Maybe it's just me, but every book I read, every site I visited, and every tidbit of advice I received didn't even remotely prepare me for most of the stuff I REALLY needed to know the first year of my child's life. We recently celebrated her first birthday, and in light of the responses I got from my last post, I decided to come up with another list: The list of things that I wish someone had told ME about giving birth, post-baby-body, and being a mommy.

- How come nobody told me how emotional I was going to be in the months after giving birth to my daughter? I think my books made passing references to "baby blues", but they didn't tell me that I'd be sobbing hysterically after watching diaper commercials, or bursting into tears because I'm pretty sure that  the complete stranger driving next to me is mad at me because he may or may not have given me a dirty look out of the corner of his eye as he was changing lanes. Seriously. "Baby Blues" should be changed to "You're going to cry eleventy billion times a day for at least three months after you give birth, so invest in Kleenex".

- For those of you that are blessed with curves: I've always had big boobs, okay, but I have never in my entire life imagined that the letters of the alphabet went so high in bra sizes. And when my lactition told me that I would experience some "slight discomfort", I'm still not clear whether she was referring to the burn of let-down or the pain of my boobs being swollen to the size of watermelons. Once I got into the routine of nursing, it wasn't so bad....but then I weaned my daughter. And then, like sad little balloons, my boobies deflated. And now they hang somewhere close to my belly button, where they've become best friends with my stretchmarks.

- For being so small, babies sure have a lot of stuff inside them. And who knew that poop could be so exciting? My daughter went a week without a bowel movement, and when she finally went, I called my mother, my grandmother, my sister, and told seven women at work. And while we're on the subject, a word from the wise: once you've changed a diaper, if you still smell something, it's probably on you somewhere. Poop is sneaky like that.
 
- I've never even ONE TIME in my life EVER even CONSIDERED walking up to some random stranger's child and touching them. Not on the hand, not on the face, not on the head. And I've never asked if I could hold the child of a stranger. NEVER. But I am not like most people. Most people don't think about the fact that only about 30% of the population wash their hands after using the restroom, and they handle money, which is completely disgusting, and they wipe their noses and cough into their hands and probably all have malaria and ebola and staph infections and MAD COW DISEASE AND DON'T TOUCH MY BABY WITH YOUR DISGUSTING HANDS I DON'T KNOW YOU AND I AM ABOUT TO RIP YOUR ARM OFF AT THE ELBOW.

- Your mom was right. About everything. All of it.

- I've always been a carefree chick. I really never worried about too much of anything. But since I've had my daughter, I've turned into Psycho-mom. Seriously, my daughter will be lucky if I let her go to kindergarten, lest she be shot on the playground by another 5-year-old that's pissed cause she stole his Tonka. I worry about taking her outside because she might get bitten by a mosquito and catch malaria. I worry about her riding with my mom, not because my mom is a bad driver, but because there might be a police chase involving 83 squad cars like you see on COPS. I worry about her eating too much, or not enough. I worry about immunizations, but then worry about what would happen if she DIDN'T get them. I worry, worry, worry. And you know what? I don't think it goes away. I don't think it's supposed to.

- When it comes to your baby, everybody has advice. Everybody is going to tell you what to do. Your pediatrician is going to tell you one thing. Your mom is going to tell you another. Your mom-in-law will probably tell you something completely different. The lady in line at the grocery store will spend 45 minutes telling you all about her brother's step-son's second cousin, and what SHE did. And by the end of the day, you are going to be so sick of everybody telling you what to do that you may just turn on the next person that speaks to you like a rabid dog. But I've found that, surprise surprise, I know what's best for my baby. So when it comes to the small things, like food and naps and the way your baby reacts to certain things, just trust your gut. Babies aren't mass-produced on assembly lines. Your baby is unique.

- Finally: I can't tell you how many people, upon hearing that I was pregnant, said, "Welp, your life as you know it is OVER." It was annoying as shit, but you know what? It's TRUE. But not in the way that you think. We've all heard the saying (cheezy though it may be), "to every beginning, there is an end, and to every end, there is a beginning." So yeah, your life AS YOU KNOW IT, is over. This will feel especially true to those of you who are having "surprise" babies like me (I DESPISE the term "mistake", babies are NOT mistakes). But, I've noticed, the life that I began with my daughter is lightyears past the one that I was living before I got pregnant. It is BEYOND incredible. I've found that the biggest surprise of all is the amount of love that I hold in my heart for my baby girl.

So here it is. Take it or leave it. These are just a few things that I wish someone would have told me. Good luck to those of you expecting or new mommies!!!