12 Things Parents Forget that Normal People Do

Nothing changes you more drastically than having children: good in some ways (free hugs all day!) and not-so-good in others (more bodily functions than you can shake a stick at.)

Once you've become a parent, it doesn't take long before you actually start to forget what normal people do. You know, the sort of things you used to do before having kids of your own.

You forget that normal people...

Close the door when they pee. Using the bathroom with the door open is better than listening to your kids hammering on it the whole time, and it's also easier to hear if they're in the other room making a huge mess or killing each other.

Sleep through the night. You expect to be a zombie with a newborn, but what you don't know is that you'll still be up taking care of nightmares and wet sheets for years after that. You can't truly sleep through the night until your youngest is 7 or 8 — and by then, you've forgotten how.

Have conversations on the phone. Everyone who calls thinks you have Tourettes, but instead of curse words you burst out yelling "Don't lick that!" and "Stop touching her!" On a related note, you've also given up all hope of ever being understood by an automated voice menu.

Remain seated for an entire meal. Some people eat complete meals without even once getting up to refill a sippy cup. Or pick up a sippy cup from the floor. Or fetch a sippy cup in a more acceptable color.  Or take away a sippy cup someone keeps knocking over on purpose.

Don't get together with their friends and talk about poop. What do childless people even talk about with each other? Before kids, you never knew how much there was to say about poop.

Have a life after 8 PM. After the kids go down, you count the day as over. If the phone rings at 8:15, you exclaim "Who could be calling so late?!" and assume that someone must have died.

Wear real pants. Once you have kids, yoga pants are the new business casual. And if you're not going anywhere that day... straight-up pajamas.

Have nice stuff. Everything you own is scratched, dented, chipped, and drawn on. If you have anything breakable, it's broken. And yet, you hear that some people not only own fragile Christmas ornaments, they put them all over the tree, even at the bottom. That's madness.

Eat dessert openly. Remember the days when you didn't have to eat a treat hiding in the pantry or locked in the bathroom? Now "dessert" means sneaking bites of a donut tucked behind the breadbox and lying if the kids catch you chewing.

Rest when they're sick. Sorry, but you still have to drag yourself out of your deathbed to make lunch for people who are apparently "starving" since their last snack 27 minutes ago. Which you also had to make.

Wear something more than once before washing it. By the end of the day, you've been used as a human Kleenex, bib, and napkin for 12 hours and your clothes look exactly like that sounds. 

Make a quick trip to the store for a single item. Getting everyone in and out of their car seats and into the store takes at least a half hour, so unless you're out of a medication without which someone will definitely die before morning, it can wait until your next regularly scheduled shopping trip.

The parent life is quite a change from your pre-kid life, so much that you forget what a pre-kid life even looks like. And you wouldn't trade it for all the secret chocolate hidden on top of the fridge in the world.

Click to Share: