Only a mother-to-be could write this... I would be very interested to see a follow-up story, two years hence. That's the magic of experience, it makes the inexplicable make sense.

Just writing to say that I need to be friends with pewella and Heather you need some friends like her as well. My whole problem with motherhood is only this: lack of fun, edgy (and don't confuse mean and bitchy with edgy)spirited women who don't want to spend an hour discussing the ins and outs of her child's eating, pooping, sleeping habits. I relate completely with wanting to read the word fuck as often as possible. Yes, I'm a mom and I still swear (oh GOD did she just say that?)and sometimes, accidentally around other people's kids (NO!). So, stay away from any groups with the words "mommy and me" in the title and make sure to have a few cocktails (you won't be pregnant anymore). And pewella, email me at Squirrmels@aol.com if you want to talk to a kindred spirit who's not in the Cult of Mommy.

And Still...it's the most fun and most fantastic and most rewarding way to spend your time. That you already know all of those things will happen automatically puts you ahead of most new mothers. Best of luck with everything Heather, and maybe i'll see you at the playground in a couple of years and we can share a secret cigarette and bitch about that mother who always brings the diaperbag full of really good snacks that our kids covet and we always seem to forget.

Thanks, Heather!!! Seriously! What a freaking breath of fresh air.

The pieces on mothering in salon being what they usually are, I was terrified to read yours. I love your reviews, I love your blog, but I have seen plenty of smart, scrappy, funny, kick-ass women become blithering idiots under the malign influence of Motherhood, so I was scared. I just KNEW your piece was also going to be a solipsistic bit of tendentious puffery about how difficult and sacred motherhood is, and full of vomitously self-absorbed sentiments, and super-saturated with undertones of "I am giving birth to the first baby ever born in the Universe and the Glory and the Magic of my spawn must be apparent to you all!!"

And it wasn't! I loved it. Fierce, dude. And funny! And sarcastic. And, to all those readers who DIDN'T SEEM TO GET IT, this was satire. Right, Heather? Gawd I hope so.

If it helps, nature has pretty much set you up to be prepared, however scantily ahead of time, for everything your little lamprey is prepared to dole out. I have survived mine so far, and he's 16yo.

I once wrote an article on wireless technology (yes, this was a long time ago) and I started the article with the following story (really, in context, it made sense.) Take it for what it's worth:

Never having touched an infant until I made one myself, I held in awe people who could change diapers nonchalantly. I know it seems trivial, but it was the same kind of awe that I held for people who designed skyscrapers without forgetting to put in plumbing, or for people who understood the complex notation of General Relativity and could still carry on a normal conversation. I had an irrational fear that I was simply not cut out for this mothering thing, and that I would show up for my diaper changing exam, throw my hands up in the air and exclaim, "I'm sorry, I don't want to go near the poop" and the licensing board would take my son away and I would have to go home and clean out my locker.

But, when I fed my son his first solid food, and he grunted his way through his first solid poops, and I laughed as I changed his diaper, it occurred to me that yesterday's breast milk poops prepared me perfectly for today's Gerber Rice Cereal poops, and that today's poops were going to prepare me for tomorrow's poops. With a fair bit of extrapolation, I decided that I was going to be able to make it through motherhood.

Good luck, and have fun... It's work, but it's fun...

I hope you have a daughter so that she can grow up to be as shallow and self-absorbed as her mother. Get over yourself.

Geez, I hope your friends aren't actually as annoying as they sound...my "lamprey" turned 2 yesterday, and I can honestly say we've loved ALMOST every minute with her. Somehow you never hear the stories about the babies who sleep through the night at 8 weeks and never look back. It DOES happen sometimes. And even the toddler tantrums can be dealt with. It's true what the parenting books say -- if you ignore it, it stops.

There will certainly be times when you want to stab yourself -- or someone else, but just keep reminding yourself that this too shall pass. The good moments are so surpassingly fulfilling that they really do make up for the sleep deprivation and poop explosions and public tantrums.

I should start by saying that I'm a 56 year old male who has 6 grown daughters (yes, I committed heinous crimes in a previous life),

Interesting. So, children are so wonderful, but having 6 female children is karmic punishment? Yeah, i know you think you're being cutesy, but it's just not very funny.

two of which have "lampreys" of their own.

Clearly these female children can give birth, but you continue to call them "girls."

Your life will change forever. It's called being human.)

Ah yes, the classic parent calling those who have not yet (or ever) had children not fully human. Why do you parents hate us so much?

Aw crap, another diatribe about the joys and horrors of motherhood. I come to salon.com to escape the tedium of my children and to read something interesting, or to exercise my increasingly addled brain by posting occasionally at times like now, when my daughter is napping and my son is wrecking havoc at nursery school, and not here.

But yet, it is the one topic that I find endlessly fascinating and mind-numbing at the same time. Good luck Heather! You know, child birth hurts like hell, and nothing will prepare you for the sight of your own colon bulging outside of your body, but that's not the worst part. And nothing prepares you for the fatigue of the first month, but if you get enough sleep, you can soldier through and you may even love it. So that's not the worst part. And the kids will drive you nuts at times, but all people are irritating, so it's not reasonable to assume that your kids won't drive you loopy.

From my vantage point, the worst part about new parenthood is other new parents.

Don't get me wrong. I love my kids so much that I could puke. Sometimes I'll look at them and feel a shock at how beautiful they are. I love that they drive me crazy, because they possess a diabolical determination to learn and make decisions for themselves. I could fill this entire screen up with words that delineate the peaks and valleys of how I feel about them, but let's face it, to anyone other than me, it's boring. Crap, I'm bored just re-reading this paragraph.

But what I hate hate HATE about parenthood, other than the work itself, is the Culture of New Parents. The competitive spirit of new mothers ("and where do you source your organic raisins?"), the non-stop blather about milestones ("oh, Timmy isn't crawling yet? Have you had him tested for a genetic disorder? Do you think he's mentally retarded?"), and the fact that all of the sudden, everything you do as a parent is subject to intense criticism ("She gives the baby f-o-r-m-u-l-a....." said in a whispered sneer). Even worse, is that most of these opinions are uttered by those who have never pushed 8 lbs through their birth canal or had their breasts stretched to sad sacks of lifeless flesh dangling mid-torso.

But perhaps the very very very worst part about becoming a mother is that near strangers, or those colleagues that you barely know but who also have kids, well, suddenly they feel compelled to fill your inbox with saccharin e-mails with subject headings such as "The Great Things About Being a Mom", or supposedly "funny" messages about how the little devils/angels smear ice cream into the leather seats of your SUV, but hey, aren't they just worth it? Have these people never talked to me before? Don't they know that I HATE these sentimental communal offerings? I don't think a piece of writing is funny unless the word Fuck is in it. Yet now I'm supposed to be part of a clique that finds this kind of writing MOVING?

So what can a smart edgy woman like Heather do to survive? Well, make this the last column you write about parenthood. Keep watching TV! But most importantly, never ever go to a play group.