to forgo shoes and socks for the foreseeable future in favor of a pair of flip-flops.
3. Knowing where the toilet paper is
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You can leave the toilet paper in the toilet paper holder, a.k.a. “the amazingly fun baby toy”, and find yourself with a chewed-up-paper surprise on the bathroom floor a few times a week. Or you can put it somewhere higher up – the bathroom counter, the back of the toilet, a shelf – and risk not being able to find or reach it in your time of need. A true parenting Catch-22.
4. White noise
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Everyone knows you can kiss sleep goodbye as a new parent, but it’s not just the quantity you’ll miss – it’s also the quality. Do you enjoy running a fan or white noise machine while you’re resting? Too bad! The only noise you get now is the faint buzz of the baby monitor, so that you can hear it when your little baby starts squawking – which should be about 15 minutes after you’ve fallen asleep.
5. Bookshelves
(Aimee Ogden)
Before you had kids, your bookshelves were organized tidily based on the Dewey Decimal System. Now, there is only one guiding organizational principle: keep books at least three feet off the floor, or they will become confetti.
6. Cookies
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From the time your child is old enough for the object in your hand to trigger his Cookie Radar, cookies are no longer something you can luxuriously enjoy in a quiet moment. Every cookie must either be frantically scarfed in a private moment, or shared with a furious little tyrant.
You’re in extra trouble, by the way, if you teach your child how to use baby sign language. Can you say no to a wide-eyed little tot who sweetly signs “cookie, please”? Because I’m pretty sure I can’t.
7. Quick trips to the store
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It used to take 15 minutes to get to the corner store and back if you realized you were out of milk. Now, it requires the orchestration of a ballet in three parts. Act I: The Car Seat Strapping Ordeal. Act II: The Dairy Aisle Poopslosion. Act III: Oh My God I Left The Diaper Bag In The Shopping Cart Jesus Christ Maybe It’s Easier To Just Cut My Losses And Buy A New One.
8. Pants
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Yoga pants are an unofficial mom uniform, but the main problem with them, as with any pants that have an elastic waistband, is that they can be easily pulled down by a newly-walking toddler trying to use you as a human activity walker. Combined with your loss of curtains, this entails a ninth entry on the list of basic things you didn’t realize you’d miss: your dignity.
