Most parents who have a little one at home are easy to spot, even if they’re not pushing a stroller around the park. There are clues, both little and big, that give new parents away every time! Here are some sure-fire signs that you have an infant (or, more likely, that the infant has you).
There’s baby gear everywhere.
When you walk through a baby store, everything looks adorable, and in such a large space, it's hard to see how big some of those items really are. Most baby items are meant to be placed on the floor and have really wide bases. Just an item or two will start to squeeze you out until you realize that you can't reach the couch without climbing over a swing and activity center.
"We live in a tiny apartment in NYC. There is NO ROOM anywhere, and yet we still put lots of stuff on our registry and then we bought what we didn’t receive from the shower. I have baby stuff in the kitchen that’s sitting around, and I don’t even mean the high chair, which would make sense. I mean the stroller! It’s crazy," says Althea, who has a three-month-old.
Nothing is ever really clean.
You'd think, with an infant, that this wouldn't be a big deal. It's not like they get anywhere on their own for the first nine months and make a huge mess. But here's what really happens:
"I'm always carrying stuff around – diapers, bottles, laundry, mail – and I put it down to get something else for the baby. And then I don't pick it back up," laughs Kay, the mother of a nine-month-old and three-year-old. "When I think about trying to clean something, I also realize that the baby needs to be fed, and that I have to get the baby, put her in the high chair, and then spend a good 30 minutes of my night trying to make sure she eats her pureed peas. There's just no time to get anything really clean. At least my dog cleans up the floor," she says.
You lose things a lot.
If you're like me, this is nothing new, but some parents don't misplace things until they have a baby. Then their brains turn to mush. They lose their phone, their car keys, their . . . car?
This is Lynette's story: "I decided to take the bus into work one day instead of driving because I needed some time to get a few things done on the way to work. But at the end of the day, I forgot about taking the bus in and went to the parking garage where I usually park. I started panicking when I didn’t see my car. I found a security guard, explained that my car was stolen, and he said, ‘Do you ever take the bus? Are you certain you drove into work today?’ That's when I realized what I'd done,” she said. “I felt ridiculous!”
There’s spit up on everything.
EVERYTHING. On your hair, your clothes, the baby’s clothes, the baby’s crib, your furniture, the stroller, the toilet (uh . . . what?), toys, books, and anything else that occupies the same space as the baby.
“My baby would spit up on everything except for his spit bibs. We had to get new carpeting when it became clear that the stains were never coming out. And yet he would never spit up when he was somewhere like the bathtub. That would’ve been too easy,” says Dana, a mom of two.
You either finish everything in just a day or absolutely nothing in a day.
Your time management skills kick into high gear, and your multitasking has never been better. The bills are paid, you visited the grocery store, the clean laundry's piled in a basket. The other kids are off to their activities, and dinner? Nailed it! Or, you realize at the end of the day that your baby was fed and diapered, and that's about all that happened. When you have an infant, there's no real routine to tie your day together because of interruptions or being so busy. Despite your best intentions, once you feel like you've lost control of your day, it’s often just . . . gone. So you pick up the pieces and hope for a more cohesive day tomorrow.
You think about your baby all the time.
You bring up your baby in conversation with work friends, family, neighbors, and complete strangers. You automatically pick up your cell phone and ask people to hang on a second while you zip through your camera roll to show them the best 10 pictures you took of your baby this week, even though your baby is RIGHT THERE with you for them to see.
Jon, a dad of a seven-year-old and a 10-month-old, says that he loves talking about his baby. “My boss asks me every morning how I’m doing, and I launch right into my latest ‘Aiden story.’ One day, she said to me very nicely, ‘Jon, how are you doing? I love to hear about your kids, but I’d like to hear about you, too.’ I hadn’t even realized I wasn’t answering her question,” he says.
You fantasize about sleep.
You think about naps all day long. Either your baby’s naps, or yours. Sleep becomes the event around which your entire life revolves. You crave it like chocolate. It's the only thing you want, and any time you sleep more than you expected, it’s one of the best parts of your week.
If any of these sound familiar, you're in good company. Most parents feel like this during the first year. Soon, you’ll be trading out your bouncer for a stand-up activity set, and then you’ll have a whole new issue on your hands!
