6 New Diseases Only Parents of Young Children Contract!!!

It's been awhile since I have had small children in the house. Twenty years, to be exact. It's an exciting time, but frankly, I'm a hell of a lot older and more achy now. I think my baby disease resistance is probably low.  That's because no matter our age, we parents of little ankle biters get strange diseases that don't tend to infect anyone else. I'm sure you're aware of the preschool plague and good old rhino-viruses, but I bet you haven't thought of these little infectious nuggets which make you wonder, just how safe is parenthood for your health?




Kid Toy Music Psychosis
Do you have a toy in your house which plays a song that makes your teeth hurt and your butt ache? Yeah, we do too. We have a musical cube that's designed to teach shapes, and we're pretty sure it's possessed by Satan.  If you walk by it, the music starts playing. If you don't walk by it, the music starts playing.  The songs are sung by this creepy kid's band, and it always comes on in the dead of night when it's pitch dark and you're sure a masked marauder is in your playroom. The best is when Creepy Cube and fourteen other musical toys come on at the same time - all playing different songs- all making  you twitch. Let the psychosis begin!

Involuntary Insomnia
Everyone tells you to sleep when your baby sleeps, and maybe in a Utopian kind of existence, that happens. In real life, however, your baby sleeps peacefully and you stare at the ceiling. You lie there thinking of every single bad thing that could happen to your happily sleeping infant. Is that smoke I smell? Did he just poop? What if I never lose my baby weight? You truly want to sleep, since you've been up since 5 am, and your're not really sure what your name is and if you've actually showered today (this week). The beauty of involuntary insomnia is that you're going to be able to sleep soon...right when the baby wakes up.

Foot & Ouch Disease
This one is self-explanatory. I can walk through an immaculately clean room with one small baby toy hidden from my line of view. It doesn't matter how clean the room is. If there is one toy, I will step on it, and so will you, parents. It's like our feet have painful toy radar and we seek out that Devil toy like a heat seeking missile. How can they be so painful if they are designed for children? Shouldn't they be soft and safe? My feet say no.

Hip Displacement
My hips have taken on a permanent shift to the right. I look like I've done a whole lot of salsa dancing and gotten my hip stuck in the "out" position when in fact, I've just done a whole lot of baby carrying.  Truth: Babies are heavy. More Truth: Babies like to be carried. If you have a big old 22-pounder like I do, your hip(s) will feel the pain.  This condition rapidly intensifies when your baby realizes that being carried is awesome and being on the floor sucks.   You can try one of those baby-wearing things, but carrying him on my back would probably make me fall out on the floor. I say, let him carry mommy! Win!

Mama Stink
Oh lord, when this disease hit, I was more surprised than anyone...and trust me, no one was surprised more than me. Folks smelled me coming a mile away. They knew I had contracted the "funk." Don't be ashamed. We've all had it. Apparently, you're supposed to shower, as well as sleep, when baby is napping.  Unless you can alter the fabric of time, you can't do everything while baby is sleeping. You have to prioritize, and sometimes, a shower doesn't make the list of to-dos. Besides, if you're going to be sick with the funk, grab those slightly grubby yoga pants from the bathroom floor and convalesce. It's not like you were going to workout in them!

The Frozen Funk

This one sneaks up on you.  One minute you're innocently watching this cute Disney movie, and the next one you're twirling around the room singing "Let it goooooooooooooo!" It's not just the impromptu song and dance shows you put on for your family (and anyone else who sees you singing at the traffic light), it's the proliferation of Frozen into every single aspect of your life.  I have asked perfect strangers, "do you want to build a snowman." Tis true. Do you know how many Elsa's I had on Halloween? Twenty-seven! I wanted to take a shot of tequila every time we had one, but I would have been in a coma by 7pm. The only cure for this disease is for Disney to come out with another blockbuster...which they will, and it too will infect you. Once you're a parent, you get the Disney Funk bad, and there ain't no cure.

Stay strong parents! Your parental health will improve...at least until you have teenagers.

Amanda Z
Domesticology