I'm totally "THAT LADY"

You know, the one who says "Congratulations!" to you as you walk by with your adorable baby bump.  The one who looks longingly at you with your infant, and totally creeps you out with just a smile.  The one who can't help but say "Enjoy, it goes by so fast!" as you roll your eyes. The one who you wish would just leave you alone because really, you've heard it all before and yeah, yeah, yeah you get it.

I know this, because just six short months ago I WAS you. 

And now, somehow, I've become THAT lady.  It happened so slowly I never saw it coming.  I had no idea it was happening to me.  One day I heard myself say "Congrats!" to a lady as I held open a door for her, I had an out of body experience and realized...

...IT HAD HAPPENED. To me?!?!

The moment I had dreaded.  Swore would never come.  It was here.

And I could not care less.


You see, six months ago I went into labor with a whole lot of ideas and judgments.  I very quickly found that babies don't give a poop about your ideas, they do what they want.

I was going to have a natural, unmedicated birth.  Ended up with an emergency c-section 68 hours after my water broke.  (I should finally write my birth story one day before I forget everything!)

If having a child teaches you anything, it's that you have no idea about things you thought you knew, and that there are plenty of things you don't even know that you don't know.

It's a weird club of which to be a member. Others try to warn you, but you just can't know until you know it and experience it yourself.

All the things other parents say are true. And one day you'll catch yourself staring at that 5 week old and wondering how your sweet baby has gotten so big, so smart, so cute...so fast. Too fast, even. And before you know it those dreaded words will slip from your lips and fall upon the ears of a soon to be parent who just doesn't know what they don't know.

*I am absolutely not "that lady" who rubs random strangers bellies or attempts to pick up your child out of their stroller. If I ever become that lady you have full permission to take me out back and shoot me.

Things that make you go hmmm...

Scratch that, more like things that make me go "What the fudgesicle?!!"

I don't know how to break this to y'all, but here it goes:

Apparently I look straight up INSANE. Like, who let this lady off her meds and out of her straight jacket?

I wasn't aware of this. I have seen myself for 30 plus years, I thought I was just a normal, albeit sometimes adorable, lady. But nope, I must be cray cray.

Surely you must be wondering how I now know this.

I know this, without a doubt, because I have heard the following at least 20 times since Bree was born:

Oh, she's real. I thought she was a doll!

My husband insists that's people complimenting the baby. No Dear, that's people calling your wife a nutty buddy. A compliment would be "She looks like a doll!"

Saying you thought she was a doll means I look like the type of crazy person who would spend hundreds of dollars on a baby carrier or stroller, plus toys, clothes and a diaper bag just so I could walk around town pushing a doll to look like I had a child.

That's a special kinda crazy.

And apparently, my friends, that's what I look like.

Awesome.