Author: laurenquiroga4114

Here’s the thing. I don’t floss. I never have. I lie to my dentist about it, but she knows I’m full of shit. Every six months the conversation goes like this:

Dentist: “So Lauren, it looks like your gums are a little inflamed, have you been flossing?”

And then of course I answer back with:

“Well, probably not as often as I should be… I’m sorry…”

And guess what? My dentist sees riiiggghhhtttt through my bullshit. Right the fuck through it. She knows I’m not sorry. And she definitely knows that I don’t do it PERIOD. And every time I leave, I always have it in my head that “this is it, this time I will start flossing!” but then I try and my gums are still sore from being poked and prodded at, so then tonight turns into tomorrow night and tomorrow night turns into next month and then next thing you know I’m at my six month check up again having the same exact conversation. It’s a vicious cycle. Flossing and I don’t get along and we probably never will.

So then, why do I do that? Why do I say something I clearly don’t mean twice a year instead of just being like, “no bitch I don’t”??? Even worse, why do I follow it with an empty apology? I hate the phrase “I’m sorry”. You wanna know why? 9 times out of 10 it’s never sincere.

Think about it, more often than not apologies lead with someone else implying you should be sorry. Oh, you overheard something you weren’t supposed to hear and the other person got mad? BOOM! YOU should be sorry for listening. Someone wasn’t clear on their expectations for XY&Z and you made an executive decision? WELL FUCK YOU BECAUSE YOU JUST EARNED YOURSELF A ONE WAY TICKET TO I’M SORRY TOWN! Or heavens forbid, you quit a job because you’ve found something that fills your bucket more than your current place of work: the conversation almost always ends with, “I’m sorry”. These situations in which we feel FORCED to apologized has completely ruined the phrase. If someone says they are sorry to me it almost makes me MORE mad because they aren’t doing it out of sincerity. They are doing it out of force of habit.

Which makes the phrase worse. Make a mistake? I’d rather you own up to your shit a thousand times more than insult me by uttering the two most overused words in the English language. But for some reason that’s borderline absurd.

And then what almost automatically follows a synthetic apology? (I coined that phrase by the way, feel free to use it any time you’d like!) ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. Just like when I tell the dentist that I’m sorry for not flossing, and then continue to go on my merry little way for the next six months. N-O-T-H-I-N-G.

So how can we change this? How can we break this cycle of fake feelings and bullshit apologies? BE HONEST. And don’t EVER say sorry if you don’t fully mean it. Stick to your guns, girl! OWN YOUR SHIT! Cheat on your husband? Own it. Forget to pay your car payment? Own it. Overload the washer? Yep, own it. Life would be so much simpler. And then I think it would help people understand that we all make choices. Yes, some are worse than others, but not all rectify an apology for God’s sake.

So I leave you with this: stand your ground at all times, even if it’s tough. Understand that mistakes 100% happen. And they won’t ever stop happening. Force yourself to adjust to your path that you’ve created and stroll on with pride. And for shits sake, throw all your fake “I’m sorry’s” in the trash can along the way.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go NOT floss.

Until next time, Divas.

LQ

I went back and forth about what exactly my first post should be. I have about 6 different drafts of topics that I was convinced were PERFECT for my opening post. Somehow this one just felt right.

The title might turn you off a little bit, but trust me, read all the way through until the end and you’ll understand WHY I went with that one.

Here’s a fact that I think nobody will deny: your child wouldn’t be here if you weren’t here. And this fact goes for every type of parent. Foster, adoptive, biological, step, etc. Think about it: your child relies SOLELY on you to be your absolute best at all times. Ergo, if you’re falling, so is your child.

This. This is why I didn’t breastfeed.

You guys, I get asked this question so often that if I had a dollar for every time it happened I could probably pay my mortgage for a month. No joke. And I’ve never been one to tiptoe around why I chose not too. I’ve been honest and shared what I thought was appropriate and kept to myself what I felt wasn’t. (Not because I was ashamed, but because I didn’t want it to come out as I was shaming moms who breastfed, even though that’s completely what they were doing to me).

I’m well aware that breastfeeding is a beautiful thing. It is so incredible that our bodies can not only grow a human, but also supply it with nourishment to help it grow. Really. Breastfeeding moms deserve a freaking medal. I’ve heard the horror stories. The bleeding, the chaffing, the exhaustion, the hormones, the LACK-tation (see what I did there?). I could go on and on. It’s also no mystery that breastfeeding can have negative side effects. Not only ones that can effect your baby (undernourishment/lack of production/allergy), but more importantly (yes, I know, how DARE I consider myself MORE important than my child!) it CAN (bitches, I said CAN so re-read that before you sick yourself on me kaythanksbye) also have a negative side effect on the mommas. Postpartum Depression is one side effect.

Let me back track a bit. I was grateful enough to have an OB/GYN who has been delivering babies for 37 years. (He’s no longer taking patients, so I’m not going to give his information). From my first visit with him at 12 weeks pregnant (yeah I was a little late in the game finding out I was pregnant LOL) he was insanely good at making sure I understood that I have two jobs once the baby gets here: to keep myself alive, so I can keep the baby alive. Everything else I was able to accomplish was a plus. He said however I chose to interpret that was up to me. And when I was 20 weeks along and found out my child had a 40% survival rate, he prepped me FOR EVERYTHING. Most importantly, the chances of having PPD. It’s not easy to be a mom. But it’s a hell of a lot harder to be a mom with a high risk pregnancy, especially when the condition you have only effects 1 in every 5,000 pregnancies, and currently there is no cure or understanding of how or why it happens. So I could understand why he was concerned that PPD might be something I may suffer from in the future. Which, I haven’t, and I know I won’t because FOR ME (see, there I go again sharing a personal experience instead of generalizing *insert eye roll here*), it’s a mind over matter thing. And I completely understand that for some people it is a real problem, and I HOPE my friends know that I will always be here for an ear, hug or a glass of wine with ZERO judgement. It’s just not something I choose to ever let into my life. But that’s another post, one of which I have saved in my drafts right this very minute. So anyone that has had a NICU baby (we were fortunate enough to not have one, but we were still prepped for the possibility), you know that they stress A LOT about the fact that you might not be able to breastfeed, or even give your baby pumped milk, depending on their vitals.

