I recant. Yes, it happens.

"So what do you do?"

"Oh, I, uh, parent. Yeah. I'm a mom."

Once she was born, everything else went out the window. I embarked on the greatest adventure of my life. After a half lifetime of touring the world and putting myself (and whoever was with me at the moment - hello and subsequent sorry, Viking husband) in situations that no Finn, especially one who doesn't know that opinions do not always have to be voiced out loud, or even hinted at with disapproving or otherwise eyebrows, should be putting themselves in, I became a mom.

To Babe. Who's like the bees knees, pixie dust, the bestest ever antidote to any mellow-harsh, and all of that cool stuff that I thought didn't even exist. She's the shizz and the sha-zam, and pretty much all the awesome magnificent I can think of. So ya, she's it.

Totally.

Before I had her I was one of those people who praised new moms for not letting the fact that they'd procreated change "who they were".

And I realize that is a capital offense.

Right. I apologize. I'm sorry. That's such a fucking nasty thing to assume or say. To think that what you are without children is the person you are, and should be, even after a life-altering event? I should have known better. I mean, I went about preaching how wonderful change is which just made a me a giant hypocrite. Apologies again, folks. Don't hate me. I understand now.

Of course the love of your life's going to rock you to your foundation. Change you for the better. Make you see the world in a new light, more than once each day, as a place that your sweet one will also exist and develop in. (Plug: Should you feel compelled to, now that I've apologized and everything, change the world for the better for my kid and for all people with Down syndrome, sign this petition, please.)

I now have a permanent ponytail for easiness, a back yard with actual grass and a sand box, and a red minivan with a top of the line car seat in the back seat. Rear-facing. Still. For ultimate safety.

And it's all still adventurous, and new, and something extraordinary. Every second of it.

So what I'm trying to say on this Mother's Day is that I apologize for being a childless jerk before. For not understanding that this change too that enables one to talk about poop (especially the rogue kind that makes its way into a shoe in the closet somehow), bedtime routines, and Caillou, and find those discussions fun and enjoyable (unless they're about Caillou and then the general sentiment seems to be that enuf is enuf already), is good change too.

It's not regression, or an insult to feminism. It's another adventure in a string of adventures that at least my life is made up of. Motherhood's the works, man.

Happy Mother's Day to all and all a good convo on poop.