Hey new moms: I got a “babymoon” for ya.

by Janelle Hanchett

You know people keep talking about these damn “babymoons,” and once again I find myself shaking my head. Setting aside my disdain for the term itself (on account of its excessive cuteness), I just don’t understand how a trip to Turks and Fucking Caicos is really a “last hurrah” at all.

Yeah okay I get it: Quality time with your partner before the baby arrives and your life is ruined. Wait. Not what I meant.

It’s a time to “renew” and “reconnect,” blah blah blah, fine. It’s a time to really take advantage of your childless status. But why the hell are we telling new moms to take a vacation as the way to celebrate and cherish the way their lives are now (as opposed to the way it will be when baby enters the picture)? I mean that’s not the shit we miss. Right? Is it? Big vacations? Nah…I mean some of us could never afford those anyway, and Mac and I still take mini-vacations occasionally. At least I think we do.

Anyway for me it’s the little stuff, or was, back when I remembered life without kids.

If we really want to help women appreciate life before baby, I really think a trip to Florida isn’t the way to do it.

Hey, first-time moms. You want a babymoon? Try taking a shit and enjoying the way nobody bangs on the door.

Come to think of it, I have some other ideas:

Why would you EVER want a break from these faces? Ha. Ha. Ha.

Go to a restaurant and have a conversation, like as in the whole time. Just do that. Just talk and eat. Do nothing else. Notice the way you don’t have to bounce a baby on your knee while eating or nurse anything or leave the restaurant entirely because Lungs of Steel refuses to enjoy the ambiance.
Come home from work, sit on the couch and do nothing. Trust me.
Get on the phone when you feel like it. Have a conversation. Talk as long as you want. Soon, the second you get on the phone, no matter how sure you are the baby is asleep, no matter how long she’s been happily playing by herself, no matter how short the call, the SECOND that call connects is the SECOND your baby will demand your undivided attention. (Note: the importance of the call is in direct proportion to the likelihood that your baby will not let you make that call. Just FYI.)
Have sex with the light on. What? Dude. When there’s a chance a small human could enter your room at pretty much any moment, that light ain’t going on.
Actually just have sex anywhere you want.
Get in the car and put on Macklemore’s “Thrift Shop.” When he says “motherfucker,” enjoy the way you don’t feel guilty for playing music with swear words.
Then, drive around in silence for a long, long, long time.
A long time.
Put your groceries in the car. Get in the car. Drive away. Appreciate how fast that was.
Go to a bar on Friday night with friends, get totally shitfaced, stay up til 2am, THEN SLEEP IN ON SATURDAY like the rest of your friends. Wait. Nevermind. You’re pregnant – BAD IDEA. Just sleep in Saturday. That’s revolutionary enough. Babies don’t care how late you stayed up. They also don’t care that you’re hung-over, puking, feverish or depressed. Neither do toddlers or kids. So yeah. Just sleep in on Saturday over and over and over again.
Cook a meal, sit at the dinner table and eat it with you partner, relishing the way you aren’t trying to quiet, ignore, or discuss deep philosophical shit with offspring, or teach them manners or tell them to eat their whatever or sit still damnit or stay in your seat or clear your place or stop bickering or OMG I hate dinner.
Crawl into your bed and observe the profound lack of infant in it.
Pack up your stuff for an overnight stay somewhere. You don’t actually have to leave, just pack. Just pack because it’s SO FUCKING EASY TO PACK when you aren’t packing for a baby.
Go to bed when you feel like it. As in, when you feel tired, go to bed. Yes, that’s it. That’s the whole exercise.
Watch whatever the hell you want on Netflix.
Spend some quality time with your dog.
Do laundry. Revel in how there aren’t 1,436 loads.
Don’t handle poop.
Walk barefoot in your house. No toys? Exactly.
Stare at the floor of your car. Soon you’ll forget what it looks like.
Clean a room in the morning. Clean another room in the afternoon. In the evening, delight in the way BOTH ROOMS ARE STILL CLEAN as opposed to re-destroyed in a sickening cycle of cat-and-mouse games. (By the time you clean one area of the house the other area is destroyed so you just keep going around and around and around cleaning rooms while others get destroyed, feeling the cat on your tail, wondering why you do it at all but also unable to function in the borderline-subhuman condition known as “kids in home.”)
Get yourself ready. Right. Yes. That. Get YOURSELF ready and then leave.
And then go on a trip, I guess, but not because you won’t ever get to again, rather because this is the last time you’ll go on a trip by yourselves when you won’t be oddly, frighteningly, inexplicably missing the insanity of numbers 1-22, just a little, as you walk around that gorgeous beach without your kids, thinking simultaneously “God it’s nice they’re gone” and “Damn I miss those little bastards so much. WHEN DO WE GO HOME?”

