I am extremely honored that one of my favorite bloggers, Kelsey of Words of Williams is guest posting today here on FabAve!  Now this is a girl that has impeccable style, an adorable toddler named Rooney with the chubbiest little legs ever, and is someone I would LOVE to meet one day IRL. Fingers crossed!

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I recognized her right away. There she was on the sidewalk, ever so slowly putting one foot in front of the other. Her husband was one step behind her, carrying her water mug. That water mug is sort of a badge of honor in our city. They are given to all the patients in the maternity ward after labor and delivery. But the water mug wasn’t my first clue that these were new parents. She was clearly in pain. He looked like he was in shock. In to Walgreens they went, probably looking for stool softeners and Tucks pads and some sort of normalcy.

The whole scene hit me pretty hard because that was me 16 months ago.

Joanne, motherhood messed me up pretty bad. In a way I hope you avoid that but in another way I hope it messes with you, too. Not because I wish havoc on you but because that havoc created for me new goggles through which I now see the world. As you get to know your new little girl, I want to tell you a few things I’ve learned lately…

• If you can, find beauty in every day. Smile if you can, but if not, it’s perfectly OK to cry. A lot. If you have the energy, be present in the moment. Look down at your little baby and be amazed that you made that. Study her ears, her eyelashes, her cheeks, her birthmark, her fingernails, her belly button and her little feet. (Oh, those perfect little baby feet. Those got me through a lot of hard days.) And if you don’t have the energy, don’t sweat it. Babies are forgiving. Sometimes The Price Is Right is more interesting than your newborn. One day you will wake up and your baby is now 2 months old and you wish you could get some of those hours back. But you did what you had to in those moments to get through the day. Because sometimes you have to get away from it all to really appreciate it.
• These may be the best years of your life, but it probably won’t feel like it at first. You may wonder why you ever wanted kids in the first place. You might think to yourself that if you would have known what it would really be like that you maybe wouldn’t have done it. I remember trying to fall asleep the night she was born and thinking, Eric and I had such a good thing going, why did we ruin it?! But now, we love our little family so much.
• Things will never be “normal" again. For a while after Rooney was born I was waiting for life to get back to “normal.” And then one day it hit me – that is not the point, Kelsey. I can never go back to my pre-baby normal. I don’t really want to, either. We were happy with our lives before, but we wanted to add to our family. Our life will never be the same, ever.

Congrats again, Joanne! We are so excited to “meet" your sweet baby!

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Pretty riveting stuff, right?!!? Thank you Kelsey for guest blogging today and for sharing with us not just the good but the hard parts of becoming a first time mom.

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