Note: This is a personal post and not to be confused with a real-time vaccination schedule.
You read it right! It’s not about the baby’s vaccination schedule. For the first time, in the history of motherhood, a mother has framed an immunization schedule of mothers and that mother is me 😆
During the course of motherhood, a mother develops immunity against several pre-existing and never-before-existed conditions that children can bring into her life.
Here’s a quick, fun schedule:
| Age of the Baby | Vaccine against | More about the Vaccine |
| By birth | The Privacy of your Private Parts | It is an exciting time when you visit the hospital for the confirmation of your pregnancy, only until you realize that it’s going to be a transvaginal scan. It’s only the first time and by the time your baby is born, you have already exposed your undressed form to a bunch of people. Sometimes, labour might include the shaving of pubic hair and enema administration. Sometimes, from the nurses to duty doctors might pinch your nipples hard if the milk flow doesn’t happen. But believe me, no baby has ever been born on earth without the mother undergoing these humiliations. |
| Month 1 | The Peey, Poopy, Puky stuff | In the first few days, it’s like you keep feeding and the baby keeps pooping. Even if you have never attended to someone’s poop before in life, you will develop tolerance to it by this time. In a few days, baby’s pee on your clothes becomes nothing more than a spilled glass of water. And you wouldn’t mind talking loudly about it in the public! |
| Month 2 | Sleep | Who said a human needs 7-8 hours of sleep? Ask a new mom how to survive without sleep. |
| Month 7 | Child Proofing | When the baby begins to crawl, you keep clearing everything hurriedly off the floor. You make sure that only Fisher Price and Mee Mee toys reach baby’s mouth in the initial days. You think there shouldn’t be a peck of dust on her way. Let go a month of crawling. You won’t mind newspapers, kitchen utensils, book pages, clothes, all kinds of plastic reaching her mouth. You will justify that the baby is developing immunity, after all. |
| Month 10 | Left Hand Usage | You almost feel like a single-handed person. Your right hand does everything else while your left hand is exclusively to hold the baby. You learn how to bend down, how to push yourself up, how to cut vegetables, how to go under the chair – all with the baby still on your left arms. And you also learn to hold things in your right hand without letting the baby grab it with her left hand. |
| Year 1 | Any Left-Over Privacy in Life | Don’t be surprised if a mom says she doesn’t lock the bathroom door when she’s bathing or using the toilet. It’s much better than hearing the continuous jamming of the bathroom door until you are forced to wind up your job. Somebody peeping into the bathroom when you are busy inside is not a violation of your privacy any longer. It can be as casual as singing his nursery rhymes along with him while he’s watching you. Thankfully, most such moms don’t live in a joint family for elders might condemn you for the crime. |
| Year 1.5 | The Shape of your Body | You finally begin to come to terms that you might not regain your previous shape and size. At least for the belly bump if not for anything else. You slowly start to give away those preciously saved old dresses which you thought you might fit into one day. |
| Year 2 | The Noise Pollution. Eventually, speaking on the phone | One minute, there’s nursery rhymes. Next minute, there’s a squeal. Next, a loud cry for something is missing from the play area. Then begins a series of questions (yes, to you). Before you can answer, he might be giving voice overs to his toys. Giggles. Theme song of a cartoon – regardless of what kind of a quiet life you have led before, this phase of life will no longer be challenging. So, think before making a phone call to a mom. Think twice if she’s a mother of two. |
| Year 2.5 | The Husband | So, one day as you sit on the sofa next to the husband. You recollect your romantic days and gesture to bring your head close to his shoulders but from nowhere comes in between two little bums – they simply cannot let the father and mother sit together. |
| Year 3 | The Untidy Home | You might hardly see the surface of the living room table. You might spot boiled channas strewn on the floor. Drops of lemon juice might stick on to your feet. You might get to slide over a pool of water. You might identify a crayon on the flower vase. You might locate a duck’s head with a tiger’s body on the puzzle – that’s the way we live! We are not untidy mothers. We are bored-tired-sick-of-sorting-out mothers. |
| Year 3.5 | The Kid-ictionary | You get so much habituated to spell out words like B-I-S-C-U-I-T, V-I-D-E-O with the father, that sometimes you realize you are speaking that way even when the kids are not around. |
| Year 4 | The Yelling | You are no longer guilty of it because it’s the only way to get things worked out. |
If you think something else can be added from your experience as a mother, please mention in the comment below. I would be happy to update it here.
Thanks for the laugh! I really enjoyed this. From private parts on – so much truth there.
Glad you got the fun.
Sooo true.. Esp the first one and about the husband.. Now with two kids we hardly have time for ourselves..
Wow..a very informative post for all the new moms.. Thanks for compiling this 🙂