New Year, New Perspective

Pictures of Amelie to come later - uploading them takes all night and, no surprise, I don't have all night.  Those previous picture posts were at the expense of sleep, a hot meal, and probably a shower.  Now that sweet pea is teething, I've learned that I need to be a bit more selfish with my time if I'm to keep my sanity.

So 2012 seems like a good year to compare life before and after baby; I can remember:

• When procrastination used to be a choice.
• When I used to have clean floors and no clutter around the house.
• When I used to sleep more than 2 hours straight.
• When I used to stay up until 2 am for fun.
• When I used to shop for clothes for myself.
• When I ate hot meals.
• When I could jump in the car in 2 minutes and drive more than half an hour without stopping.

Those begin to sound as if life was better before baby...not so, because in return:

I have no problem billing clients for my time now.  These days, any time I work on documents or meetings = time away from my daughter, so if they aren't willing to pay for it, they clearly don't need an attorney that badly.  This has made me a very efficient attorney.  Any time at work = college funds for Amelie.  One great piece of advice my dad once told me is you must take care of yourself and your family before you can take care of others.  I finally get that.

I am more satisfied with my body now than I ever was before, even though now I'm probably more out of shape, I have more stretched skin, and I'm heavier than I've ever been.  I don't think I've ever been more amazed at what it can do - grow and birth a baby, and then feed it.  I can't believe I ever used to fret about a pound or two when I just created and sustained a perfect little human.

Speaking of things that used to seem very important now seem rather silly, and I can't believe I ever spent time stressing over my hair/makeup/clothes/pedicures, being cold (now all I care about is keeping sweet pea warm - I forget my own coat most of the time), celebrity gossip (I must have been bored), bickering in public with Dorian (immaturity), and making sure the laundry is folded perfectly (ha!).

I'll sign off with a related find on Pinterest to make moms feel better about the state of their home: