I had another baby! These geriatric lady parts pushed out another 9lb baby – weeee. Labour was wildly fast which, turns out, is the most fucking painful thing in the entire world. The drive to the hospital was just a series of half silent screams while thinking I was going to die. By the time I got to the hospital I was already fully dilated (is this tmi?) but still immediately asked for the drugs. After I was administered the good stuff, I was so relieved and elated to not feel like being stabbed with a million knives in my vagina, that I slid right into a comedy routine. I also recall basically giving a speech about how great drugs were. Like it was an eighties PSA for doing drugs versus not doing them. The epidural was really good. 

When I reacted poorly to another drug they gave me for blood loss after the birth, I was like yup, was having too much fun, what comes up must come down, captain comedown etc. The drug caused me to shake uncontrollably and I looked at the midwife and said I felt like I was going through meth withdrawals while having Parkinson’s – which I thought was a pretty clear and succinct thing to say in my state.

Whatever you have heard about second children is true. Like with my first one, everything was washed every time he touched it, we had organic blankets to put him down on, he was a fragile piece of glass we could break at anytime. With your second, for some reasons the fucks are gone completely. My friend came over and the baby was lying right on a dirty dish towel on the landing on the stairs. I have grabbed a teether off the floor and casually wiped it on my pants before giving it back to the baby without any type of sanitation protocol. He is a treated lovingly like a small sack of potatoes and not a crystal vase. He will be hearty.

The baby also resembles me far more than my toddler ever did. He has big eyes, rolls upon rolls on his arms and legs and a permanent double chin. If he is like his Mama this will likely stay with him for life.

My 40th birthday came and went. I had a one month old at home so my birthday excitement was doing shots of a tincture called “milk aplenty” to help produce breast milk. It is pure alcohol though. When I told my midwife I could literally feel the alcohol hit my system when I ingested it she told me she had never heard that. I said she had likely not treated a patient so well versed in drinking as I was. But what a different a few years makes. Shots until I forgot where I was, to boob milk tinctures. 

I get organic vegetables delivered to the house almost weekly (I know, I am a lot) and a couple weeks ago it arrived at the EXACT same time as our Burger’s Priest order which included milkshakes. I was very embarrassed and also #balance? 

I gave my toddler grapes and he asked if they were from the farmer’s market. Was my child asking if the fruit I just gave him was locally sourced? Omg, I could hear the whole foods in his voice. Yesterday I took him to get ice cream at a little shop near us and I told him to ask if it was artisanal haha. I am the worst. 

I wonder if my toddler will have a more colourful language than your average toddler. Any child that spends more than 10 seconds with me in a car is going to have a special vocabulary. The other day on the way to driving my little guy to daycare, two bikers flew in front of me from a side street and basically cut me off. I yelled out that they had a FUCKING STOP SIGN. And then my toddler also let them know they had a FUCKING STOP SIGN. Later that week he was playing with one of his toy busses and he was telling the driver to FIND THE GAS PEDAL. Another thing he learned from Mom driving. This past week I had to brake quickly because a car flew around a corner where we were trying to turn left and before I could say anything, my toddler yelled WHAT THE HECK and then went ARGHHH in an exact replica Mom/Marj Simpson grumble. Is it weird that my first reaction was, where had he ever heard what the heck? Because Mom generally says what the fuck.

Toddlers are 100% insane but also totally the best. Like it can go from amazing to garbage if you give them a fork instead of a spoon, or you say the wrong word, or moved a toy or smile at them at the wrong time. But in general, he is the sweetest boy. He was curled up with me yesterday and he said I love you so much. My heart melted and I told him I loved him so much. And then with the same level of depth and emotion he said, I love cinnamon so much and I was like ahhhhh ok wtf, am I at the same love level as cinnamon? WTF cinnamon. 

My older child had been home from daycare for what felt like months. We kept him home when the baby was born to mitigate the virus parade he traditionally brings home from daycare every year and then he broke his collarbone falling off a swing at the park. Our daycare lady warned us that because he had been off for so long, the transition back might be rough. She said especially day 3 of his return. On day 1 he was ok, a bit down but ok. Day 2 he was not pumped about it but he went. By day 3 when she opened the door, he started dancing and doing, what I could only describe as jazz hands, as he entered her house. I looked at her and went, yes, what a tough transition this is!

Our toddler is now potty trained. He has his potty in the middle of the living room. He was pooping one evening when my friend Katie arrived for a visit. When he was done he insisted on showing his poop to Katie and when I tried to explain she may not want to see it, the look of devastation was heart wrenching so I just encouraged a quick poop show-and-tell with my friend who played along while averting her eyes to anything but the shit. I told her that was a great pre dinner show which would really get us in the mood to decide what take out we wanted to order for dinner. Next week when he knew Katie was coming over and he was using the potty, he asked if he should wait before flushing it so he could show Katie. Bless.

I had watched a string of dark British crime series on tv so I decided to lighten it up with a type of tv show I would normally never watch. It was called Rookie, and it is a cheesy, feel good cop show starring Nathan Fillion. I became so obsessed with it that I started thinking about Nathan Fillion all the time. Eventually it spilled into my relationship. I asked my partner to put a new filter in the air filter downstairs. This took weeks and finally I get fed up and confronted my partner. He said, oh are you thinking Nathan Fillion would have already installed the filter?! And I was like omg Nathan Fillion would have a) known it was time to replace it b) ordered it himself and c) installed it the day it arrived!! Everyone knows that. Be more like Nathan Fillion already! Also this show is so lame and ridiculous. They showed a woman in a tub about to give birth and in the next scene she slowly comes out of the water holding a gun and a baby and shoots the intruder in her house and says “it’s a girl” – just hystericallll. I feel like I often notice insane stories about women’s pregnancies or births written into shows. It is so obviously written by men. Like they didn’t think to ask one woman about the accuracy of what they are writing. This is how births happen right, you can go over to your neighbours house while in labour and shoot bad guys? Right?

Facebook has started recommending friends to me of guys I dated 10 years ago. It is so random. I forgot this certain Serbian (I think?) gentlemen existed until Facebook was like, do you know this guy? I am like oh ya – that guy! I don’t recall anything about him but I remember having not one thing in common with him. My favourite “people you might know” suggestion was a guy I went on exactly 2 dates. The first date he explained his work to me and my alarm bells were going off but I think he thought I may not be smart enough to figure it out or that maybe I wouldn’t have a strong opinion about it. Then on the second date I prodded a little bit more and flat out asked him if he was Lord of War. He looked incredibly disheartened and I knew this was not the first time he had heard this reference. But I persisted and asked him about his life as a legit arms dealer. Anyways, that was the last date. I honestly think it was him that didn’t call back because I would have likely been interested in learning more about this. I always looked at dating as a giant social experiment and fodder for a book I would someday (not) write. I miss meeting random weirdos all the time, what a wild ride.

I’ve started having impromptu Nickelback and Creed sing alongs with my family rather randomly and I’m not ashamed of it. 

My Mom brain has returned with the force of a thousand confused squirrels. My sentences have become weird mad libs where you can just enter any word into the missing space because I have completely forgotten the word or what I’m even talking about. The owner of the Red Apron was telling me about this cookie recipe she always used for her friends kids and she explained it all to me and then my follow up question was – and then you bake them? Like I had never perhaps baked and/or eaten a cookie before in my life. What is this alien sweet treat you speak of. Jesus Christ.

My partner came home the other day and asked my toddler how his day was and he just looked around and said, everything is broccoli. So now when we are having bad or mediocre days, we just say that everything is broccoli.