Things I Never Expected Before I Was a Parent

Among the many things one does expect to encounter when becoming a parent there are sprinkled a great many other things that are completely unexpected. Every mother or father has moments of exasperation or shock that "this is really happening to me" or "I really did just do that!" Here are some of the things the pre-pregnancy me would not have guessed I'd find myself doing a short while later:

1. Enjoy changing a diaper
2. Become violently ill from changing a diaper
3. Stay at home beyond 6 months postpartum without working
4. Sit on the toilet with diarrhea while nursing a baby
5. Completely change lifelong sleep habits
6. Not be able to sleep at times just because I was expecting my child to wake during the night
7. Enjoy snuggle time with a sick baby
8. Buy my kid a loud and annoying toy
9. Eat food that had been half-chewed by someone else first and then spit into my hand or on the floor
10. Nurse a baby for 13 months without pumping bottles
11. Go for more than a year before hiring a babysitter--and even then only for a doctor's appointment
12. Co-sleep with a child
13. Give birth to a nearly 10lb baby with no drugs
14. Allow an almost-12-month-old baby to transition from crib to queen sized bed
15. Surrender the living room furniture (futon) to the baby's room
16. Put the baby in the master suite and take the "other" bedroom for my spouse and me
17. Go an entire year only trimming the baby's fingernails 3 times total
18. Have complete sympathy with parents who rage out on their kids--just takes sufficient additional stress in one's life to push someone in an already trying situation over the edge
19. Write a mom blog
20. Allow my child to regularly eat food from the floor
21. Allow my child to use a pacifier that had been on the floor without first cleaning it in some manner (other than to dust off the big chunks)
22. Spend an entire 3 hour napping period for the baby just looking at pictures of him in his photo albums
23. Teach my child basic sign language
24. Let my kid scream at restaurants without acknowledging it
25. Begin potty training my baby before he could speak two-word sentences

There are so many other things to add to this list, to be sure, but in all honesty this is really just a filler post to help me while I build back up a buffer of posts. Comments made on this post expressing opinion (positive, negative, or neutral) or similar thoughts about unexpected parenting behaviors would be much appreciated.