Mom-isms

You know you're a mom when:

- you sacrifice sleep to get some "Me Time."

- your hair in in a state of flux between the slept in look and a ponytail

- if you happen to get your hair in a different style and see a hair (or two, or three) out of place, you yank them out rather than risking the baby waking while you try to re-style it

- dinner is most often eaten at the sink, while standing

- friends are those witty cyber people on your computer now, rather than people you actually get to see in person

- having a "clean" house is far less important than simply making sure you don't end up on the next episode of Hoarders: Buried Alive

- without coffee, you LITERALLY couldn't function and you barely do with it.

- showers alone, without the baby, or the family pet, or your spouse talking to you through the door, have taken the place of salon visits....even though a massage would be like sheer heaven. Then again, you're afraid if you got a professional massage, you might just spontaneously combust because your body would go into some form of shock due to the drastic change in tension.

- your butt is gone now and it seems to have relocated to your midsection (yeah, yeah, yeah...baby was there...beautiful thing...a miracle occurred there...blah, blahh, blahh. Even the people saying that pinch their fat while looking at themselves in the mirror. Guaranteed).

- Makeup? Seriously? If you have time for that, it's because you sacrificed sleep and let's face it, when you have a baby, sleep is WAY more important. So, in an attempt to look presentable you slather on some foundation quickly and swipe on some massacra that probably needs to be replaced, because you've had it since you were pregnant and you look in the mirror with a slight smile because you at least look somewhat like what you remember looking like before you stepped bravely into motherhood.

- you worry about every little thing you eat and drink when breastfeeding, except that glass of wine with dinner, because it is the cousin to coffee...you NEED it more than you really want it and the rest of the family needs it too, whether they realize it or not. What's the saying, "happy mama; happy family," or "happy wife; happy life." Either fits.

- sex has come down to, "the baby is asleep, do me," rather than taking the time for foreplay, even though you do enjoy it and if you're breastfeeding, you need it more than ever. DAMN YOU, ESTROGEN! Still, you don't have the time for that and the idea of possibly having an orgasm sometime in your baby's first year of life is too important to risk foreplay, then the baby waking, and all possibility of anything remotely close to said orgasm, flying out the window.

- you know everything that happens in your neighborhood between the hours of 2:00 - 5:00 am. Why is the neighbor leaving at 3:00 every morning, coming home at 5:00, then leaving again minutes later? Weird. Then, out of fear of becoming like Jimmy Stewart in Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window (or the kid in Disturbia, for the young people out there who have only seen the re-make), you make a point NOT to look out the baby's window and NOT pay attention to any sounds outside the house at all.

- simply riding in the car with your spouse and a sleeping baby is as close to date night as you need.

- you can't make it through an entire movie anymore because either you fall asleep or the baby wakes up.

- you find yourself talking about the baby all. the. time. to the point that even you get sick of hearing yourself.

- you are frazzled, exhausted, walking around like a mom-bie (rather than your cousin the zombie, who at least has the cool makeup on), feeling like a mere shadow of yourself, but when that baby smiles at you, or - wait for it - LAUGHS, your entire world lights up and all the other things vanish.

Yes, motherhood completely changes your life. Yes, you'll be giving up so much of yourself. No, your life will never be the same and you know what? You don't want it to be, because that would mean that your little bean, your little sweetie sleeping in the crib in the other room wouldn't exist...and your heart would stop beating. Life as you have come to know it (and LOVE it) would cease to exist and you know that that's no longer an option you want.

So, mombies out there...I wish you a happy holiday season and a very happy new year. Cheers to you.