Imagining Being a Parent

As I give advice to my newly pregnant friend and I watch her roll her eyes at me and blatantly ignore my well versed words I remember being pregnant and listening to other experienced mothers tell me why and how my perfectly imagined parenting plan would not work and I distinctly remember thinking that just because it didn't work for them doesn't mean that it won't work for me and I also distinctly remember those experienced moms smiling at me as if saying "just wait - you will see".  It is amazing that when you are pregnant with your first baby you have what seems like a realistic expectation of how your life with a baby will go . . . just so . . . and it is equally amazing how when your baby is born all of your previous expectations fly right out the window and you enter survivor mode.  But soon after survivor mode you actually begin living . . . just a lot more realistically then you ever could have imagined!  The best part though, is that although I didn't end up doing cloth diapers and I am using plastic bags to store my milk instead of glass bottles - Mike and I are so much better at a lot of things then I ever could have imagined.  So now I know . . . I should have listened to all those experienced mothers - they were right.  Now I get to be one of the ones who is right and smile at the newly pregnant women as they build there totally unrealistic expectations - but they too will join the rest of us - first in survival mode and then they will begin to live - realistically.