But I knew I didn’t want to take any chances with PPD– so that was strike one. Strike two was the information on partners relationships with breastfed babies. When my husband and I were doing our research, one of the things that we read was that children who are breastfed can sometimes have a harder time bonding with the non-feeding parent for the first year of life. Well I don’t know if you guys know my husband, but if you do, you’d know that that just wasn’t an option. My husband was MADE to be a daddy. He’s better at being a parent than I am! He is selfless, and nurturing and has the kindest heart out of anyone on this planet. He is not afraid of anything, not even to be a daddy. He has changed diapers, and gotten up in the middle of the night, and taken baths and read to and YES even FED her, since day one. He wanted to be 100% involved and for us to be able to do that, it meant bottle feeding.

“But Lauren, why didn’t you pump then???” BECAUSE IT DIDN’T FEEL SEXY TO ME TO BASICALLY BE A HUMAN COW THANKYOUNEXTTTTT.

“But aren’t you worried about not having a “special” bond with your child?” Listen, my child fucking knows I grew her. She just knows it. I can tell my the way she smiles whenever my husband and I feed her. Or how she snuggles his beard right after she’s done eating, or HAS TO be holding my finger while I burp her. Not to mention how she flails her arms and legs with excitement when she sees that bright pink bottle come towards her face. A connection is a connection. You can’t deny that.

And now that I’ve gone through all the “non-selfish” reasons for not breast feeding, I’ll give all of you that don’t have a stick up your asses my “selfish” reasons.

MY TITS. PRAISE JESUS AND MY MOMMA FOR MY TITS. I love them, I use them, I value them. And I did not want to see those babies take the back seat for anything. Here’s another personal fact, I absolutely LOVE how sexy and confident I feel at all times. It doesn’t matter if I have no makeup on and a blotchy spray tan or a full face and I’m a fucking bronzed goddess. I. KNOW. I’M. BOMB. And selfishly I just didn’t want to jeopardize that.

And then if you don’t know that I’m the queen of a good time then don’t ever read my blog again LOL. I love my alcohol. In fact, my husband and I finished two bottles of wine the second we got home from the hospital. I didn’t want pumping and dumping to cramp my style.

So anyways, all joking aside, I hope I was able to shed some light on why us non-bf moms do it. We don’t do it because we “don’t love” our children. We do it because we love them. We know that we will be able to be better moms to them, if we feel dynamite ourselves. It makes us feel good just like having your child eat from your breast makes you feel good. Isn’t that great that we can BOTH be stellar mommas and do things 100% different? So next time you see or hear a momma talking about why she’s formula feeding, remember that we want the same respect as you do when you whip your tit out in public. It’s all one in the same. We all love our babies just as much as you do.

So let’s focus on supporting our mommy friends, instead of trying to change the way that THEY feel will make them the best mommies to their babies.

Until next time Divas,

LQ

Hi Friends! Thank you so much for stopping by. I have always wanted to start a blog– whether people read it or not– because writing has always been a huge passion of mine!

A little bit about myself:

My husband Kyle and I have been married for almost 5 years, and been together almost 11! Yep, high school sweethearts! We have two dogs and a cat who we love with everything we have! We recently became parents for the first time! On Friday, October 5th 2018 I gave birth to beautiful baby girl named Alexiah Rose. And thus started my new “career” as a Stay at Home Mommy who sells Mascara on the internet to help pay the bills (no, really!)

I curse like a truck driver (I blame my father in law up in heaven for that one!), wine inspires me, spray tans fill any and every void in my life and I have re-watched The Office probably 150 times from start to finish. But that’s not why I’m here.

My whole reason for starting a blog is simple: I have A LOT to say. Seriously! If you’ve ever been around me, you know that my mouth and my brain always coincide with one another and I say what I feel! (Queue the snaps in a Z FORMATION, GIRL!) You can’t shut me up! I truly believe in my soul that I am as bad and boujee as they come! My confidence and ability to always say how I feel is something that I value very much. And throughout my young adult life, I have learned that sadly, I’m one of the few women who actually can say that is a quality they carry.

That’s really where this page comes in. If I can help one women SLAY at her life, just by reading my words, then I have done all I have set out to do in this lifetime. Because I believe that every woman is beautiful. And when I say “beautiful”, I don’t just mean physically (although lets face it, I would be more than happy to help some of you in that department, too– just saying!)  While I do believe beauty is skin deep– how you look and carry yourself TOTALLY effects how you feel inside! (And if you disagree with me then start your own blog and we can duke it out like West Side Story!) So I will be sharing everything that defines beauty FOR ME. Recipes, makeup and hair tips, marriage advice, mommyhood and more. Because let’s face it– it’s time to show up FOR YOURSELF, GIRL!

I cannot wait to hear from all of you. I cannot wait to put my two cents out there. I cannot wait to be challenged, and held accountable and truthful.

Let’s do this, Divas.

Until next time.

LQ