Every Friday.
Did I mention that she lives in a gorgeous waterfront home in Malibu and is now a television executive? She and her husband, who looks like a silver-haired former Abercrombie model, have three kids plus two dogs that resemble tampons on legs. Somehow Suzy still looks like she could grace the cover of Self. As if I needed another reason to think I suck at life, Suzy’s three-kid body looks about five hundred times better than my slashed-with-stretch-marks-like-I’ve-been-in-a-naked-knife-fight, pizza-dough-belly, one-kid body. David tells me I’m beautiful, but it’s while he’s pawing me in the dark, obviously trying to butter me up for some action.
In short, I did NOT need to wake up to a photo of Suzy Wexler’s thin, beautiful form lying on a beach chair in front of her backyard pool. Not when I’m still wearing maternity tops.
Of course, I accidentally clicked Like on said photo, which prompted an almost immediate, Thanks Ashley! How are you? from my ever-polite old high school friend.
It should be illegal to be gorgeous and sweet. It’s not fair. Just pick one. You cannot be a good person and hot. Hot and evil, yes. Homely and sweet, that’s okay, too. Pick a lane.
I told her how much I’m loving motherhood, not being able to lose my baby weight and feeling like I’m losing my mind. Okay, maybe I left out the last couple of things.
It ended with Suzy saying, We have to catch up sometime!
Of course, Suzy. I’ll just jump on a plane to Malibu with Aubrey and put on my ratty pregnancy swimsuit with the full skirt to hide my grizzly-bear bikini line while we chat and drink mimosas. You can tell me what it’s like to be successful and meet celebrities every day, and I can tell you about the Target bill that I’m currently hiding on top of the microwave until I can explain to my better half how I spent $2,000 on miscellaneous goods.
I hate having to explain my purchases to him, like I’m a child, just because he’s the breadwinner.
Note: I’m doing my best to get my spending under control but it’s hard when (1) Target is life and (2) spending money is my love language.
I’m planning on deactivating my Facebook account just as soon as I upload some photos of Aubrey in a dandelion field from last weekend.
11 P.M.
Motherhood is a gift that keeps on giving. When your child whines, they’re telling you they love you. Learn to hear their nighttime cries as a heavenly song composed by your little angel.
—Emily Walker, Motherhood Better
Aubrey just woke up. Her new thing is to go directly from REM to a level-ten scream. It’s awful, and I’m considering calling for an old priest and a young priest. I settled her down, but now I’m wide awake and exhausted at the same time.
David always says, “Just lie down, you’ll fall asleep eventually.” Yeah, after my mind picks apart every mistake I’ve ever made since I was three, every possible bad thing that could ever happen to Aubrey in her entire life and then tosses around the “What am I going to make for dinner tomorrow?” query. It’s so easy for men to fall asleep. Scientists should study whatever enzyme it is that they produce that helps them turn off their brains at night and drift into that deep, annoying I-can’t-hear-the-baby-crying slumber. They could turn it into a sleeping pill that women can take.
But good for him for being able to snore it up while I can’t even remember what it feels like to sleep through an entire night. Great for him. I’m happy. He needs the sleep. He works outside of the home, right? He has to fight traffic. All I have to fight is the 1 p.m. urge to inhale my weight in cheesy puffs. But, I mean, isn’t raising a child a job, too? Yeah, I do it at home, but it isn’t exactly a cakewalk. It’s not like I lounge on the couch painting my nails, eating bonbons all day.
I’d give blood plasma for a night nanny. It’s not fair that only celebrities who are already rich, famous and beautiful also get to be rested while I’m lying here in stretch pants covered in mysterious stains trying to remember the last time I took a shower. The other day I thought I smelled curdled milk. It was me. I smell like a yogurt factory.
I guessed I should try to sleep again, even though I knew the moment I lay down she’d start crying.
Help.
Wednesday, January 23, 10 A.M.
Coffee is a crutch for stressed-out, joyless moms. To stay energized, I start each morning with positive affirmations and loose-leaf hibiscus-beet tea sweetened with honey from my family’s own hive.
—Emily Walker, Motherhood Better
Impossible Goal of the Day: Stay awake.
It was not even noon and I was a complete zombie. I didn’t end up falling asleep until 4 a.m. and Aubrey was up by 5. When David kissed me on the cheek and jetted out of the house, I would’ve held on to the hem of his jacket and panic-whispered, “Take me with you!” if I didn’t think I’d look like a complete lunatic. Instead, I gave him a very quick peck and felt guilty for an hour afterward. It wasn’t his fault I was struggling with this whole motherhood thing. Note to self: Be a sweeter wife and ask how business is going.
I was on my fourth cup of coffee, so while my body felt dead, my mind was racing. I felt like a coked-out sloth. Can sloths do cocaine? It’s made from a jungle plant, right? What if sloths figured out the recipe and started making it? We’d have an epidemic of drug-addicted sloths. We’d have to change their name from sloths to fasts. We’d also have to invent sloth rehabilitation centers complete with beautiful waterfalls and sloth sharing circles of trust.
I pulled out my phone. How was it only 10 a.m.? It was as if time was moving slowly to punish me for staying up too late. It was then I remembered. The Motherhood Better application. Emily was probably reading it right now in her massive Los Angeles kitchen, sitting at the counter with her five perfectly dressed children. She was most likely wearing a bone-white cardigan over a pink, lace-trimmed sundress and strappy flats. I bet she drinks her organic teas out of real china. I looked down at the plastic, lidless sippy cup I was slurping my vanilla-flavored coffee in.
I needed to win this.
Aubrey brought me back to earth by throwing a handful of Funny O’s at me. One landed in my coffee.
We had to get out of the house or I was going to fall asleep right then and there. Wait—would that be bad? Yes, time to go.
3 P.M.
I tiptoed out of Aubrey’s dark room toward the door. Turning back, I took a moment to admire her little body, splayed out on her back in the green-and-yellow pajamas she lived in these days. I closed the door slowly, stopping before it was completely shut. I’d learned the hard way that the smallest click of the door closing woke Aubrey up. Nobody tells you that babies hear like dogs.
Today turned out to be better than I’d ever imagined it could be on so little sleep. I’d made a friend! This was huge, because I was just reading about how Emily Walker believes creating your mama village is an essential part of happy motherhood. Of course, the mom friends who show up on her blog all look like freelance models, but who cares? We were all the same on the inside. Of course, their insides probably had no cellulite but that’s neither here nor there, either.
Here’s how it happened. I was sleep-shopping at BabyOutlet (spending money helps me stay awake) and the sweetest-looking mom with her four-year-old son in tow approached me out of nowhere and asked how old Aubrey was. Everyone knows that inquiring about the age of