Why I Gave Up On The Idea Of Being A DIY Mama

Have you ever felt the same way as this mom did?

I got married two months before I ever heard of Pinterest, but during the dawn of barn weddings. I remember it clearly, because the rage I felt upon discovering that there was a better way to plan my wedding than the stacks on stacks of folders filling up my browser bookmarks bar was white-hot. There were s’mores bars. There were homemade jam favors. There were floating paper lantern send-offs and the mason jars—all the goddamn mason jars, as far as the eye could see. It was beautiful and also kind of made my eye twitch.

As time went on, I pinned thousands and thousands of pins. My dream house was planned out, with several options for slides instead of stairs. There were enough dinner recipes to make sure I wouldn’t eat the same crockpot meal twice within a single presidential term. And with babies on the brain, all the meticulously decorated nurseries were making my uterus skip a beat.

Then I actually got pregnant. My little pretend-baby pin board was suddenly a reality, and in just nine months, I would have a beautiful little nursery to sit in while sleep-deprived and unshowered. As the morning sickness of my first trimester left me permanently on the floor next to my toilet (cleaned with a Pinterest-approved mixture of free-range vinegar and non-GMO Clorox, sprayed from a repurposed vintage perfume bottle), I was left with just the dreams of my perfect nursery—the theme of which changed about nine times throughout my second trimester. While bloated and angry and looking to settle the score in my third trimester, I sat in my rocking chair and barked orders at my husband about how far he needed to space the chevron stripes he was painting on the walls. My swollen fingers made fruitless attempts at crocheting little forest critter stuffed animals that were totally practical to hand over to a slobbering newborn.

The night before my induction, I sat in that rocker and worked furiously into the night, arranging and rearranging bookshelf vignettes. I turned down a nice last meal out with my husband at our favorite restaurant so I could stay home to embroider an organic cotton onesie to make sure our new baby would be Instagram-appropriate when we debuted him to my 73 followers. I went to bed fretting over the Dr. Seuss quote I hung on the wall. Did I choose the right one?

I don’t remember the next seven months because babies are hard and that shit is a blur, and it is also possible that I just plain blocked out some of it. But I’m pretty sure I never once opened my eyes wide enough to see more than a foggy outline of the nursery in that dark time. However, as my son grew older, and I returned to normal, everyday activities like putting on a bra or pooping with the door almost all the way shut sometimes…

If you want to read about the Pinterest board named “1st Birthday Party” and how it changed this mom's life, check out the rest of this article on Scary Mommy. When you're finished, leave a comment and share whether or not you are pro-Pinterest.