Now THAT is a fucking babymoon.

We’ll just call our trip to Monterey our 4th baby “babymoon.” Wait. Does that exist? Is that a thing? Since HE DIDN’T LICK MY FACE IN THIS ONE (I yelled at him), we’ll use this to prove we’re a romantic couple that takes babymoons and shit.

more stuff I shouldn't have said out loud:

Where the hell is my glow?

Things that Suck More Than Turning 34

Somebody come up with a title for this post, please.

33 Comments | Posted in bitching about the kids I chose to have., Maybe my kids are the problem., Useless Lists of Irrelevant Information. | April 3, 2014

Amanda
Thursday, 3 April, 2014 at 7:41

Wow, reading all those points just now made me realize how much I have missed some of those luxuries! Or maybe just missed having my sanity and calmness in tact. Who knows, it’s a toss up! 🙂

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Kristen Mae of Abandoning Pretense
Thursday, 3 April, 2014 at 8:29

I have a sneaking suspicion you’re trying to get on Babycenter?

Whatever dude, you’re awesome all by yourself.

My favorite part: “Notice the way you don’t have to bounce a baby on your knee while eating or nurse anything or leave the restaurant entirely because Lungs of Steel refuses to enjoy the ambiance.”

Fucking Lungs of Steel. I die.

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runningnekkid
Thursday, 3 April, 2014 at 9:04

“I hate dinner.”

YES.

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You know me
Thursday, 3 April, 2014 at 9:12

Well done. It IS the little things you miss. And well done on getting Jesus to take a photo with his tongue in his mouth. ;). Love me some TDH. I identified with every word of this NOT because we are having baby #4 but because I think I have Mommy Burnout. Can you recycle this column in some fashion for
Mother’s Day? LOL.

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Andrea
Thursday, 3 April, 2014 at 9:13

Exactly!!! Lol as always. I can’t tell you how much I love your writing, so true….all of it:)

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eva laflamme
Thursday, 3 April, 2014 at 9:16

I am 14 years into being a mom and I literally can not remember when I did the majority of the things on that list. Here is hoping all that shit is still fun when I’m 50!

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Christella
Thursday, 3 April, 2014 at 9:40

You’re my favourite.
*gives you a gold star*

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Adri
Thursday, 3 April, 2014 at 9:41

babymoons of any variety really need to happen way before you’re 8-9 months pregnant. Now that I’m 32 weeks, nothing in my being wants to deal with a trip (esp since I am lead activity planner, not my husband. he’s never planned a vacation in his life). Who are these people with so much extra energy? I’ll take a good restaurant or movie (or both at the same time cuz my city rules) any day since I wont exactly be darkening the doors of the movie theater for quite some time post-baby.

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Abi
Thursday, 3 April, 2014 at 9:48

In my first trimester of my first pregnancy I was all “awww… babymoon. We should take one of those.” I revisited the idea in my third trimester and was like “who made this shit up? I’m 20 (erm 50) pounds heavier than usual, I have no ankles to speak of, my belly is covered in stretch marks and I’m so tired that I want to die. Why the hell would anyone think it would be “fun” for me to hop on a plane for 6 hours and sit on a beach in a bikini. Especially when I can’t drink.” Madness.

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Chantal
Thursday, 3 April, 2014 at 10:32

Made me laugh. Made me cry. “Dont´ handle poop”! Perfect!

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Marisa
Thursday, 3 April, 2014 at 10:37

SLEEP IN!!!!! YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Cathy Jensen
Thursday, 3 April, 2014 at 10:40

Well said — too true and funny too — but please be careful what you wish for –those years are probably only 25% of your life — still lots and lots of time to clean house and eat a quiet meal –and remember fondly those times that you couldn’t..

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Kateri Von Steal
Thursday, 3 April, 2014 at 11:31

All of these are SO true…

SO

UTTERLY

TRUE

*SIGHS*

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Tonya
Thursday, 3 April, 2014 at 12:39

These tips are amazing! I wish I thought to do some of this stuff one last time. Like just sitting on the couch. Damn I miss that. And forget packing to go anywhere–I continually avoid going on overnight trips because packing for both myself AND the baby is fucking exhausting!

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Gail Smith
Thursday, 3 April, 2014 at 15:52

You forgot go into the bathroom to take a shower, or even just to use the toilet and LOCK THE DOOR behind you, without worrying about what is going on in the rest of the house.

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leslie
Thursday, 3 April, 2014 at 15:54

Oh my god #2 – I almost cried when I read that one. Also reading books that aren’t about barnyard animals.

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Beth
Thursday, 3 April, 2014 at 18:30

When I was pregnant with my first, my boss, who has twins, said, “Do me a favor. Whenever you change a diaper, stop and think, ‘I’m done! There’s no second diaper waiting for me!'”

