I knew that pregnancy would change me forever.  Aside from the obvious big change (meaning children who now live in your house and need you... sometimes NEED you), there are lots of other changes.  Some of them I totally expected.  This knowledge was primarily built up from reading dozens of pregnancy and baby books.  I read as if I were preparing for the biggest final exam of my life (which I guess it is, but it's the exam that never ends and maybe the only person to assign you a letter grade will be your adult child's therapist or possibly their spouse).

From all these books I knew to expect that my tastes in food would change.  While I was pregnant with Martin I started to hate onions.  I didn't want to smell them, taste them, or really even have them in the house.  We became on onion-free zone that lasted even after Martin was born.  But at some point in my pregnancy with Sophie, I started to kind of like onions again.  I still don't like them as much as I used to, but I can actually eat a bowl of French Onion soup again and think something other than "armpit".

I prepared myself for the lack of sleep.  All the books talked about it.  People would joke "rest up now, you'll really need it" and "sleep now, you won't get a chance for awhile".  I accepted this.  However, I didn't realize that they meant that I wouldn't get normal sleep again for such a long time.  Even though everyone is sleeping through the night now, I need to stay up late to power through laundry and spend some time doing things without anyone underfoot.  And no matter what time I put the kids to bed, they are dang early risers.  So even though I'm finally able to get continuous sleep (which is a BIG deal, believe me), I'm no longer the eight-hour-a-night kind of girl I used to be.  Looking back to my childhood I remember thinking "why does my mom stay up so late, and how can she be ready so early?".  Now I know.  She had no choice.  So if her methods are any kind of indicator, it looks to me like I won't be getting normal sleep again until the kids move out and I decide to retire from my job early.

I learned that my body would change and that it might never get back to it's pre-pregnancy shape again.  I have accepted that despite being back to my pre-pregnancy weight my pre-pregnancy jeans no longer fit on my post-pregnancy body.  I am fine with the fact that breastfeeding has changed me so that "support" is something that is essential instead of optional.

But the one thing I didn't read about anywhere is that I can no longer wear many of the clothes or shoes from my pre-momma life.  This really has nothing to do with my shape and modified frame, but more with my post-pregnancy inability to deal with anything even remotely constricting.  This I blame entirely on maternity clothes.  The roomy tops, the pants with loose elastic and belly panel, the giant big-butt underwear.  It all felt so good, so freeing.  Of course, I gave it all up.  I mean, maternity clothes would look ridiculous on someone who is a year and a half away from the last time she needed it.  So now I just wear regular clothes just like any normal person.  Except that when I wear a turtleneck sweater I want to rip the strangle-hold collar off my neck by the time I'm ten minutes away from home.  I wear heels and start to daydream about going home and putting on my slippers.  In fact, there are only four pairs of shoes I actually like to wear - flip flops (in season) and these:

See a pattern?  See what it says about me?  Woman who can't be bothered with laces or heels or fashion.  Woman who can only operate in comfort.  Woman who can only wear pants and neutral colored clothing and socks because whatever she wears it must go with one of these three pairs of shoes.  I may not be the most fashionable woman on the block, but I can tell you that my feet feel really good.