Are You There Judy? It’s Me, Ally.

SOLSC Day 6

Are you there Judy? It’s me, Ally. And I read your popular book about the girl who talked to God. It helped me because my mom wasn’t the type who talked about what to expect in my changing body. Nana certainly didn’t help either. I got bad information from friends and embarrassing information from films at school. How I imagined a perfect puberty through your book didn’t quite happen the way you described. Hell, even Meggie from The Thorn Birds (Mom’s favorite mini-series) got advice from Father de Bricassart.

Me? Nothing. No one helped me. I had to figure stuff out on my own and this one, one of the most concrete and visible manifestations of puberty was all mine to figure out. As I muddled my way through, learning the ins and outs, I helped my two younger sisters. They didn’t read your book, but they had me to help as much as an older sister would help.

It hit again, on a much larger scale. This, with the advent of technology where information was at my fingertips, but way before the blogosphere was a thing, I became a mother. Round two, here we go again. There were books I didn’t have time to read, A Baby Story on TLC (or was it Discovery?) was the closest thing I had to pregnancy, childbirth, and the fourth trimester. My lamaze class helped a little, but it was NOTHING like going through it.

No one warned me my pre-pregnancy clothes would. Not. Fit. At. All. No one said I’d rip, or there would be stitches. Or adult diapers. No one mentioned having to take a squirt bottle full of warm water to every bathroom visit only to wish U.S. toilets were equipped with bidets. No one mentioned nursing was a whole new level of hell (shoutout to the mammas that make it work), how my body felt like mush, and how I felt that I floated outside of my body in a zombified daze for three weeks.

There were no mommy IRL Instagram accounts, no FB support groups, and my mom wasn’t up to speed on new child rearing trends like nursing in public, co-sleeping, and putting babies to sleep on their backs only because they can freakin’ die if they sleep on their stomachs. Which is exactly the only way my son would sleep. Period. Because he came out hollering at me and he rarely slept. When he did sleep, I panicked because I thought he was dead. “Sleep when the baby sleeps” was the stupidest first time mom advice I ever received.

After my daughter was born, it was a little easier because I knew what to expect and immediately decided nursing wasn’t a good fit for my personality. Dehydrated DH3 enriched powdered cow’s milk all the way, baby! This kid slept. On her stomach, because to hell with those motherhood trends. Do what works.

We parent our kids the best we can. There are milestones, family trips, and birthdays.

The birthday.

The 40th one.

Hey, Judy, I’m in ‘tweenhood again. How did Margaret handle puberty 2.0, the sequel, the second part? I know about menopause, but there’s this ‘tween stage to prep the body for it and it’s called perimenopause. God forbid women be strong enough to hit it head-on. Weight gain that does. Not. Come. Off. No matter how little you eat or how hard you exercise, it won’t budge. The kids sleep now, too much, but insomnia is the wicked little step-sibling that likes to wail at 3:00 a.m. Smothering it with a pillow doesn’t work. After those films in middle school, the teachers nonchalantly told us we’d outgrow the acne. They lied. Popping a puberty zit isn’t the same as trying to deal with that nasty hormonal stress acne that likes to hang out on my jawline.

Judy, you didn’t warn me about this one. Did Margaret stop talking to God?