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sara
Thursday, 3 April, 2014 at 18:31

Oh sleeping in on Saturday, oh how I miss you. I dream about sleeping in sometimes. Its a whole new level when you dream about sleeping in your sleep

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Tmo
Thursday, 3 April, 2014 at 20:38

I feel like I had a baby moon just reading that list and fantasizing about doing them, especially #18.

P.S. I never went on a babymoon. Thought the term was ridiculous and so was the concept. Looking back, glad I didn’t. Would have been one more thing to do with swollen feet and aching back.

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Carrie
Thursday, 3 April, 2014 at 21:23

I just laughed so hard! We have 5 kids and now I’m home schooling them (aka they never go away). The whole clean the house thing is pointless. Completely pointless! Thank you for being so bluntly honest! You speak what my brain is thinking 🙂

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Steff
Friday, 4 April, 2014 at 2:46

Thrift Shop was #1 on the day my twin girls were born. Sigh.

Lets not forget “Eat your own dinner, the whole plate, without having run defense against grabby little hands going after your peas / chips / fried eggs / entire steak”. Little food stealing ninjas.

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Stanislava
Friday, 4 April, 2014 at 4:03

Brutal truth… <3

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amy
Friday, 4 April, 2014 at 4:59

#14. Biggie size it.

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Sherisa D
Friday, 4 April, 2014 at 5:01

God yes to all of this! I don’t get baby moons either. It’s not the end of the world. You can still travel. It’s the 50 million other things you mentioned haha! I love it.

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k
Friday, 4 April, 2014 at 6:04

I am 6 months in to this whole motherhood thing. I actually forgot all about sleeping in until I read this post. Then I got a little teary. I don’t care so much about sleeping in. I just want to sleep. Period.

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Brenda
Friday, 4 April, 2014 at 7:24

Omg, I love ALL of this! Especially #2! I never understood the concept of a babymoon when you’re ginormously pregnant . . . however, the idea of a baby-making-moon sounds fantastic. You could still drink and do any dangerous activities like ziplining or scuba diving. Sadly, I will never get that chance since I am now 33 weeks pregnant with #2 and this is our last. Maybe we’ll have a “we’re done making babies moon” and drop the kids off with the grandparents for a week. 🙂

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Hope Horwitz
Friday, 4 April, 2014 at 7:34

That was, hands down, perfectly accurate and hysterical! Normally you read a list and it doesn’t all apply to everyone. This list – totally applies to every mom – right down to missing the little terrors when you’re actually away from them. I even went on a babymoon for my second – great weekend but there’s no way to actually relax and relish in the relaxation before a baby hits the world. HAHA! LOVE THIS!

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Mel
Sunday, 13 April, 2014 at 4:32

All of them, but especially 2, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 21.

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Luna
Friday, 18 April, 2014 at 11:36

#5 Actually just have sex anywhere you want.

This is the main reason why i am 27 and childless,maybe i will be until i am too old to enjoy having sex anywhere i want 🙂

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Sarah
Tuesday, 22 April, 2014 at 12:08

I love your list! The two weeks leading up to the birth of baby #4, my parents (who live 4 hrs away) were willing to host my older 3 (6,4,2) so that my husband and I could have some downtime before the arrival of our 4th. My husband and I definitely enjoyed our “babymoon”, although I did miss the extra hugs and kisses…and the house seemed eerily quiet. I loved #22 on your list. Can we add “take a shower”, “go to dinner and movie on the same evening without worrying you will need to leave early because your in-laws need you to pick up your children NOW”, and “make a batch of cookies and eat them whenever you want without shame or having your children ask where did the cookies go because there were 4 there last night and now there is only one”.

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Rachel
Friday, 9 May, 2014 at 20:48

There are no words for how much I love this (although I am still taking the hotel-style babymoons, as well. As many as I can pack in til August).

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Running Betty
Tuesday, 24 June, 2014 at 19:06

now that mine are a senior and junior in high school, I am ALMOST able to do this whole list again. Not the pooping in peace. and certainly not the conversation for two over dinner. and still not sex anywhere. And I don’t get my own Netflix… but I’m close!

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Christa Duquette
Thursday, 8 October, 2015 at 19:34

Not sure if someone has brought this up, but the term babymoon as I have seen it is also used to describe the time period right after the baby is born when you just bond and be with your baby and get to know them as part of your new life, similar to a honeymoon after a wedding. Although I do really like your list of things you should do before the baby comes. It’s very true. Boy sleep in, I think the last time I did that was 5years ago on my second honeymoon with my husband sans kids!

http://www.pregnancyandbaby.com/the-hatch-blog/articles/950913/babymoon-before-or-after-baby-arrives

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