Eight Months Today!

A few months before Samantha was born I was more than ready to just have her and be done with being pregnant. I think those last 3 months were the most uncomfortable months of my entire life. The funny thing was all my friends who had children or babies were telling me to enjoy the last baby-free weeks I had.
What?! Enjoy being humongous with all sorts of random pain and soreness? Enjoy not being able to go an hour without visiting the bathroom? Enjoy feeling like my baby is going to be a martial arts master when she's born because of how hard she can kick my ribs? I don't think so!
Every day I was couting down and impatiently waiting for Samantha to be born. On February 8th she was, and I realized that my friends had more wisdom than I gave them credit for.
Having a baby to care for has been one of the biggest challenges I've had in my life. Hands down, it has been the most rewarding, but it definitely hasn't been easy. Priorities have shifted. Things that seemed like they were alarmingly important before tend to be neglected. Our house is not as tidy as it once was. Bedtime is nowhere near as late as it used to be. On the weekend we're lucky if sleeping in means sleeping until 7:30.
Just last weekend though I realized that we have finally made it into official parent territory. I was holding Samantha on the couch when Chris finally said the thing that I had been told we would eventually say. He said something along the lines of,
"You know, she can really be a nightmare sometimes, but I don't know what we would be doing right now without her."
It's the truth. What did we do with all that spare time we used to have? Life must have been so boring before she was born, because it sure isn't now!
One last thing I want to mention. Congratulations to my cousin Andy & his girlfriend Trisha, their baby boy Nova was born today!