AN OPEN LETTER TO THE DUCHESS OF CAMBRIDGE

Dear Duchess,

Given the imminent birth of your first child, I wanted to offer you some advice on what to expect in the delivery room. I’ve read reports that you are planning on having a natural birth, and that you are going to get through it by listening to soothing music. I too was advised to bring music to the hospital and was assured that it would distract me from the pain. Wrong! Please, take my word for it, unless you are using your iPod to throw at everyone who keeps telling you to ‘just breathe’, it really won’t do you much good.

During my first pregnancy, a prenatal class instructor advised me to think of other distractions to bring to the hospital in addition to music. During one class I was given a paper plate and was told to draw a comforting image. I drew my husband and me lying on two beach chairs facing the ocean. In retrospect, I should have drawn me, ripping a paper plate into a million pieces and throwing it out of a hospital window.

Will your royal servants be packing your hospital bag? You must be wondering what you’ll need! Don’t go crazy packing a million things. I’m sure William will run out and get you anything you forgot at the castle. Personally, the first time I was pregnant I arrived at the hospital with a huge duffel bag, filled mostly with a fluffy robe that I NEVER TOOK OUT OF THE BAG. It laid there right next to the fancy pajamas that I NEVER TOOK OUT OF THE BAG. Did you also happen to see the episode of Tori and Dean when Tori Spelling is wearing a designer hospital gown? I foolishly assumed that I, too, would care what I looked like for visitors, but I am here to tell you that Tori might have gone a little too far with that one.

Have you picked a name yet? I would highly recommend doing that before the birth. And if William tells you he wants to wait and see what the baby looks like before making any final decisions, feel free to tell him what I told my husband, “The baby will look like a BABY, not like an Elliott or a Frank.”   

Speaking of your husband, don’t let him try to talk you into a double room. I remember when I told my husband that I wanted to try and get my own room he quite rudely responded, “Those rooms are so expensive. Who do you think you are, a queen?” Don’t let William talk to you like that!   

Your friend,

Mom-fiction

P.S. Kate, if you have some time before the baby arrives, why don’t you follow me on Twitter and ‘Like’ me on Facebook. You won’t regret it!

THE GOOD OLD DAYS

“I wish there was a way to know you're in the good old days before you've actually left them.”

I love television, a little too much at times, but I’m not a nutcase who goes around quoting fictional characters to impart life lessons. Okay, sometimes I am that nutcase. Andy Bernard’s quote from The Office finale has been haunting me for a couple of weeks now. As I witness me and my friends grappling with the daily anxieties that inevitably accompany life as a “grown-up”, I can’t help but reminisce about the good old days in high school and college when I spent my time thinking about tests, crushes, parties and the Future.

Well, the Future has arrived, and in many ways it is filled with more laughter and love than I could have ever imagined. But let’s face it. Life is hard. We are all bone-tired. It feels like we are now bombarded on a weekly basis with some horrific news story that takes place across the country, or sometimes right in our backyards. No matter how blessed any of us feels, it’s hard not to long for simpler times.

Recently, Little Bro “graduated” from his gym class. While this won’t be the most significant graduation of his lifetime (I’m hoping) it did encourage me to pause and think about how time has just flown by. I was suddenly nostalgic for all of the times I had watched my little one so proudly attempt to walk on the balance beam or try to make a basket with the big bouncy ball.  Yet while I loved observing Little Bro blossom in his first gym class, I have to admit that during class I could occasionally be caught checking my watch or (gasp!) my phone. There were many times when I was completely focused on the flip that my son was about to do, but there were also times I could be caught taking mental notes for a future blog or figuring out if I had time after class to buy gifts for the birthday parties we were attending that weekend.  

Nowadays, I find myself caught between longing for The Future, when my young boys are a little older and I have a little more freedom, and The Past, when my boys were little babies who cuddled and cooed and seemed to do something new every day. Little Bro is finally a one-year-old. He can finally feed himself and allow me a few minutes to feed myself! We can go out in public and not worry that we will have to leave an event after twenty minutes because we’ve already gone through the three changes of clothes we brought! We can sleep through the night again (most of the time)!

And yet I still find myself pining for them to be infants once more. Look at how he just falls asleep in my arms! Did you see how he rolled over for the first time!! How cute is he when he spits out the banana?!

If I keep thinking about The Past, or longing for The Future to arrive, I doubt I’ll be able to enjoy much of anything.

That’s why I’m going to try and make Today the “good old days”.


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