Orange County Register

Even though my pregnant daughter is a nurse and has washed, folded, sorted and sterilized all her baby gear and packed her hospital bag for a delivery in late December or early January, and she is very smart and reads incessantly, there are some things she doesn’t know yet.

About the love:

She doesn’t know to what depth she will fall in love with baby Bo. Despite stocking me up with a gaggle of grandma gear, I know and she doesn’t that I won’t be able to pry that baby out of her hands for months and months. That form of fiercely protective love doesn’t happen until you’re a mother.

About the discipline:

She doesn’t know and I do that despite her claims that Bo will be a well-behaved boy, that when he finally bonks her over the head with a toy dump truck, that she’ll think it’s the most adorable thing he ever did. Discipline is difficult and motherhood gives new meaning to the old parental adage “this will hurt me worse than it will hurt you.”

About the devotion:

She doesn’t know that despite preparing dad for some of the nighttime feedings, baby Bo won’t burp without her flying out of bed to check. A mother can hear her own baby miles away no matter how sleep deprived she is.

Motherhood is forever:

She doesn’t know yet that even when your baby is 33 years old, that the fiercely protective love doesn’t stop, you still think every thing they do is cute, and when they cry you continue to hear it from miles away.

More grandmotherly musings from Hot Flash - Cindy McNatt:

From an almost-grandma: Every parent’s nightmare