You know you’re a mama when…

• you wait until nap time to eat the cookie someone gave you so you don’t have to share it
• you pick a half a gnawed raw carrot up off the floor and put it in the fridge for later
• you delight in your cats because you can love them and then throw them on the floor when you’re done with them
• you keep a mental tally of how many times your jeans have been spilled, smeared, leaked, peed, and pooed on. And you don’t even think about washing them until that tally reaches at least 17. (Poo counts as 5 points)
• you spend your baby-free evenings watching videos to learn new ways to fold cloth diapers
• you understand what it means to be physically but not sexually attracted to someone
• you look down and realize you’ve been wearing oatmeal as some kind of nouveau pendant. Suddenly stranger’s small smiles and headshakes make sense
• you can locate your child anywhere in the house based solely on the unique sound patterns resonating from the particular things being banged together
• you spend your falling asleep moments trying to describe the smell of your sleeping baby’s head
• you wonder how you met new people before you had a baby as an ice breaker
• you carry around the sinking knowledge that sometime, somewhere, a guest is going to find that apple core your toddler dropped in a secret hiding place
• you’ve slept with a teddy bear for the first time since your own childhood in a desperate attempt to make it smell like you so you can trick your baby into sleeping longer
• it’s totally normal for your toddler to finish his lunch after his nap…. off the floor where he threw it
• you’ll drink a glass a water that’s 15% baby backwash without a second thought
• you forget to drop the royal “we” when your child’s not with you
• you have nursed/snuggled/read to/ played with your child… while pooping
• you plan date nights with the same attention to detail and wishful thinking that you used to plan your wedding when you were thirteen
• you rarely snap all the snaps
• you know what a full body hug feels like

Tags: family, motherhood, parenting, Thinkerings