I remember having a conversation with my husband before our first child arrived. It went something like this:

Do you think our lives will change when we have kids?

Well, we just won’t let our lives change when we have kids. Our kids will have to adapt to our lifestyle, schedule, habits, hobbies, interests and routines.

I think it’s a conversation that many of us have and would like to go back in time with a large cocktail in our hands and give our former-selves a great big smack.

I don’t remember playing Polly Pockets for hours and hours before having Hanna.

I don’t remember playing hide and seek with anyone and finding the “hider” under a small area rug.

I don’t remember ice-skating as an adult even once before having Ellie

I don’t remember waking up at 4am to start my day and if I did sleep in past 7am it wasn’t because I had pneumonia.

I don’t remember peeing with a baby sitting on my lap.

I don’t remember talking on the phone while sitting on the toilet.

I don’t remember changing very many diapers let alone washing one in the washing machine, mixed in with a load of laundry and taking a few minutes to realize that the white, jelly balls were in fact the gel-filled diaper insides, coating my entire washing machine and were nearly impossible to wipe out. I’m sure the ones I saw were just a fraction of those that made their way through the small water holes in the sides of the machine and eventually are the reason the motor died and the reason I had to pitch several clothing items and a set of white sheets because I could NEVER scale off the creamy coating from any of them.

I don’t remember walking around the grocery store with an empty water jug waiting to be returned, oblivious to the pair of Dora the Explorer underwear stuffed inside.

I do remember complaining about not having enough time to get done what I wanted to accomplish in a day. I now realize that was sheer laziness and that I could have achieved everything I wanted to and then some if Red Bull had been invented sooner.

I remember in University thinking, how dare they schedule any courses before 10:30a.m? Who could possibly be up by then?

I remember after having kids, hearing my girlfriend saying that she was going to opt to save the environment and choose cloth diapers over plastic and me wanting to choke her.

I don’t remember eating an entire meal off of miniature plastic plates or drinking a nice glass of red wine out of a  sippy cup without the lid because it was the only clean dish in the house.

I don’t remember burning almost every meal I tried to make because I got busy doing something else.

I don’t remember ever putting the t.v. convertor in the freezer.

I don’t remember loving my Mom as much as I do now and appreciating all of the time, energy and my God the patience she had for all four of us.