Things I Didn't Expect I'd Do When I Became A Mom

If you are a new mom, you are well aware that there is no shortage of information about babies and children out there. From blogs, to books, to e-mail newsletters, to friends, to family, to strangers with kids and even strangers without kids - everyone has advice and opinions on how to raise your child. I have been lucky to receive a ton of great advice, stories and anecdotes from lots of people in my life and I've had fun imagining how I would react in certain situations. But there definitely are some things have happened during my first year of motherhood that I totally didn't expect I would do when I became a mom.

1.) Pick my daughter's nose. Yep, it is sometimes just easier for me to stick my pinky finger nail in her nose to clear out the grossness instead of using the bulb aspirator or a tissue. Never expected I would do that!

2.) Get more excited about buying baby clothes than clothes for myself. Have you seen baby clothes? They are so cute and there are just so many options out there. With all of the great colors and prints and styles available, I often can't help myself and want to buy Baby K all the clothes.

3.) Smell Baby K's bottom before I change her. I admit it, I pick up my daughter and sniff her butt to see if she pooed before I trudge upstairs and wrestle with her to change her. I mean, I'm going to be darn sure she doesn't have a dirty diaper before I go begin a mini wrestling workout where I come very close to losing for the seventh time of the day.

4.) Turn off Cosmo Radio and sing Itsy Bitsy Spider over and over again. When Baby K has had enough of riding around in the car and for some reason she just doesn't believe me when I tell her that we are "almost home" sometimes there is nothing else I can do to calm her than to sing Itsy Bitsy Spider over and over just to keep her smiling. That is hands down her favorite song, I don't think there has been a time yet where she hasn't started smiling when I start singing it.

5.) Keep driving when Baby K falls asleep in the car. When Baby K was smaller and we still used the infant carrier as her car seat, it was no problem to get her out of the car - even while asleep - because we could easily lift the carrier right out. Now that we use a convertible seat for her, we have to unstrap her and move her arms and actually lift her out of the car which always wakes her up if she falls asleep. And since she doesn't really nap that well anywhere but her crib, if she falls asleep in the car I do NOT want to wake her. We will keep driving around, not caring where we go just as long as that sweet babe keeps her eyes shut.

6.) Carry on full conversations with my baby like she understands every word I say. Yep, its true, Baby K often gets to hear all sorts of good stuff come out of my mouth, she's such a great listener! And hey, its good for baby's speech development to hear a lot of different words and sounds.

7.) Let Baby K make a mess. For this OCD mama, I was quite scared of all of the messes that would inevitably end up in my house, but I'm learning to not care. Especially when I see how much joy it brings my daughter. Yep, tearing up paper and making a mess of all of the junk mail we get is one of Baby K's favorite activities.