My baby is almost 9 months old. How did THAT happen? I remember this time last year thinking I would NEVER have this baby. Here we are.

When your job requires you to drive down to South Georgia a lot, you have a lot of time to grovel and a lot of time to think (during Boortz and Rush commercials, of course, and where your radio can't pick up a decent AM or FM station).

So I was thinking on Wednesday how bad it sucks that I'm a mom, and moms are supposed to be there to change their babies' poopy diapers. It just comes with the territory. So there's something wrong with the fact that it had been about two weeks since I'd changed one. It made me sad.

Of course, the next day, I'm walking by his room before I head out to work, and five feet outside his door I smell this rancid stench. It was one of those where I didn't even need to look before I just rolled up my sleeves and went on in there. It was a bad one, too...PJ's had to be changed.

Same thing the next morning...and this morning, but Andy intercepted that one.

I'm thinking, "that was NOT my point. I want to be around more - I don't want my baby to poop more..." I guess we should watch what we wish for!

It appears that Liam has a little girlfriend at daycare. He just moved up into the next classroom because he was crawling all over the infants. He's reunited with Mia, who gives him toys and handed me his shoes yesterday when I was getting him ready to leave. Cute. It doesn't look to be reciprocated, though.

I used to lurk in these ivillage message boards...they have one for every birth month - Liam's is the February '08 Leap Frogs (this year was Leap Year). So you can chat with other moms who are going through the same kinds of things, compare and contrast, see whose baby is superior to yours in every way...I realized recently how just completely far away from all of the posters I am in my mentality about a month ago when I was reading this post on whether or not you should be financially stable before having a baby.

I mean, you would think the answer would be clear, right? Well, apparently I was in the minority of people (I didn't post, just continued to lurk) who believe that it's your right to have a baby whenever you want, and just because you can't provide for it doesn't mean that you shouldn't be able to have one. SOMEONE ACTUALLY SAID THAT, and most of the other responses were not terribly far off. I'm just thinking, how fair is that to this baby you are going to bring into the world? I mean, financial stability is not out of reach, and we can all get there sooner or later; it just might mean waiting a little while longer.

I know instability can happen to the most stable of families in bad times...but we all take that risk. I just don't understand the mentality that it's ok to chase after the dream before you have achieved a place where you can provide your baby with its basic needs (and hopefully well beyond that).

Babies are expensive. More expensive than you think prior to having one. You either have to give up an income or spend about $200 a week on day care. Diapers cost an arm and a leg, especially diapers that actually work. You have to buy a completely new wardrobe every 3 months for the first year, and you just pray that no 3-month window spans two seasons. Formula, baby food, incidentals, insurance co-pays, antibiotics...pray your child doesn't get eczema because steroid cream is $70. You go into it thinking, ahh, we won't need TOO much...! HA!

That's my rant. I don't mean to sound like I'm above the fray or anything, but something tells me that most of my readers would probably agree with me for the most part anyway.

Well, I am off...Hopefully I'll be back in less than two months this time :)