Today my crazy maniac monkey face (oh yes, you turn into a dopey, soppy, terrible nickname creator once you push a bubs out) turns two months old. Still so new, and yet how much she’s changed and developed, it feels like she should be off to college tomorrow. I am already that lame Mama who laments “where her baby went.” This does not bode well for me when she actually does leave home. I’ll be the parent sleeping outside her dorm door on a cot, rocking and crying and holding her baby blanket.

But until that fateful day, I still have a lot of time with this little gorgeous creature. And despite the fact she has only been with us for 60 days (!), the lessons I have learned are immense, and valuable to all new Mamas. So, let me share what I know. (I was never good at sharing. Yet another way this kid has changed my life.)

Eating is your rocket fuel, designed to keep your eyes open and your limbs able, when you’re working with small chunks of sleep doled out by the new tyrant in your life. As tempting (and delicious) as wolfing down a Snickers bar over the kitchen sink and washing it down with great gulps of eye-watering Coke is, you shouldn’t do it. At least not more than once. Drink lakes of water, especially if breast-feeding. Dutifully take your vitamins, especially C to keep your vulnerable immune system strong, and load up on protein. Roast colourful winter vegetables, slurp back soups, make the crock pot your best friend and treat yourself to delicious, warm and comforting meals. You deserve it.

For the first month, you must sleep when she does, for at least an extra hour (or 4) a day. If you have helpful, wonderful friends and family like I do, get them to take her out for a walk while you drool all over the pillows. You will become a sleep thief, masterful at snatching those few moments when you can. How do I know this? I used to need earplugs in a blacked out soundproof room to sleep. Now, I can fall asleep standing up doing a crossword puzzle on stilts. Yet another life-changer courtesy of the bubs.

Finally, there is no greater pick-me-up than a faceful of fresh air. Bundle yourselves up, to the point where it looks like you’re taking a pile of blankets for a walk, and get outside. You will see other people, real live ones, not like on TV. They will think you’re crazed when you smile and nod at them like you’re living in a quaint English country town, and not the cold too-cool-for-school big city. You will breathe in and out, deep gulps of air that isn’t canned apartment air, the kind that swallows baby cries. Out here the air is snappy and fresh, it will let the cries just echo around and off squirrels and tree branches dipped down, heavy with frost.

Outside you remember there is a whole big wide world happening out there. One you’ll be part of soon. When your bubs thinks (rightly so) that you’re kind of lame and just wants to go hang out with her friends, and boys with baggy pants and shifty eyes. (Her father just went to whittle a bat out of a birch tree.) So, even though this time will test every part of you, every last bit of resolve, willpower and patience, it really is the best time of your life. You just don’t know it yet.