Accidental Mom – Part 3

There are two kinds of accidental moms. The first is the girl that gets pregnant and changes their reckless ways for good, like changing their stripper profession for teaching math. The second are those that secretly wanted to have kids but are not very good life planners. These are at least the kind of friends I have anyway. I probably fall into both categories, except I was a nightlife reporter, not a stripper.

After my daughter Lyra burst out of me like a little cone-headed alien escaping her captor I sat on the couch in shock for about a year. In the beginning, she was a tiny thing that was prone to bashing her head against my big boobies in tears. Patrick and I were determined to be all natural and only allow her breast milk; therefore I had to get a breast pump to quill Lyra’s impatient cries.

And because I have all the tact and grace of a circus clown I attracted a lot of attention trying to breast feed in public. In the previous year, I wouldn’t have flinched to expose my girls to admirers, but choking a baby in public with my raspberry-sized nipples was not the least bit sexy. So I stayed at home in my topless garb to keep from embarrassing my infant daughter.

When at six months-old she thought it was hilarious to try to bite my berries off I ended the abuse of my boobies. She responded by mercilessly vomiting on me at the most in opportune moments when we switched to formula. Motherhood is freaking messy.

My delighted audience was my crew of childhood friends who I had watched get pregnant in their early twenties. Missy, Suzanne, and I went to an all-girl Catholic high school in Kentucky so naturally we had a crazy edge. They signed me up for Facebook after I gave birth to Lyra. I had always been too busy for social websites, but sitting at home watching CSI reruns was making me paranoid to walk down the street.

I soon discovered that I didn’t need parenting guidebooks, I just needed Facebook! All of my 200 high school classmates were all there waiting to give me parenting advice since 80 percent of them were seasoned moms. They sent me messages like “Gee, that blows my mind that you are a mom!” Very encouraging.

Missy’s life story was straight out of a hundred different country songs. She was gorgeous, wild and stormy. If you pissed her off she would sod your yard with her daddy’s pick-up truck. She had become a mom right after high school to her boyfriend Billy. Three kids later she had earned a nursing career and still wears a size 3. However, after eighteen years of the same man she was going through married-life crisis.

Suzanne was the girl who introduced me to Edie Brickell and Cat Stevens in art class. She would get in trouble for wearing Birkenstocks to school and on the weekends we would take turns making out with boys in her parents’ Winnebago in the backyard. She got pregnant and married not long after high school as well. When her daughter was thirteen, she was on the verge of a much needed divorce. However, instead of going crazy all over again she went all Jesus and started dating a minister from her mother’s missionary work. Suzanne and her holy man decided to abstain from vaginal intercourse. Little drastic I thought! I started calling him President Clinton.

Back at my ranch, Patrick and I were teetering through parenthood barely able to contain the explosions from either end of our small daughter. When Lyra was eleven months old we took her on a road trip through Germany, Austria, Hungary, and Romania. Sounds luxurious when you consider we were picking up our BMW at the factory to take it for its first road trip. Let’s just say Lyra baptized it every time we started the engine. She has a severe case of motion sickness – good times let me tell you. While in Romania a doctor told me she might have an eating disorder. What already!