For the first time in my life, I can get my butt in the bed by 10:30. (I’m talking P.M not A.M.)

This former night owl has accepted that getting in bed with a good book and winding-down before 11P.M makes for a better  morning. Most nights. Sometimes, sadly, I still go off the reservation, breaking curfew like a randy teen. I hang with Charlie Rose for his brilliant, late-night-chitty-chat, whether the segment centers on U.S. Foreign Policy or a Pulitzer Prize winning writer plugging a new book. No matter. Just as long as the conversation doesn’t land on Baby DaVinci, or Little Miss Spider. Then I follow Charlie up with a fifteen-minute hit of Jimmy Fallon, all the while knowing I’ll pay a price. And Miss Julia Tayech Holmes will demand that she and, the piper, be paid. I swear that daughter of mine is part rooster.

 I can do a host of things one handled, including going to the loo.

Some days, no matter what I do, no matter what I give the baby to play with, no matter what I sit in front of her (not the TV, think more in the line of a Leap Frog Play Table) it doesn’t work. She wants to be held. And I find, it’s just less work on my nerves, and psyche, to  make a physical adjustment with baby in hand or on a hip, and keep it moving.

A soiled diaper becomes an ordinary event.

Long ago,I read  Mother Nature had worked in some crazy olfactory system over ride so that the poopy diapers of your child  don’t smell quite as smelly to you, its mother. Since I didn’t actually give birth to The Julia I can’t put my finger on why I’ve found the diaper changing matter, overtime, a less than dramatic event. Only that I’m grateful that the process, ( unless there’s a blow-out) more or less, a stress less.

I accept that half of the clothes in my closet are now obsolete.

While many a fashionista has called for the end of the head-to-toe-all-black-Italian-Nonna-look, Miss Julia has single-handedly put an end to my love affair with black slacks, black tees, hell any item of clothing colored noir. That girl’s wee button nose and tiny hands can locate  any black fabric on my body and lay down a suppressing smear of snot, a flood of milky formula, or a crumbly oasis of oatmeal, with an accuracy that would make NATO jealous.

I can limit my exposure to local newscasts and re-runs of Law and Order.

A strong, well-crafted drama, or a crazy, true-to-life story, before February 4th, 2011 were just entertainment. Or an extremely sad moment in human history. Now any tragedy that centers on a harming a child—real or imaged—sends me leaping across the sofa for the TV’s remote control. Just last week, a very real chronically depressed, 25-year-old mother of four  in an upstate New York town drove her mini van into The Hudson River, drowning herself and three of her four children. As I stood before my TV, finishing the last of my morning coffee, my stomach heaved, sending my breakfast moving in reverse.