One year ago today I couldn't feel my right leg...

No, I didn't have a stroke or fall into a drunken stupor into a gutter somewhere with a pinched sciatic nerve. It was an unfortunate side effect from my epidural from my darling Kid. She popped into the world (literally) with a soft little cry and a lot of "baby cheese" on her. If you don't know what baby cheese is (or vernix, as they technically call it), trust me when I say it will ruin your appetite, so don't ask. We were supposed to be induced that night because I was a week overdue, but the Kid decided to preempt my OB and make her own arrival in true (but typical) dramatic fashion.

I always describe our arrival home with the Kid as my "Flight to Egypt", a la Mary and Joseph with the baby Jesus. For someone who has practically lived in hospitals for 8 years, I hated being a patient and hated the constant noise, lack of sleep and privacy. We had a hurried discharge from the hospital. Between packing up the presents that had been sent (never do this), having last minute visitors drop by, having an incompetent lactation consultant trying to do a harried visit and having the Kid in 0-3 month size clothes that were swimming on her on an unexpectedly cold March morning, I was a frantic mess. I could barely figure out how to operate the seatbelt on the carseat. As soon as we got back home where it was eerily quiet and just the three of us, I burst into tears (scaring my husband to death) from the overwhelming emotions.

It has been a roller coaster in the past year but the Kid is an absolute joy. But I now understand why perfect strangers stopped me on the street when pregnant and told me to "enjoy the sleep while you can". You think you know, but you have no idea. They were so right. Luckily, I have been sleep deprived for almost 3 years prior, so it wasn't as much of a shock to my system. What a blessing it has been to watch her grow into an almost toddler who I am sure will skip the whole walking thing when she gets around to it and will go straight to running. It's weird to know that she used to have such a quiet cry and now she can throw a full-fledged, diva extraordinare, I WANT THAT NOW tantrum. How did this tiny thing that used to poop every 30 minutes go to making a grown up "poop face" (you know what I am talking about) and saying the word "diaper"? Nothing makes you feel the passage of time as watching your kid grow up. Now before I continue to wax poetic, I will tell you the top 10 coolest things about my kid:

10. How she "reads" to herself when she thinks we aren't watching
9. She did her first real yoga pose today (downward facing dog)
8. The cute little gap between her front teeth (my sister and I both had one when we were little)
7. Damn, she loves graham crackers (I think there just might be a controlled substance in them, I'm just saying...)
6. Her smile first thing in the morning
5. She said "Mama" as her first word (still waiting on "Dada")
4. Her unholy obsession with the remote control
3. Hallelujah, she sleeps through the night!
2. Her tendency to squeeze herself into the smallest spaces possible
1. She has figured out how to dial our cell phones (no that's not me drunk dialing you, it's the Kid and we are probably trying to distract her in church)