Only a Mother Would...

Everyone says that your life will completely change once you have kids. I remember BN (Before Norah) when I'd sort of roll my eyes at the tired old cliche. And I remember thinking "duh" when I was pregnant. But truly, nothing anyone could possibly say could prepare you for this change that people speak of.

Among the major life-altering changes, there are little things that remind me that I am now in fact a mother.

Never in a million years did I think I would (or could)...

• Catch vomit/spit up in my hand
• Be completely unable to watch any newscast about something terrible happening to a child
• Also being unable to watch Law and Order Special Victims Unit
• Wipe a poop-covered butt while singing "Yellow Submarine"
• Put a thermometer up another living being's butt
• Eat peas with a giant smile for moral support (I hate peas)
• Live on two-hour stretches of sleep
• Not shower for two+ days
• Cheerfully dance about to soul-killing children's music
• Pick someone else's nose
• Allow my shoulder to become a snot rag
• Put my nose right up to a butt to take a whiff 
• Root for another human to burp (the bigger, the better)
• Call anything "ba ba," "tooters," or "bun bun"
• Keep smiling despite spit-up in my eye
• Fish a turd out of a tub

And I'm sure the list will keep on growing. And sometimes I wonder if I've lost myself in this role of Mother. And I probably have, to some extent. But when you see that first smile in the morning when you walk into her room, as if she missed you so desperately, you don't see the booger crusted in her hair. Well, you see it. But it's not so gross.