The end of June will mark nine years of being a mother. I'll be totally cliche and tell you that the years flew by so fast, that I blinked and suddenly I was here almost ten years later, I will go all out and tell you that time is fleeting. Sadly, when you have children, every last cliche rings true.

Motherhood did not come easily to me. Before my own children I had never changed a diaper, I had never prepared a bottle. I wasn't the teen in the neighborhood that everyone asked to babysit. Honestly I never really liked kids, hadn't even really thought about having any of my own. Still, maturity and matrimony brought on baby fever, and by my second wedding anniversary I was seven months pregnant. I read What To Expect religiously, I wrote list after list of products that I would need for baby, I listened to "wise mothers" in line at the grocery check out as they spouted off their sage advice. As my due date approached, I was ready, if only in my naive brain. The nursery was painted, the crib assembled, the bottles sterilized. I had this in the bag.
Then my daughter was born. All six pounds of her, and she scared me more than anything. She was the tiniest human I had ever seen, and she was mine. What was I going to do with her" I kept looking at her and then looking around for her actual mother to come and take her from my arms. Except I was her mother and I was totally out of my element. That first night in the hospital was rough, she cried all night, she n...