4 years

It's moments like these that I can see how much my life has changed.  In the past 4 years, I've graduated college, gotten married, had a child, and conceived another.  That's a considerable amount of things for a 24 year old.  Not that this hasn't been done before, but its still weird to think about. 

It seems all the more real right now because, today, Steve and I have been married for 3 years and 5 months and tomorrow is Arabella's first birthday.  Getting married changed everything.  I no longer lived under my parent's roof.  I actually felt kind of responsible for the other person in my house, just as he now felt responsible for me.  I had to consider getting a full time job to help bring in some money, if for no other reason than to save it.  Now, not all of these things actually happened (ie: the job), but these were the things I realized shortly after we got married and the reality of the situation hit me.  The great thing is that Steve and I make a very good pair.  Neither of us are very intense people and the pain in the ass idiosyncrasies we do have are evened out by the other person.  We just work.

Since before we got married, I had the baby bug.  I had no clue how much it would change things.  You can tell expectant mothers that things will be very different, but it means nothing until they actually experience it.  After a year, its very apparent to me how true that is.  No experience is the same with a child.  Its fun to compare notes with other mommies and find out what their kiddo does and likes, but your child is unique and you'll always find differences.  Because of that, your overall experience will be different from other mothers.  I think, though, that we can all agree that everything that changes is well worth it!

Right now, it may not seem like it for me, in a very small way.  Getting up at 4 am for a runny nose is not my idea of a good time, but if baby doesn't feel well, she's gonna get some comfort.  So I did my duty of clearing her nose some and giving her a little medicine.  Soon enough, the hope is that she'll realize she still needs another few hours of sleep and will go ahead and catch up on that, leaving me to do the same!

But again, its all worth it.