Welcome to the wild, wondrous,wearying, delightful whimsical, terrifying, miraculous, frustrating, infuriating, blessed time of your life called parenting. Every day something will surprise you. You will be faced with challenges unimaginable, asked questions that you cannot answer and filled with joy and love. Each day you will think your heart has filled to bursting, and every day you will love him just a little bit more. There will be times that break your heart because you cannot take his hurts from him. There will be lessons he must learn for himself and that will kill you inside. He will now be the very first thing you think of upon opening your eyes and the last you think of as you go to sleep. His happiness, his struggles, his needs, his battles will be your first priority. Even before your own,his needs will now be paramount over anything else in your life. There will be days that will seem unending as well as days that go by way too fast. Sometimes it will feel as though you can do nothing right and other days you will feel like a superhero from just one smile. You may think you are prepared and with all your experience with your younger siblings you are a step ahead. You have joined a club that can be incredibly easy to enter (as evidenced by MTV’s teen mom) but incredibly difficult to excel at. There will be days where you feel as if you are failing as a parent and days when you feel great joy as your child achieves even the smallest thing. This wisdom has been hard won and yet it is freely given.