WHY is there a baby in our bed?

Yep, that's a baby all right! And you can stop counting on your fingers now ... I am 41. FORTY-ONE! And I just had a baby.

Geoff and I were vacationing in Bermuda last September and it dawned on me that I came prepared for my monthly nuisance and never used a single supply. Hmmmmm. So, I took a pregnancy test and lo and behold, six months later, we have a baby!

Allow me to introduce you to Josephine Grace, born in April and the absolute most chill baby I have ever known. I call her Josie and her daddy calls her JoJo. By now you would think that it has set in – the idea that we made a person and now we are responsible for that person. After all, we had more than six months to get used to the idea, if you don’t count the additional nearly three months since she has arrived! Nope. Every night we look at her and then at each other and we say'why is there a baby in our bed?' What happened!? How did this happen?!’ It truly doesn’t seem real even now.

Josie makes me think every day about the idea of reinvention. Reinventing one’s self. I never thought I would be a mom. I also never thought I would want to be a mom. I am too selfish. I like my alone time. I like the ability to get up and go whenever I want to. I love my freedom. I like being a career woman. I like pointing to that career and saying LOOK! I did that! But now, it is totally different. Now everything has to be carefully planned out and countless preparations made. I have to do inventory before I leave the house and, even then, I always forget a major necessity that Josie needs when on even a short outing. A bottle, a change of clothes, diapers. Two weeks after she was born I nearly left a party without …. JOSIE!

So ... now I am back to work and I am glad to be back to work, but I sure do miss my little snuggle bug. She is in the wonderful care of a nanny now. Nanny Nancy is taking great care of her and every day I go home just to hold her for a few minutes and show her that I am close by. Of course, she could care less. And so now the real reinvention begins. That of working mommy. I want to be an exceptional role model for Josie while also just being a good mom that is there for her in every way that she needs me.

So, tell me. Anyone out there mastered this concept? I would love to know!