Sometimes You Get Poop Under Your Nails

New moms often ask current moms what they'll need, as if there is a magical item that makes being a mom work. This is what you need: HUMOR. Every time you want to scream or cry or throw up... You have to find a way to laugh.

For Chicago Moms Blog Book Club, I read See Mom Run: Side Splitting Essays from the World's Most Harried Moms. Beth Feldman edited this book of real-life funny stories by mom bloggers. As most moms can agree, most of these funny stories have mentions of bodily functions and are stories that would have previously been frightening.

When I was about four months pregnant, we put our city condo on the market to move closer to my parents in the suburbs and their offer of child care. I had trouble with the move to the suburbs compounded by the coming baby and changing life.

William was about a month old when my sister moved into a new apartment in Lincoln Park. My mom and I took the little guy to pay his aunt a visit and see her new digs. We were only a couple blocks away when I heard (and then smelled) a diaper explosion. We pulled over right next to the el station on Armitage and removed him from the car seat to find that he had completely filled his footie pajamas with liquid poop. It was like a horror show.

I was in my stretchy post-baby clothes, literally up to my wrists in orange rust-colored poop, leaning over the back seat of an SUV on a beautiful fall day on one of the most fun, fantastic blocks in Chicago. I longingly looked at the young women coming off the el with their incredible shoes, carrying terrific bags, wearing adorable jackets.... They were on their way home from work, headed to their apartments, then possibly out for a walk with their friends or to meet at a beer garden. My former life flashed before my eyes as I realized I had poop under my nails.