you know you have a baby when . . .

You show up to work with dried formula in your hair.

Your can’t see your carpet because there are toys EVERYWHERE. And you would put them away but you NEED them.

Most of the furniture in your house is made by Fisher Price.

Every single one of your couch cushions has a stain on it.

Every word spoken after 8 p.m. must be whispered.

When you get an hour alone, you spend the first ten minutes thinking about how you can clean the house, get a hair cut, go grocery shopping, visit the shoe department at Nordstrom, watch a recorded show, take a nap, read a book … all in one hour.

Sometimes you forget and talk baby talk to adults.

You can be somewhere and have your heart be entirely somewhere else.

Your entire day is planned around nap time.

You think 5:30 a.m. is sleeping in and 10 p.m. is staying up late.

You don’t know how to walk in high heels anymore.

The people in your life take on new roles as grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. and you see them be amazing in different ways.

You dream about the days when your stomach was flat.

Hand sanitizer is your best friend.

The world becomes a little scarier because you have a lot more to lose.

You are very thankful for elastic.

You suddenly notice every baby around you and just how many there are in the world.

You will try anything to remove the dark circles from under your eyes.

You realize that a little person needs you for everything and it makes you want to be 100 times better than you are.

There is no such thing as a day off.

Your baby has more (and frankly cuter and more stylish) clothes than you.

You often wish for time to stop, for moments to just freeze so you can breathe it all in and tell the Lord thank you.

You don’t want to think of a world without Baby Einstein in it. It would not be good.

You now get why, when it comes to toys, the louder and more obnoxious, the better.

You cry a lot more.

You see life through a set of little eyes and it is funnier, brighter, more innocent and lovelier than you ever knew.