Dear New Mommas and Mommas to Be,

First off, congratulations on your induction into the world of motherhood. Regardless of how you got here, how scared witless you might be feeling or whatever – I think we can all agree that having a child is basically the most amazing miracle ever. It is like nothing you will ever experience and will change you forever.

You’ve probably read a couple of those What To Expect Books by the experts so I’ll spare you the obvious advice about parenthood. Things like how often to feed the baby and when they should be sleeping through the night or crawling or whatever milestone you find yourself waiting for with baited breath – I’m sure they’ll explain it better.

Although really, really remember that each little moment is precious. You might be impatiently wishing they could crawl to whatever now – but when they are crawling you’ll be more like, “Stop crawling behind the tv to chew on audio cables!” and “Ew, get that out of your mouth – where did that even come from?” And you’ll wonder why you wanted them to crawl so badly anyway and then you’ll blink and they’ll be climbing the furniture and running (not walking, running!) from room to room.

Remember that every day of motherhood is like forever. Every couple of weeks your life will change again and again and it will feel like it’s always been that way – like “The baby always wakes up from her morning nap at 10:30,” or “She always falls asleep in the car!” Until a few weeks have passed and you’ll say, “The baby never naps in the morning!” or “Every time we get in the car the baby SCREAMS for the whole ride!” And it will always feel like “always” but again – it’s all fleeting, always changing. Every day is a new adventure with new problems to tackle and sweet milestones to celebrate. Especially in that first year.

Remember that those height and weight percentiles mean basically nothing. Ditto for how many teeth they have at what age or when exactly they first say “da da” or roll over. Every child is different – and I mean, really. My kids started teething at 4 months of age and nobody believed me but they did. Other kids might have almost no teeth until they are nearing their first birthday. My oldest son is four and still not potty trained. A friend his age trained when he was 2 1/2. I’m told both are perfectly normal.

And about that “da da” thing – don’t be offended when it’s the only word they say, like ever. These days my daughter and I spend basically the entire day talking about that handsome daddy of hers. He’s her absolute favorite subject unless she’s angry and then suddenly she remembers my name. But I have this vague memory that my son was the same way until all of a sudden he forgot about that “da da” completely and then it was sweet “mamamamamammamas” as far as the eye could see. Remember I mentioned that every day is forever until it’s not?

Being a mother is hard work. You focus all your energy and strength and emotion on these tiny little things that can get hurt or feel sad or get angry with you or poop on your hand and you just keep on loving them anyway and hoping for the best. You forget whether you’ve brushed your hair this week sometimes and that’s just par for the course. Going to the bathroom becomes this sacred event that you have to plan just right and sometimes you kind of just want to hide in the bathroom all day but then sometimes you think you could just sit and stare into the eyes of your child until the day you die because they are the most beautiful thing in the universe, you know.

Motherhood is amazing and terrifying and spectacular and frustrating and miraculous and exhausting. Allatthesametime. And you know I’m not even doing the subject justice in this little open letter – but that’s okay because I haven’t had a decent night’s sleep in four years so I’m just going to pretend this was well written and congratulate you again on that precious little baby of yours. Enjoy them because it might be clichéd but they really do grow up fast. Too fast.

Sincerely,

Jen @ mommablogsalot.com

This writing prompt for the Writers Workshop hosted by Mama Kat was inspired by Tiffany from The Secret Is In The Sauce.