Signs That You are a Parent:
1. You realize that this is the greatest gift God has ever given you, and thank Him every day for her.
2. Your life after midnight resembles an "I Love Lucy" episode. (Think running laundry at 3 a.m. because of explosive poo and upchucked milk, followed by flooding your bedroom with the water from the air humidifier...)
3. You can have entire conversations with people that focus solely on poops, feedings, sleeping, and other baby- related topics. You hang up to realize you didn't discuss anything about them or other grown-up topics.
4. You realize it is a necessary evil, but that you are personally responsible for the filling of at least one landfill with your child's diapers. So you make an extra effort to recycle, and commit to planting at least one tree by her first birthday, to balance out your ecological karma.
5. Speaking of diapers, you realize there is nothing magical about the Diaper Genie. (Unless storing poop was one of your wishes.)
6. You still love shopping at Target, but your basket is now filled with all things baby instead of stuff for you. (Clothes shopping is also fun, but you mostly buy items in a much smaller size that are often pink, or have pink details.)
7. Your favorite accessory is your Baby Bjorn.
8. The only books you have read in the last year have "baby" or "expecting" in the title.
9. If you've showered and eaten by noon, you've had a stellar morning! Coffee, however, has been on an intravenous drip since you left the hospital.
10. You realize that you truly get to experience every hour of the day, which makes them seem so much longer than before you had the baby. However, you look at the calendar, and how fast your baby is growing, and wonder where the time went.
11. You could stare at your sleeping baby for hours, and think clean baby smell is a great perfume idea. (Baby neck cheese, however, is a bit funky.)
12. You feel an immediate need to begin educating them. (Holding off on the flashcards until they can see further away, though.)
13. You realize that most of the advice you heard before you had the baby was true, but you had to figure it out anyway. (Probably because you forgot the advice, and your few remaining brain cells are now sleep deprived.)
14. You want to rid the world of germs, even though you realize that is impossible, impractical, and totally neurotic.
15. You could make lists for hours of all of the things you've learned as a parent, but the biggest lesson I've learned is that my parents were actually the smartest people ever (despite adolescent doubts) who were doing what was best for me always, and who love me more than I could fathom before I had my own child. Thank you Mom and Dad for everything! I love you!!
Here are some pictures from my first Mother's Day! Lilly, Jake, and I had lots of fun celebrating with Becky, Scott, Avery, Mom, Dad, and Christophe.
Thank you for a wonderful day!
