To all my prego friends...Things I have learned thus far.......

Spring is always Baby and Wedding time (even if that order for some...). Usually the two go hand in hand.  ALthough I cannot give anyone advice on the Wedding world, I can offer my worldly Maternal advice I have gathered in my past 6 months as a mommy.  Chalk full of experience it is NOT, but fresh in my mind and blunt it IS!
As many of you know My experiences with my little bundle of bliss in the past six months have (at times) been anything but....Sir Isaac has been QUITE a handful since Day 1! First he did not eat well, then he refused to poop, all the while NEVER sleeping and crying as if it  were an Olympic sport. Well, we have conquered 2 of the 4, but  I have a feeling Little man will be spending many a night curled up in Mommy and Daddy's bed and not his own and if the the Olympics do ever have a crying event..well lets just say Phelps and Ohno will lose their records in a heartbeat!
I can go on and on with little useless tips of the trade, such as YES!! you can hold the baby too much (GUILTY!), no Bed-sharing(I wish someone would sleep in his crib!) and scheduled feedings and naps (for the baby not you!) But I will limit my world of advice for all my Mommy- to- be- friends to some main pointers...(for now)
#1. As the nurse hands you your little bundle of joy your head will be spinning. Yes YOU created this little blessing - the most beautiful baby in the world, but what the heck are you going to do with it now??

The first thing you will learn in a hurry is that EVERYONE has the best Mommy advice and EVERYONE knows exactly what you are feeling. Bull shit. Most people have decent advice, but no one knows just how you feel. Luckily parenting is not a religion. You CAN have a cafeteria plan and pick and chose what methods work for you. My basic rule is to follow the advice of the parent with the least screwed up kids...or your mom's  advice, even if her track record may be a little shaky. :)
#2. If someone offers their help TAKE IT!!! As new moms we are all on a mission to be SuperMom.  Why? In reality most of us have just undergone the most physical experience of our lives and seconds later we are expected to take on the most challenging experience of our lives. Our minds and bodies are certainly not ready for the task of recouping physically and being in charge of the survival of our newborn child! Listen ladies, I was the first to try to squeeze into my post- labor- Supermom- tights, but thankfully they didnt fit! Take the Help! Even if it is just for a 5 minute bathroom break when you can actually shut the door! Trust me, supermoms are tired moms are cranky moms...and in the battle of cranky mom versus cranky baby - Baby ALWAYS wins!
#3.  Relationships. Before 'I' was born JT and I read every article on 'post-baby-relationships' and laughed! There was no way our Little Miracle could do anything but enhance our giddy lovestruck romance. My   pregnancy was a dream, JT was the ever-loving Daddy-to-be, and our relationship was more stable than ever! Then our little Colic Monster was born and the tables turned! Now instead of  cuddling up to my sweetheart at night I was contemplating murder plots as I could hear him snoring away as the baby wailed away in his crib in the wee hours of the night. What happened to us?? We seemed to forget everything we had read and ironically become the "what not to do" profiles in the magazines. Allow me to clarify, I became the profiles! Jt became the "What just happened to my fun loving Girl??" guy!  Poor Guy!
If you think a baby won't alter your relationship your are completely wrong! From Sleeping, to eating, to trying to take a shower every once in a while - EVERYTHING changes! The main thing you have to keep in mind is you are both in this together - and staying together should be the long term goal for all of you. Alternately,  as was the case of the cranky Baby versus cranky mom, in the case of cranky Mom versus cranky Dad - no one wins. So plan ahead! Get yourself ready for the sleepless nights and come up with a sleep schedule where you both get some quality ZZZ time!

#4. Finally, Give yourself some slack. You have just put in 9 months of planning and preparation for your Bundle of Joy. The Nurse hands you the baby and POOF! Everything you have just spent the past 9 months learning goes out the window! Nothing can prepare you for the moment when you realize YOU ARE THE PARENTS of this helpless little human! It is inevitable(for most of us at least!). We read the books, we took the classes, we came up with our child-rearing plans, we were ready - or so we thought. I was going to be the best Mom EVER! Earth friendly diapers, chemical free products, organic everything, baby schedules, charts, you name it - we had planned for it! Then Baby I, the Colic Monster, came out  with different plans for us! My Earth-friendly-organic-scheduled-pie-charts became useless as our bassinet and I resorted to survival mode to keep up with him! The greatest thing I have learned so far is to be able to adjust myself and expectations to reality and to be okay with that. Do not think of it as 'losing the game.' Think of it as choosing a better game to play. Not everything will go according to plan (or in our case not ANYTHING!), but learning to sanely deal with that has saved Jt and I from killing each other many a time! And in the end NOT killing each other is KEY for a happy family!!

So there it is my friends - some (hopefully) helpful hints on the crazy world of motherhood from a very UNSEASONED veteran of the game! I can go on and on...but not right now... as you can guess, someone is crying for me!