Things you never thought you'd do

I find myself talking more about bodily functions now that I have a baby than I ever did before.

No surprise, given that whether, when, and what quality of evacuations my baby makes are the best indicator of her health. So from birth on, all doctors, nurses, and grandmothers who talk to you about how your baby is doing are interested in her diapers.

The other day some friends (who do not have a baby themselves) were over. I saw Eme make the face (you know, the red, teeth-clenched, "I just made a surprise for you" face). Without considering my audience, I lifted her so that her bottom was at my nose height and had a good sniff.

To the credit of my friends (they could have gasped in horror), their response was, "you know you're a parent when you don't think twice about smelling your baby to see if there's something in her diaper."

That is merely the first in a long line of things I never pictured myself doing. (I have another whole blog post planned on things I never thought I'd say.) Here are a few more -- many of you will have seen me do these things, but I hope the list will entertain you anyway.

Things I didn't know I'd start to do once I became a mommy:

• Smell my baby's bottom, even in public, and enjoy it (not the stinkiness so much as the smell of a baby)
• Run to the window at the sound of a truck or bus (holding Eme, of course; I wouldn't want her to miss seeing a good truck)
• Put food in my mouth before putting it in my baby's (to bite it in half, suck off too much sauce, or just make sure it's not too hot for her tongue)
• Eat leftover food that she has mashed and mangled because I feel bad wasting food (my guilty secret is that sometimes I throw it away anyway when she's really squished everything together and I just can't imagine putting it in my mouth)
• Clean off my baby's hands by sucking on them (that scene in Baby Mama where Maura Tierney's character asks her son whether the brown spot on his arm is poop or chocolate, and then licks it off of his arm and says "it's chocolate" -- that's what I mean. Tina Fey responds with "What if it had been poop?!" -- so true, but the point was that it doesn't matter, as a mommy I'd probably check anyway.)
• Dance around my living room with abandon every morning (Eme does it, and her enthusiasm is contagious)
• Spend hours thinking about the perfect outfit....for Eme. Even though she's too young to remember what she wore for her first dinner with her friend, who is also too young to pay attention to what she's wearing.
• Go out of my house with a tiny handprint made from blueberry yogurt on my shirt and cottage cheese in my hair.
• Run up and down the street to make Eme laugh (she thinks running is funny)
• Pretend to sneeze 10 times in a row to make Eme laugh (sneezes are also funny to her)
• Jump around and make chimp noises to make Eme laugh (thanks, Dr. Hamrick!)
  
• This last one is something I saw Andreas do (Happy Birthday, Andreas) that I can't imagine he ever thought of doing: trying to get her to lay still for a diaper change, he took her clean diaper and put it on his head to get her to laugh. (She laughs at the craziest stuff....)

When I find myself doing these things, I think that being a parent is part surreal, part too real, part frustrating, and part fantastic.

What have you done that you never thought you'd do as a parent? Or what can you remember your parents doing? Please share...

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