It’s Like…

LEXINGTON, KENTUCKY-

I have a bone to pick with everyone who had children before me. A bone roughly the size of a Tyrannosaurus Rex’s femur. When I was childless and naïve, none of the veteran parents I came in contact with had the decency to offer up a few analogies for the trials of parenthood. Not one measly simile did I receive.

Actually, I retract that statement. I think a stroller-pushing gal at the video store compared morning sickness to seasickness – which is kind of like saying being hit by a coal truck is akin to being grazed by a wayward shuttlecock. But the rest of the moms and dads out there? Well, they just smiled and said things like: a baby will make you tired.

“How tired?” I remember asking.

“Tired.”

“Just tired?”

“No. Tired tired.”

It didn’t sound like a very terrible tired at the time — just like an exaggerated drowsy. Possibly the way one might feel after sipping scotch in a hammock. Or having a conversation with a mannequin. Or watching a documentary on the unabridged history of the spatula.

But I soon learned otherwise. The tired in question was the great-grandfather of exhaustion. What those parents should have said was:

“Oh, you’ll be tired. Honolulu-to-Hong Kong-by-way-of-London jetlag tired. On top of downing-a-handful-of-Ambien-and-scaling-Mount Everest-in-flip-flops tired. You’ll be so tired you’ll call 9-1-1 and ask for a Meat Lover’s, then call Pizza Hut and ask for a stretcher. You’ll be so cross-eyed fried that if you happen to go to a funeral in your sleep-deprived state, you’ll be thrown out. For crawling into the casket and spooning with the dearly departed.”

No one put it to me that way. And really, they should have. Because now, with a three-year-old who’s had jaundice, colic, acid reflux, ear tubes, 30 colds, 12 ear infections, several choking incidents, 14 rounds of crying-it-out, seven unidentified rashes, a mysterious skull lump that required X-rays and ultrasounds, not to mention a Hollywood-level addiction to Infant Motrin and fire engines (specifically the ever-elusive pumper/tanker), I can say from experience that the best and possibly only way to describe something as indescribable as parenthood is not to say what it is, but what it’s like.

For example, I would have appreciated knowing that administering oral medication to an infant was about as easy as inserting a suppository into a hummingbird. I would have also liked to have known that bathing a baby was like trying to wrestle a greased eggplant from Lake Superior. And in lieu of another sterling rattle, I would have much preferred the gift of blatant honesty. Why didn’t someone tell me that diapering a baby boy was the equivalent of folding an origami crane while someone urinated in my mouth?

Perhaps it would have behooved my husband and me to have attended a Parenting Simulation Seminar. Lord knows, the “Baby Boot Camp” we did attend, put on by the hospital and complete with stale pretzels and birthing videos, did nothing more than make my husband blush and me cross my legs.

No, what we could have used was a morning spent shepherding a half dozen raccoons to the roller rink. And an afternoon with a flying squirrel at the opera. And an evening convincing a leprechaun he really wanted an enema in exchange for yo-yo. Lastly, we could have capped it all off with the saddest of predicaments: being too tired to drink.

Had we had the pleasure of those activities, we might have known what birthday parties and church and the dentist and most every night for the foreseeable future were really going to be like.

But, please. If such a workshop existed, you think anyone would sign up?

Me neither.

Because without also simulating the sheer wonder and joy and love of parenthood, it would all seem pointless. Which brings me to a different realm of analogies — the good ones. Every parent knows it might be challenging to describe labor (pooping a disco ball comes to mind). But it’s harder to describe the wondrous things: the ultrasounds, your baby’s first smile, the utter hilarity of conversations with a three-year-old. And it’s downright impossible, with or without the time-tested simile, to describe the adoration of a parent.

Before my son was born, I loved my dog. In a way that felt to me at the time like genuine parental love.

“You’ll forget the dog when the baby’s born,” people said. “The love you feel for that dog has nothing on the love you’ll feel for your child.”

I scoffed. I didn’t believe them. I believed that not only must my dog be far superior to their dogs, but my heart must be, too.

Then my son was born and they were right. The love I felt for George was in an entirely different league than the love I felt for Buddy. With his first gurgle, George moved Buddy’s status on the affection meter down to that of a taco salad. A good taco salad. One with homemade guacamole. But a taco salad nonetheless.

It’s easy to compare the hard stuff to other hard stuff. It’s easy to say there’s not much difference between putting a onesie on a squirming baby than a condom on a ferret. Feeding George his first few bowls of rice cereal was indeed much like sitting in front of an oscillating fan into which someone dumped wallpaper paste. And please, it would be much quicker for me to give a howler monkey a bikini wax than to try and clip all 20 of George’s fingernails and toenails while he’s awake.

But the devotion I feel toward my son? It escapes comparison.

And perhaps that is why all those veteran parents refrained from giving it to me straight. Knowing what I was headed for, both tortuous and divine, did they really want to be honest? How effective would it have been to say to me:

“You think they got it bad at Guantanamo Bay? Just you wait. After averaging 45 minutes of sleep a day, gotten in 90-second intervals, you’ll be begging for grade-D mutton and Christina Aguilera on continuous loop. Parenting can be hell.”

“What?” I would have gasped. “Hell?”

“That’s right.”

“Then why do it?” I would have asked.

“Because,” the seasoned parent would sigh, searching for a way to explain. “It’s also heaven.”

And it’s true. If having to parent is hellish, then being a parent is heavenly.

Don’t get me wrong. I still think all those parents-to-be deserve a little honesty. They deserve to know that colic can squash your sanity faster than a silverback gorilla can an overripe banana And that putting a feisty one-year-old into a car seat is about as easy as getting a pound of cooked linguine back into the box.

But also try your best to tell them what the love is like, even if searching for an analogy turns you into a stammering Valley Girl.

“It’s like…it’s like…it’s like…awesome.”