1. Nothing before or ever again will be as special or important as the child(ren) we've created.
What can I say? Cliches exist because in some way they contain a truth that is shared, though not universally, at least by a large majority. I must admit I was always skeptical of doting parents who proclaimed their children were the best thing that ever happened to them. Really? All of life's many great adventures had never been as satisfying, memorable, or as terrifying as your kids? I didn't buy it. Ziplining through the jungle 100 feet above the ground seemed a much more interesting feat than putting a screaming baby down for a nap. But now, seven months into this, I find myself long since feeling the same way. Giving birth to and raising Mina has been (and no doubt will continue to be) the single most precious and perfect thing I have ever done in my entire life. She has challenged me in ways I couldn't have imagined, but she has also rewarded me with hugs and wet, sloppy, open-mouth kisses that are the best gifts I've ever received. I know it sounds corny and cliched. It's the truth.
2. Children are black holes for time, free or otherwise.
While I was pregnant, many people delighted in telling me how my unborn baby would take up all my time once she was born. What is wrong with people that they get off on telling you how much life is going to suck once your baby is born? Seriously! Being the stubborn person I am, I didn't believe them. Or, if I did, I didn't really think they meant "all" my time would go to taking care of the baby. At first, this was a problem because, as you can imagine, it's true...in the most literal sense of the word. I never knew what "all" really meant before Mina was born. Like any self-respecting neurotic pregnant lady, I did extensive research before my baby was born and read that babies slept anywhere from 16 to 22 hours a day. Surely, there would be plenty of downtime for me to get to the things I wanted to do, like school work, scrapbooking, cooking...showering and, let's be honest, going potty. What I didn't realize, of course, was that some babies, mine in particular, spent 8 to 12 hours a day nursing, and the rest of the time were wide awake, ready to be entertained. So, yes, babies take all your time, but in the end, it doesn't really matter because of, you guessed it, Epiphany #1. As a matter of fact, I've come to look forward to spending an entire day just watching Mina discover the world. Chores be damned! Mina's only going to be a baby for so long, and then (poof!) this phase in Mina's life will be over. I'll be glad not to have missed it.
3. Bodily fluids, once thought to be the carriers of all that Satan embodies, are actually not that bad.
It's no secret that I'm somewhat of a germaphobe, a trait which is not entirely illogical. I don't drink from the same cup as anybody but Derek, and even then on rare occasion, because I knew a kid in high school whose father died 24 hours after contracting bacterial meningitis when he drank from the wrong cup at his son's graduation party. This tendency of mine to keep other peoples' bodily fluids far, far away from me concerned me as I looked forward to giving birth to and rearing Mina. So, I knew I'd have to deal with her drool, and I heard horror stories about babies covered in poop (another thing people just love to tell you is gonna happen). Honestly, finding ways to hygienically deal with Mina's various fluids creeped me out more than the thought of giving birth. But now, after innumerable encounters, I find myself not really caring when, in the middle of changing a particularly noxious diaper, I look down and see I have poo streaked across my finger. It's a matter of damage control, I guess. In the moment, it's a lot more important to finish changing Mina's diaper and prevent more nomadic poo from escaping her nether regions than it is to freak out about the smidgen that managed to find its way to my hand. I certainly wash my hands once I'm done, but I'm proud to say I've never once freaked out about whatever random fluids find their way onto my body throughout the day. Spit up, drool, urine, and even poo ain't got nothing on me. At least, not Mina's spit up, drool, urine or poo. I'm still incredibly terrified by other peoples' fluids, so keep them far, far away from me!
4. Babies make the (incredibly fast) passage of time blatantly apparent (i.e. I feel old).
When I went off to college and began a series of annual moves (in and out of the dorms and then to a new apartment each year until I was married), I would always perk up my ears and take note of the passage of yet another year when I found myself going through the annual tedium of packing up all my belongings and finding a new roost to call home. As I stuffed my clothes into a new (and somehow always smaller) closet, I'd reminisce over all that had happened in the previous year and wonder how long I'd stay in my new residence and what adventures would greet me before I moved again. At least, I did this ever year until my husband and I bought our house six years ago and settled down into a seemingly more permanent home. Ever since, time has marched on, unnoticed and unimpeded. Sure, I recognized that time was passing, but I'd stopped paying attention to how much and how quickly time was passing as I made my way through the tedium of the day-to-day, week-to-week, year-to-year. And then Mina was born. At first, as I muscled my way through sleep-deprived days, time seemed to stand still. It felt like a year had passed before she finally reached the coveted six-week mark when life was sure to get easier. And then, all of the sudden, she was six weeks old, and then time started flying by at warp speeds. I look at the calendar and am flummoxed by the fact that seven months have passed, SEVEN MONTHS, since Mina was born. She's more than halfway to a year old, and only four more of those and she'll be in Kindergarden. I look at her today, outgrowing 12-month clothes and making strides toward crawling and cutting her first tooth, and can hardly believe how much she's changed from the helpless, insatiable newborn she was seven months ago. I get whiplash thinking how quickly we've arrived at this point, and since time is relative, I know the next seven months (and seven months after that, and so on) will go quicker still. In a way, I'm grateful because I've begun forcing myself, each day, to slow down and really soak in the special moments: rocking Mina to sleep, hearing her giggle uncontrollably as Derek tickles her tummy, watching her gaze in amazement at each new discovery. Still, I wish there was a way to slow the eternal march of time down, to live these moments a little longer because once they're gone, they're gone.
5. I know what I'm doing, despite what x, y, or z person may think.
In the beginning, I deferred to everybody else's opinion on what I should be doing with Mina. If the lactation consultant told me to nurse Mina standing on my head, I'm sure I would have done everything in my power to make that happen. I took my parents' criticisms of how I was caring for Mina to heart, questioning if I was, in fact, doing harm when I followed advice offered up by the pediatrician or gleaned from all the leading parenting books. After all, they'd successfully reared their own children with these seemingly old-fashioned methods, and we'd all turned out okay...well, sort of. But somewhere along the line, I began to realize nobody on this entire planet knows Mina as well as Derek or I do, and while I recognize the "wisdom of the ages," I also realized that we do know what's best for Mina and should feel confident in the way we've decided to raise her. Certainly, I'm not infallible, and I'm always eagerly ready to hear advice on how we can do things better, but I'm not nearly as sensitive to the jabs (i.e. you're doing that wrong and are going to raise a spoiled brat because of it) as I once was. I guess, at some point in the last seven months, I became a parent, a grown-up capable of taking stock of a situation and deciding what's best. The irony is, of course, that it was my daughter who taught me how to become the mother she needs me to be.
I couldn't have said any of that better myself!!!
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