I can love to lengths I never knew possible.
That a smiling baby is the best thing in the world.
Well, next to a baby asleep on your chest.
That I have a fountain of patience I never knew was there.
That a full tummy doth indeed maketh a stiff upper lip.
That a dirty flat is not important when there is a baby to play with.
That babies can be slippery.
That a warm bath, something to eat and soft blankey are all that are really are necessary for happiness.

What I’ve learned? Here’s a small sampling:
1) Babies have their own personality in the womb. They come out as little individual creatures and watching it develop is the work of a lifetime.
2) There is no book, no article, no t.v. show that can teach you what having an infant is like. There is no chart that can tell you “normal”. You are making it up as you go along.
3) The entire purpose of this endeavor is simple: You are raising a new little citizen to send out into the world to do Good Things. Don’t try to make them into what you want them to be, but let what they are to be unfold.

That’s what I’ve learned from a baby!

JMJ+
~Betsy

Totus tuus Maria!

I can relate to his surgeries, speech therapy, and stuff because I was born with cerebral palsy. If there is one thing I have learned about both of us, it’s that we are very strong and brave. I don’t cry when I fall (unless my knee hurts). I’ve always said that that is because of all the pain I went through when I was a baby. Even today, I am known as the “miracle baby.”

I love my little nephew, and admire his bravery. That is one thing that babies (or toddlers) can teach us. Yeah, sure, adults are brave that survive cancer or some other ordeal. But babies go through ordeals, too, and they don’t understand what’s happening. Yet they grow up to be strong adults.

On a lighter note, babies have taught me that, as previously mentioned, boys must be diaper-changed very quickly and efficiently, using cloth diapers will have you categorised as insane/a masochist/a granola-cruncher, weaning a baby on “solid” foods disproves many of the laws of physics (we’re talking both ends of the baby), and that pushing a blonde, blue-eyed, very cute boy baby dressed head-to-toe in blue in a pram through town will have people cooing over your “lovely girl”. I must admit to never having heard the line “But he’s too pretty to be a boy!” before.

One thing I learned was self-preservation and speed. When changing a young man’s diaper, you must have the new diaper ready and perform the swap as quickly as possible lest the changee has a call to nature and that call ends up on you.