5 Nice Things Parents Can’t Have

So you just had a baby? Congrats! Welcome to parenthood. Being a parent is wonderful! Your home will now be filled with more love than you could ever imagine. And also more diapers, wipes, bottles, toys, burp cloths, and tons of other baby and kid gear that you never even knew existed… But that’s another post for another day.

Oh, by the way, you’re also going to lose a lot, now that you’re a parent. I’m sure you know the nights of a full 8-10 hours of sleep are gone, as well as the lazy Saturday mornings drinking coffee and catching up on the DVR until noon.

But you might not have thought about a few other things you’ll no longer get to have now that you’ve been initiated into your role as mom or dad. Here’s a list of a few things you may have to give up, if you have kids like mine.

5 Nice Things Parents Can’t Have

1. Hand Soap and Hand Towels

If your toddlers are like mine, you’ll go through hand soap ridiculously fast. Not because everyone is washing their hands a ton, but because toddlers love squirting soap out into the sink over and over and over and over. It may take my kid 20 minutes to put on his shoes, but he can empty out a container of soap in 2 minutes flat while I’m switching out the laundry or doing the dishes. And there’s nothing like walking into your bathroom to see a soaking wet toddler, a sink overflowing with bubbles, and a floor drenched in slippery soap. Oh, and forget having a clean towel. I can count on one hand the times in the past 4 years that I’ve walked into the bathroom and NOT found my hand towel on the bathroom floor. And I really enjoy when I find the towel in the trash can or the toilet…

2. Coasters

If your kids are like mine, they won’t understand that coasters aren’t toys. My son pretends the plastic ones are cookies, flowers, or flying saucers. The breakable ones have been put up out of reach. Which means we never actually have any coasters to use. Good thing our furniture is cheap!

3. White Furniture

Speaking of furniture, forget having anything white. It’ll look like this after a while.

4. Decorations

Unless they’re high out of reach, go ahead and pack up all of your adorable decorations from Home Goods and Pottery Barn. The kids will either try to play with them or knock them over and break them. Candles, picture frames, plants, decorative figurines? Forget ’em!

5. Chapstick and Lotion

My daughter is like a chapstick and lotion detective. She can find those two items no matter where I hide them! She loves to smear the chapstick all over her face, usually breaking it all off eventually so that I’ll find it squished and laying in a pile of dust under the bed. And girlfriend loves lotion. Usually she’ll squeeze out about half the tube and be completely covered in it by the time I figure out what she’s doing.

And one more, just for fun:

6. A Clean Car

If you don’t let your kids eat in your car – I bow down to you. Seriously. I have no idea how you do it! I feel like I have a pretty high threshold for pain and suffering, but I can only listen to my kids whine and scream and cry about being hungry and wanting a snack for so long while I’m driving before I crack. If you’re driving down the road and see a lady next to you making it rain goldfish in her black minivan…that’s me. Try not to judge.

So again, congrats on your new addition! Enjoy that bundle of joy!!! But say goodbye to all of your nice household items.