This post brought to you by Walmart. All opinions are 100% mine.

At 8:26am ET, on this day 2 years ago exactly, my second child was born and I was beginning my journey of being a mother for the second time.

But as it turns out, I wasn’t going to do the “mom thing” one more time. I was actually going to become a whole new mother. I didn’t realize that was going to happen, as I truly assumed that I had the whole parenting thing figured out and hat my second would pretty much be a carbon copy of my first.

Any parent out there with more than 1 child who is reading this is likely chuckling, because you know I was SOOOOO off base! I should have been clued in when my labor, which everyone swore up and down would be faster and easier the second time around, was significantly harder. I labored on my own for many hours, and then made the switch to the blessed epidural, only to have it only work on half of my body.

It seems little Layah wanted her presence to be “felt” from the very beginning. And feel it, I did, friends! My little Layah Wren, with a sweet, gentle name that reminds one of a sci-fi princess and a tiny little bird, is more like a Jedi than a figurehead, and more like a soaring eagle than a meek songbird.

She has grown me as a mother tenfold, and she has grown her sister tenfold, too. Darah was the apple of my eye exclusively until May 7th, 2012, when she became the apple of Layah’s eye, and the role model. What a beautiful thing it has been to watch Darah fill that tall order to be, as Glennon from Momastery puts it, the left lung for her sister. But she has done it, and the sight of it makes me positively dizzy with joy.

You were not what I imagined you would be, little Layah, yet you are infinitely more than I could have dared to dream.

Pampers Celebrate’s #ThanksBaby Moments for Mother’s Day

I imagine that the mothers out there reading this post can relate to all the surprises and joys that come from the journey of becoming a mother. It’s rarely what we expected it would be, and yet, all the hard parts of parenting (and there are MANY hard parts!) seem to be a necessary part of the story. Pampers  totally gets this feeling, and I think they captured it well with their Pampers Mother’s Day video. Please take a moment to watch this adorable Pamper Mother’s Day Video and be sure to share it with your friends when you are finished.

What lessons has your baby taught you that you are thankful for this Mother’s Day?