by Kate Rosenberger

Created on: June 26, 2008

When you were expecting you stocked up on baby literature. You read every book, magazine, and newsletter that you could find. After all, raising kids is serious business and every kernel of knowledge, no matter how trivial, is essential. Inevitably you found that no amount of studying could truly have prepared you for parenthood. The harsh reality is that life is never the same once that little bundle of joy enters the picture.

Daily espressos and business lunches are replaced by diapers and formula. Spontaneous trips to the shore are replaced by spontaneous trips to the emergency room. Funding for your 401K is rerouted to your child's 529. Is all this making you want to contemplate permanent sterilization? Don't. It's not all that harsh and it's not all that serious. So put junior in the swing, roll up your spit-up stained sleeves and take a look at the lighter side on parenthood.

Proof you are a parent:

The last book you read was "The Cat in the Hat".

Your internet time is taken up trying to find answers to such questions as "Does the sun move?" and "What do ants eat?"

You no longer have a first name. You are now Mom, Dad, Mr./Mrs. ____ or (my favorite) so and so's mom/dad.

You can't plug something in, go upstairs, or open a cabinet without disarming some intricate child safety device.

You had to buy a new memory card for your digital camera because fifty pictures at a time just weren't enough.

You begin to remind yourself of your parents.

You bring a backpack full of stuff for a quick trip to the store.

You visit someone for a few hours and it looks like you're moving in.

The inside of your car has more mirrors than a funhouse.

You balk at paying twenty dollars for a shirt but drop two hundred dollars at Baby Gap without batting an eye.

Your MySpace picture is not of yourself.

Your MySpace has so many pictures of your child that it takes a full minute to load. No one ever sees it again.

You turn up the TV to deafening levels when you hear an ice cream truck approaching your house.

You used to think it was disgusting when a parent licked their hand to fix their child's hair. Now you secretly do it yourself.

You spend more time researching colleges now than you did when you were applying.

You can say "Oh darn!" or "Shoot!" with a straight face.

You have embarrassed yourself using phrases like "go potty" and "shoot a bunny" in adult conversations.

No matter where you are you look whenever you hear a child call for mommy or daddy.

Going out to eat means a trip to the food court. McDonald's is a treat. Friendly's is for special occasions.

You know none of the songs on the radio but it seems as if you know the words to every nursery rhyme in existence.

You consider Shrek and Flushed Away to be grownup movies.

You haven't talked to your friends in months but you're on a first name basis with the people at the pediatrician's office, pharmacy, and Babies R Us.

Instead of taking other batteries FOR your TV remote, you now steal batteries FROM it because heaven forbid the exersaucer stops playing music.

You know what an exersaucer is.

You try escaping to the bathroom to steal a few minutes alone, but are unsuccessful.

You know the location of all of the "good" bathrooms in a ten mile radius of your house.

You spell words out when telling someone a secret. "Did you hear that John is going to be f-i-r-e-d?"

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