I’ve noticed lately that we are really obsessed with lists. Like really really obsessed with them. I imagine it has something to do with our need to quantify everything-to put it in neat little boxes. As if knowing that there is a penultimate list of the “25 things 90’s babies remember” somehow makes us feel safe and in control of an otherwise out of control world. As long as we KNOW there are legitimately 25 things that only 90’s babies remember, then we can accept that. We can understand that.

Don’t get me wrong, I like these lists a lot and always get a good laugh out of them. Buzzfeed, you are a genius my friend. Anyway, in thinking about lists, and having seen a bevy of “You know you’re a mother when” and “39 things I wish I knew about babies before I had them”, I felt compelled to write my own, well, list. Here’s the thing I want to say first: It drives me nuts when people with kids act like they are on this different level than those who don’t. They aren’t. Chances are, they’re poorer and fatter and have less fun and go to bed earlier than  you. That’s all.  This list is meant to show the real picture and to not hide anything-the good the bad and the very very ugly. Have kids or don’t, but read my list and feel immediately better about yourself.

The 6 (because I’m too lazy to come up with more than 6) signs you are a woman with a baby:

1. The razor in your shower has been there for more than a year and you know this because it’s dull and filled with leg hair and cuts your shin and makes you bleed each time you use it. You ask yourself why you don’t replace it. You know there is another disposable one in the bathroom console. You could get it. But you don’t because you’re lazy and your shower feels good and you aren’t going to wear a sleeveless shirt the next day anyway and even if you do, you’re ok with a little armpit hair. So you proceed. You shave your legs and you cut your shin and it bleeds and so for the next two days your sexiness level hits an all-time high with little, kind of red from blood, toilet paper tissues stuck to your shin.

2. Your bras are the same bras you bought when you were pregnant even though two of them are nursing bras (you are no longer nursing) and they’re definitely too big but not in the good way too big which would indicate you had bigger, better boobs, but bigger in the circumference but smaller in the actual boob part which really means not long enough in the actual boob part (see former posts on nursing boobs). You tried to buy new ones. You attempted to buy the crappy ripoff ones at Marshall’s but instead opted for Victoria’s Secret thinking “yep, you deserve this”. The sales person showed you a variety of styles each sexier (and not for you) than the next. You repeatedly told her “No padding. Just push-up. I repeat PUSH. UP. UP” and she looked at you and judged you and thought to herself that she will never have unprotected sex again. Then she brought in a giant bra with an unsexy name. Instead of “Lacy Love Lacies” or “Va Va Voom Cleavage” she brought in “Good god how will I ever lift these things up?!” You read the price tag ($50) and think of all the diapers and baby food you could buy with that and instead go home in your stretched out Playtex brand giant bra. Nursing clasps and all.

3. Your car looks like an episode of hoarders and smells like actual rotting garbage. Your car was never that nice and you aren’t into fancy rides. However, it would be nice to take your “ride” somewhere and not feel like a disgusting shame to society. You get in each morning, with our without the babies, and breathe in what can only be described as sour milk, dried spit-up, an old diaper you know is in their somewhere and long ago purchased maple apple baby crisps. You look behind you into the disaster that is the backseat. In addition to the spaceship sized car seats blocking your vision completely, you spy that onesie that you used several weeks ago to wipe up vomit your son projected in the Target parking lot. It looks back at you, stained and hardened by weeks of unwash and you hate it silently. On the floor you see various colored socks-pulled off your children’s feet after you spend almost thirty minutes shoving them on. You see a chick-fil-a cup from a milkshake you ate on Monday and it reminds you, with that smug chicken asshole smile, that you need to stop eating crap and should go to the gym because it’s past the appropriate time in which people still carry post-baby weight.

4. The amount of alcohol you drink is becoming alarming. Each morning you get up and you feel somewhat refreshed and like you might just stand a chance against the day. And then the day starts happening and as each minute of each hour rolls by, you start to feel more and more like wine is the only answer. Around 3:30pm you know for sure that wine is the only answer and then and only then do you begin debating how early is too early. If the sun is still up but it’s a Thursday and I’ve had a hard week and I probably won’t drink much this weekend because, well at least I’m telling myself that, and I know it’s not 5pm yet but that’s a stupid rule and I deserve that wine. I’ll only have one glass. 2.5 glasses later, there you sit in front of “Kim and Khloe take on Bruce in Miami with Kris observing” or “Kourtney, Kim, Kanye and Kendall take NYC while Bruce stays home and plays golf” and your eyes begin to glass over a little and you feel the warm and fuzzies come on and you head upstairs around 10:15 (let’s be honest, more like 8:45) and you climb into bed and BOOM you are out and snoring with only a mild headache in the morning.

5. Clothes. Let’s talk about clothes. You used to have some and they used to be cute. Hell, you once considered yourself a fashionista. You read fashion magazines and dog eared catalogs with skinny jeans and bad ass, yet slightly feminine vests and you spent hours getting ready perfecting make-up and hair and accessories. And now? You aren’t horrible looking. You’ve passed the infant stage where all you wore was elastic pants and shirts stained with breast milk. You’ve blown dry your hair a couple of times, hell maybe you got it cut. You are starting to look like yourself again. But let’s be real here-your clothes? They have changed forever. Your pants are practical and functional. They have a stretchy waist so that you don’t feel them squishing your baby belly or post c-section mush. Your shoes? They aren’t high heels anymore. You’re lucky if they’re boots. More likely, they are flats or some sort of running shoe/leisure shoe hybrid. Your make-up, while nice, doesn’t quite cover it anymore. The lines on your face are new and even though clinique promises to erase your age, it just so doesn’t. Your hair? Still falling out? Sort of ashy/gray? Thinning a bit? This makes for one incredible presentation. Between the stretchy pants, the shirt and sweater that are kind of cute, but if you just put a bit more effort in, could be VERY cute, the hair (see above)…added together you are a frumpy, hair loosing mamma.

6. Let’s move on to your music taste. Do you like Katy Perry’s “Roar”? Do you ask your girlfriends or people at the gym or, if you ever go out again, the DJ to play this song? DING DING DING! You are a mom. This song isn’t cool anymore. There’s a pretty good chance it was never cool, and yet you not only like it but are excited about the fact that you know it and that it makes you feel a little jumpy. You play the radio at the gym, or peruse iTunes before going for a run to try and find out what “all the kids are listening to”. This is a statement people say ironically when they aren’t actually old but acting like they are to make this joke (see: 25-28 year olds). Problem is, you are old and “all the kids” are listening to music that you’ve never heard of and that kind of creeps you out and definitely, definitely makes you tired. You play songs from your past-songs that remind you of a concert you attended where you got wasted or that remind you of a “crazy past relationship” and you think back on that time longingly (simultaneously realizing it will never happen again) and tell anyone around you about how “wild you used to be”. They don’t care. They don’t believe you. They don’t care. Yet somehow telling these stories allows you to be the old you for a minute. To taste the old life before you snap out of it and remember it’s your hoarders car, your stretchy mom jeans and your Katy Perry’s “Roar” on repeat.