Little Lessons from One Little Year

Beware the ides of March.  March 15, 2014 was my due date and not the day my Booberry was born.  I shudder to look at the picture of me taken on this day, way overflowing with life and so deeply uncomfortable in my own super stretched skin.  But looking back on the day got me reflecting on all the little things in my small world that I’ve learned this year. 

1.        Dresses are stupid for babies who are too little to crawl, and also for those who can crawl.  When they can’t crawl, they’re too squishy to look good in the dresses and, when they can, they get pissed off by tripping on the dress.

2.       You will still buy and receive and dress your baby girl in ONE MILLION DRESSES.  Because they are the cutest.

3.       You will get embarrassed/proud when people complement your baby’s accomplishments and beauty

4.       You do not know how to respond when people tell you how much your baby looks like you.  It’s awkward. 

5.       Baby girls can pee on you during a diaper change, too.  GENDER EQUALITY, PEOPLE!

6.       Your PJ pants are for at home.  Sweat pants are pharmacy acceptable.  Yoga pants are for almost everywhere.  Jeans are for social events.  Clean jeans are for meeting new people or childless friends.  Well-fitting jeans are cause for a night on the town.

7.       You will own a special pair of “nice yoga pants” which are for fancy times.

8.       All shoes must be slip on. Or at least slip off.  Slippers are good, too. 

9.       The swing is God…until she outgrows it…

10.   If you name it, you can say you sleep trained your kid.  “I used the ____ method.”

11.   Your baby’s throw up is not a big deal.  Someone else’s baby’s throw up is just as gross as all throw up used to be.

12.   You maybe have eaten after changing a poop diaper and only using hand sanitizer, not hand washing.  And by maybe, I mean many, many times. 

13.   Somedays you won’t care AT ALL about getting your “body back” (where’d it go?) and some days you will cry while getting dressed. 

14.   All your clothes will have weird stains.  Always.  And if they miraculously don’t, you have something in your hair anyway and you don’t even know what it is…and, best case scenario, it’s scrambled egg. 

15.   You get small pleasure out of telling your childless friends “don’t google mucus plug” knowing that they will. 

16.   You can never have too many zippy pjs.  Footless for walkers.

17.   You didn’t think it was possible to love your pets less than your baby but you do and you feel guilty.

18.   You didn’t think it was possible to love your baby more than your husband but you do and he knows it and both of you are cool with it and still love each other plenty.

19.   You cannot prevent her from attempting to kill herself and you cannot always catch her before she whacks her head on a chair leg and you have to be okay with that…but you hate yourself every time.

20.   There will be a day where you see your little squish walking in the living room, playing independently, chatting to herself and you will see a person, not a blob of a baby.  And you will be terrified of this person who lives in your house and all the ways you can screw her up and let her fall.  How big is baby? SO BIG!  How’d that happen so fast?

Happy Birthday, Baby Booberry!