The magnet that is a baby

When I first had you, I walked through a door to a new Universe in which I was now a mother of a beautiful baby. Strangers in the grocery store, in the pharmacy, in the parking lot, crossing the street, anywhere, would beam at me and ask about you.

Once or twice people even called out 'congratulations' from their cars as they drove by and saw me carrying you in the bucket seat or the boba wrap carrier. One time I was short on change at a parking meter and I asked a lady passing by to exchange five dollars for some coins and she did so eagerly and then just seemed to want to linger to look at you. You know the saying (Ralph Waldo Emerson) that 'all the world loves a lover', well that may be true, but in my experience I would say that the whole world loves a new baby and their mother even more. People who would never otherwise have reason to talk to you now leap at the chance to 'ooh and ahh' over the beautiful baby and to tell you about theirs or their child when it was a baby and how much they miss that time. The world is an entirely different place when you are a parent of a baby. When people ask me if it is hard being a single parent, I say without reservation that it is absolutely not hard for me. It was hard being single and childless and by comparison this is not hard at all. It is hard being sleep deprived. The odd time it might get a bit boring, but it is still so much better than the alternative. No contest. You are the best thing that I have ever done and that has ever happened to me.