There were so many things I had no idea about when it comes to babies and motherhood, I thought maybe there’s somebody else out there like me! 😉 So I figured I should share some inside information with you.

Before doing that, I have to admit that sure, I have seen the occasional anecdotic sequence of pictures depicting how life is over (and in so many ways!) when you have a child, but it’s not that bad (at least for us it isn’t) and so I don’t find it representative. Nobody tells you this other stuff, though.

1. Whereas some women put on a considerable amount of weight during the pregnancy and lose most of it afterwards, others (like me) gain little weight before they give birth, but compensate afterwards. Yesterday I was swinging my bottom in the mirror while saying “Repeat after me: Big is beautiful!”
2. The mothers jogging with a pram, it’s a myth. I see them everywhere, but I know literally nobody who has the energy for that. So they must be visiting from another planet.
3. I used to think babies had to be fed, changed, bathed, cuddled with, put to bed. Wrong. Most of the time will be spent trying to guess what the baby wants. The baby is tired, but also hungry and the baby can’t fall asleep because she’s too hungry and won’t eat because she’s too tired. I have no idea how many swear words I invented trying to figure out how this baby thing works. But, as a friend of mine put it, the interior monologue doesn’t count as long as you’re sweet to the baby. Phew!
4. You spend 40 years yearning for a baby just to get a baby and spend most of our waking hours hoping that she’ll go to sleep.
5. There is no better smell than a baby. No cheeks more kissable, no toothless mouth more beautiful when it breaks into a smile.
6. You’ve never known love until a cutie pie comes into your bed in the morning and pulls your nose, your hair and everything else she can grab.
7. You spend all your time wishing for a break and when she sleeps you start missing her. If she sleeps longer than usual, you’re so happy you’d do a little dance, but also a bit worried, because she might not be waking up any more… Sometimes you can’t stop yourself from checking up on her and end up waking her up and she’ll be cranky and you’ll be mumbling “I’m such a moron!” for the rest of the day. Other times you’ll take a shower, put on some lotion (now that’s what I call a luxury!) and then settle under the blanket with your beloved Mac and a cup of coffee. Next thing you know, the cup is slipping from your hands, coffee is spilling on the Mac and both of them end up on the floor. Hello poverty!
8. At some point during this journey you realize your parents were people like you and just like you, they probably did their best and you still think it wasn’t enough. And you see yourself dining with your grown-up daughter in 20 years’ time and toasting for better days when she brings up this and that that hurt her, the way you used to do to your parents when you’ve had one too many.
9. That waking up in the middle of the night for countless times and many months in a row still enables you (somehow) to care for a baby throughout the day.
10. That it’s getting better by the day, for the ones of you who felt maternity leave was one desert of time and no validation, just know that for each day you’re closer to going back to work, your baby is getting bigger and sweeter and almost (just almost) makes you wish you were a stay home mom. (Just not really) 😉

xxx, Alina