I realized they’re no longer tadpoles or beans. They’re sprouts, for sure. For the couples baby shower, we hung Lucas’s newborn clothes on a clothes line in the front of our house. I realized how little he used to be. And I have to say, quite honestly, I don’t miss it. I don’t miss, at all, that baby smell, the little-ness, the sweet chubby cheeks. I don’t miss, for a second, being a newborn mother.

I hear some mothers sweat it. That they forget the pain and want more. That they hold a newborn and bat their eyes at their men. I am not one of these women. I like singing Annie songs. I like playing beauty parlor and giving loud monkey kisses. I like swim lessons (even when I look like I have a skin disease thanks to my molting spray tan). I love our life now.