Monday evening around 9 I head upstairs to put some laundry away. Halfway up, The Scent permeates the air.

My darling, adorable, delicious daughter has pooped. Then gone to sleep.

It is still light enough in her room to see we’ve had an Escape Poop. There are telltale, um, signs on her legs, seeping through her favourite Barney pajamas. I lean over to the baby monitor and call Eric.

“Code Blue. I need backup.”

And so begins the efficient, practiced clean-up of parents: Wake Lucy up, strip her down. Eric gives her a stand-up shower while I clean off the change pad and slap fresh sheets and covers on the bed. A quick towel dry, into new pajamas, resettled with Pink Bear and a soft pink blanket from the closet, lots of kisses, and we’re out in under 10 minutes.

Back downstairs.

Carly: We work so well together, you know. We make a great team.

Eric: Yeah. Team Poop.

Watching Elmo movies at Chez McDougall-Foster doesn’t just involve watching the 45 minutes or so of furry red manic monster (insert object Elmo is thinking about today!) love, but also previews of other Sesame Street films.

For who knows what reason (seeing as her mother rather, ahem, dislikes country music), Lucy picked up on this cowboy song from the preview of Elmo’s World Wild Wild West! Travis Tritt sings about Pecos Bill:

This has become The Song That We Brush Our Teeth To. Except we never sing about Pecos Bill. We sing about Pecos Everybody Else in the Family, Including Friends and Daycare Buddies: Pecos Mummy, Daddy, Spencer, Papa, Aunte Jenni, Uncle Marky, Auntie Michele, Gramie, Eirinn, Pearl, Julia, Mac, Tyler and Joshie. Recently, she’s moved on to inanimate objects, including toothbrush, toothpaste and pink cup.Oddly, my parents — Nana and Grandpa — are never part of Pecos Everybody. I think it’s because they have the Kids’ Favourite Country Songs DVD at their house — Lucy calls it “Chicken Elmo” — and Lucy knows they are already rootin’ tootin’ enough.

(One time, that movie made it to our house, and we watched it, and I almost died. Elmo + country twang = head explosion. As much as we sacrifice and do stuff for our children, the line has to be drawn somewhere. That movie is banned from here, and remains a special Nana/Grandpa House treat.)

What needs to be immortalized is the image of either Eric or I sitting cross-legged on the carpet in front of the bathroom door (blocking any escape route, you see…), singing “Pecos ________” in deep country voices, while Lucy perches on her white and blue Ikea step stool, toothbrush protruding from her lips, shaking her chubby butt to the beat.

Another completely unfathomable aspect of parenthood. Priceless.

I know you hate it when I post pics such as this, where you are in your ratty ol’ UofT engineering shirt and pajama pants, unshaven and wearing the glasses we picked out, oh, nine years ago, but these moments on the weekend, when you scrunch together on the couch watching some cartoon/puppet show with Lucy snuggled in beside you — Spencer vying for just a piece of lap, pleeeeease? — while simultaneously trying to sip coffee and read one of those ridiculously boring (to the rest of the world me) non-fiction airplane books, make my heart burst and ovaries ache and perfectly epitomize why you are such a fabulous father.

Love you, m’baby daddy.

Just before klunking Lucy into her crib before nap or bed, I often cradle her in my arms, her head in the crook of my left arm.

I do this mostly to embarrass her, and to entertain myself — jokingly crooning, “Look at my Lucy baby! Are you my Lucy baby?” while she frantically pummels me with her size 8 flailing feet and laughs. She now looks ridiculous in this pose.

My baby is no longer such — she’s almost 3 ft. tall (!!) and weighs more than 30 lbs. I remember the way her body used to perfectly curl around my belly when I breastfed her, how I belted into my bathrobe. Eric always tells Lucy how he’d carry her around in the Football Hold.

Eric snapped these pics this past weekend when Lucy and I were reading books and sharing a bowl of popcorn. When I downloaded them off the camera yesterday, I could not get over how grown up Lucy looks. Despite her double chin and the baby fat that still clings to the tops her her thighs, she is becoming a little girl.

But Sunday, while driving, I kept catching glimpses of her in the side mirror, she positioned in her car seat behind me. Lucy was opening and closing her mouth in experimental Os, softly singing to “I Like to Eat Apples and Bananas,” and staring out the window at the passing clouds. The light was reflecting off her still rotund cheeks and baby-flat nose, and she looked so young and innocent and small. I saw her baby face again, clearly.

It makes me wonder if this will happen for the rest of her life. Will I always carry that baby image with me? Catch snippets of it as she grows into a girl, a teen, a woman?

