Things “They” Wont’ Tell you about Motherhood

1. A pregnant-looking tummy is an invitation to everyone, including strangers on the street, to caress your stomach.

2. Your newly born baby will give license to those same people to dispense to you unsolicited advice at great length.

3. If you do ask your Mother or Mother-in-law for advice on a specific subject, they are sure to tell you that their child-rearing days were so long ago they couldn’t possibly be expected to remember. Then in the next sentence they will proceed to offer you advice on some other childcare issue that you are not interested in. Apparently this is the one subject they do remember from those many eons ago when you were a babe in arms.

4. Your parents will let your child do, and get away with, everything you could not. This is long awaited revenge for the time you tried to jump out a second story window because you thought you could fly like Superman. (It was my husband who attempted such a feat as a toddler.)

5. Everyone but you will think that your baby is too cold. Even if it is 85 degrees outside and he’s wearing a parka.

6.After the birth, the hospital lactation consultant will do things to you that you could have never fathomed.

7. Cute pajamas are key. They are the only thing you will wear for the first few weeks after arriving home with a newborn. You will either be sidetracked each time you attempt to dress by a call for food or a diaper change, or you will leave your pajamas on thinking you will get a change to take that ever elusive nap. You will change them when the amount of spit up on them reaches an unbearable level or you actually get to shower.

8. Showers become almost at elusive as naps.

9. Your house will smell not like dirty diapers, but like baby formula. You won’t notice it anymore after a few days.

10. When you’re sleep deprived for the 41st night in a row it’s O.K. to cry and wonder if your life will ever be the same again. (It won’t ever be the same, but it does get better.)

11. The one thing everyone will tell you and you won’t believe is that is goes fast. The sleepless nights will soon be over, and that sweet little baby sleeping in your arms will be a huge toddler that gives you a backache when you have to lug him out of Wal-Mart screaming because he can’t have another Sponge-Bob toy. Enjoy babyhood because it is precious and fleeting.