As Seen On The Bathroom Wall

When they give you a baby in the hospital after gestating for nine months and however many weeks, days, minutes, hours and seconds, they never tell you that any semblance of privacy and personal space you may have possessed are now nonexistent. They send you home with diapers, formula, and enough vaseline to keep a porn company in production for weeks, but never any advice on how to deal with never being able to pee alone, bathe alone, eat alone, or BE alone.

When you sign onto this whole baby business, forget what a hot meal tastes like. Forget what it feels like to have clean hair. Oh sure, you can wash it. Wash it twice a day, even. But forget it being clean. In less time than it takes oxygen to enter your blood cells, your child is going to have schmutz in your hair that'll make you wonder what exactly it is that you've been feeding it.

Bathroom moments will turn into sprint training. Want to go alone? Well...How fast can you pee? Wipe? Forget flushing - that'll alert the kid to your absence and then you'll have to deal with the guilt you'll feel when they flash that "you left me...ALONE" look at you through red-rimmed, tear laden eyes. Forget even going number two; you don't have time for that. No. Seriously. You don't.

But in the end it's all worth it when they look up at you with such sweet smiles and say their first word, that precious word that you never knew you waited a lifetime to hear, but when you do, you feel your heart stop.

"Dada".