Here we are. One year later. I’m no longer a new mom with a new baby. (I need to change my description over there on the side.) Now I’m just a mom with a 1 year old.

We survived her first birthday. It was a great celebration and I’m proud to say that I didn’t need that tranquilizer gun after all. I made it through the party without shedding a single tear. Maybe it’s because our whole family was cooped up inside our house due to inclement weather and it was too packed and loud to even think straight or become emotional.

It was a great party nonetheless. She smeared a beard of hot pink frosting all over her face and even managed to use some as eyeshadow before I called it quits and hosed her off. Of course she was beyond exhausted from not having a normal nap that morning. Naturally. She must have known she’d be called on to perform and didn’t want me to forget who exactly was in charge.

So now I’m left wondering where to go from here. It’s not like I have it all figured out — far from that — but I’m entering a new parenting phase and I hadn’t given it much thought yet. I guess that’s my problem though. If I think about all of this, I psych myself out and question everything I do or get overwhelmed thinking about her getting her license and talking to boys. I need to just go with the flow and look back in seventeen years and wonder how I survived it all.

It feels like I’m graduating out of the title of new mummy and settling in to being just Mom or Mum. (Even though I refer to myself as neither to her.) I wonder if I’ll feel like this with each passing year, getting a little more used to being a parent with each birthday. Or maybe I’ll always be surprised that I’m the boss calling the shots…at least until we reach those Terrible Twos. Aaagh.