It's going by so fast…

So I'm shopping at the Real Canadian Superstore the other day, and it was totally New Baby Central. Everywhere I looked, bleary-eyed new mommies were wandering sleepily around the grocery store, and, as usual, I was trying to sneak a peek at all the teeny weeny babies sleeping in their infant seats. Not because I'm nosy, but because I just can't resist a teeny tiny baby.

Anyway, I'm looking at all these new mommies and I realized something very big: I'm no longer a member of the Bleary-Eyed New Mommy Club. My kid is big. Huge. Sitting up in the front of the shopping cart, eating the Gerber Graduates I'm doling out and trying to grab everything I take off the shelf so she can see what it is, then chew on it.

These days, unless she's having a particularly bad teething day and won't go to sleep, the only reason for me to be bleary-eyed is that I decided to stay up to watch the Colbert Report, which doesn't come on until 12:30 a.m. in our part of the country. I'm very well rested, most days I get to have a shower and put on make-up, and I hardly ever have to leave the house in a shirt that's been spit-up on.

And I didn't even notice it happening.

When Gracie was new, other new mommies and I would give each other the look as we passed each other. You know, the look that said, "I don't know you, but I understand that you are as tired as I am and I feel your pain." Then I would look at the mommies with big babies and think that that day was a lifetime away. Good Lord, it only took 8 months.

Where did the time go? And more importantly, is every year going to go by this fast?