I hope so.

I know that today, the second Sunday in May, is Mother’s Day. It’s The Day for us moms.

But isn’t this the real Mother’s Day? Not even a day, but a single moment in time when mother and child first lock eyes and see each other for the first time? And even though you’re cold and scared and bewildered and in shock and awe and wonder and there are far too many people between your legs, it suddenly hits you that you are a mother and you actually helped create another human being?

I can still feel that moment, can feel a hand around my heart when my world changed forever because she entered it. It fades away with the routine of daily life — the meals and chores and laundry and baths and “Stop licking your hands and smearing them on your feet that’sogross!” — but rears up when a stranger is in her midst and she buries her face in my chest, clutching my soft belly for protection. When she is curled on her side, asleep and vulnerable and at her most beautiful. When she grasps my face in her still-chubby hands and plants a slobbery Bunny Kiss on my forehead.

That moment is here today. And as much as I loved sleeping in and a greasy breakfast out and no diaper changes, I’ve loved it more when she’s looked up and said, “Hi, Mummy.”

You know how moms have these…sayings? Like, “Don’t cross your eyes or your face will stay that way!” or “Use your INSIDE voice!” or “If all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you, too?”

I have one I use all the time, usually aimed at Eric, or his brother, Marky, or his brother’s wife, Jenni, when they are rough-housing with Lucy: “Don’t shake her around so much, or she’ll puke!”

All three of them roll their eyes at me, or exchange looks with each other when they think I’m not looking. But I see them, for I am now a mom, and “I have eyes in the back of my head.” I know they think I’m a big worrywart, but it comes with the territory Momness, along with less sleep and no privacy.

Well. *ahem* Guess what happened yesterday?

About 10 a.m. (two hours after breakfast), Lucy and I were playing chase up and down the hallway. After a particular vigorous run, I scooped Lucy up in my arms, and bounced her back into the kitchen. Where her eyes glazed over for a sec, she burped, then — you guessed it! — puked all over the front of her sleeper, down my hoodie-clad arm, then over my bare hand (ohdearlord, that last part was SO gross).

So, without further ado…

I told you so.

This evening, 8:30, our kitchen. I am baking Devil Cookies. Eric is sitting on the couch watching baseball.

“Mmmm, nom-nom-nom,” I exclaim, popping a milk chocolate chip in my mouth.

“Did it pass quality control?” Eric quips.

“Yep, the Pregnant Woman Taste Test.”

“What, it wasn’t moving?”

Oh, har-dee-har-har.

NASA’s top 10 view of Earth, taken by astronauts on the International Space Station.

They are stunning. And really put our place on this planet in perspective.

Hope you did something nice for the world today.

In true Murphy’s Law fashion, Julia called last night to say she had come down with the plague Lucy (and Eric and most of the other kids) has, and would not be open today.

(Note to those considering home vs. centre daycare: Provider sickness is a major con when there is only one person looking after your child(ren))

In true Mom-Saves-The-Day Fashion, Lucy’s Nana took the morning off so I could work and continue to do so during Lucy’s nap. Lucy’s currently asleep upstairs.

Last night we dropped Lucy off, scored some free dessert, then headed home for a child-free evening. Let me stress again to those that think parents get all naughty when their kids aren’t home: We don’t. We sleep. Seriously. Eric and I went a little wild by watching the baseball game in our bedroom with the door open. Par-tay.

This morning I was enjoying my Honey Nut Cheerios and blueberries n’ yogurt while Eric made his lunch. The birds were chirping through the open back door. Spencer was lying on the floor with his head on my foot. It was peaceful and serene.

“Wow. Sure is quiet without the Goose here, eh?” Eric says from behind me.

I suddenly realize he’s right. It’s not really peaceful and serene. It’s sorta eerily quiet. It’s the quietest our house has been in more than two years — even more so than other times Lucy has spent the night at my parents’.

“Yeah, you’re right,” I said, sighing. Spencer rolled his eyes at us from under the table.

Isn’t it funny how the grass is always greener on the other side? That for almost every other weekday morning I am praying for 8 a.m., but the one morning without Lucy we are wishing she was there?

Go figure.

As he’s hugging me goodbye, Eric says in my ear, “You bring our Lucy home again, OK?”

Mission accomplished. Now are you going to come home to change her post-nap poop?

Eric is standing in the sunshine at the back door, admiring our yard. Suddenly, an ear-ringing screech pierces the afternoon air.

“Ahhhhh,” he sighs, stretching his arms over his head. “You know it’s spring when the neigbour’s kids are outside trying to kill each other again.”