New thoughts on being a mom

Okay, now that Hannah has just turned 10 months (yesterday), I thought I'd do some updates to my previous posting about "Things I've Learned about being a Mom" (or whatever that title was.)
For those of you that don't know, Hannah started crawling a couple weeks ago while her girlfriend, Kayla, was over. It was almost as if she'd known how all along, and then she finally decided "Well, if Kayla's going to do it, I can too!" Since then, we've discovered that out of necessity, we have to vacuum/sweep/mop MUCH more often because otherwise Hannah will be eating all sorts of edible & non-edible snacks throughout the day. Last night I remarked to Keith that I don't even want to think how dusty & gross our carpet & linoleum was at our apartment, since Hannah wasn't crawling there and, well, let's face it...weeks go by without doing it! :) Oh well, new house, new rules.
So that's my thought on the crawling business.
Also interesting is how the level of stress & busy-ness in regards to parenting is all relative. A busy day for me consists of a trip to the gym in the morning, an appointment in the mid-afternoon, and maybe having someone over for dinner or coffee. Then my friend Molly came over with her three boys, with whom she stays home 3 out of 5 days a week. After a rousing visit of puzzles, cookies, screaming kids, and a couple tantrums thrown in here & there, I asked her what her daily schedule is like. She kind of laughed and said "This." :) After they left, both Hannah & I seemed fairly relaxed--and I was thinking twice about having any other kids (just kidding...that kind of thought is always fleeting!) :)
Lastly, I noticed something yesterday that I've heard of moms doing, and never really thought about me doing it until then. In the late afternoon, after Hannah had taken a fairly short nap, I decided that we would go to the mall for a while to kill some time before dinner. Keith wasn't going to be home until later, as he had night class, and Hannah was a little cranky, so I figured it was either that or start to really resent not being in a lecture for 4 hours. ;) I felt better as soon as we got to the mall, not just because we were able to get out of the house, but also because there were people to observe, kids for Hannah to watch, and--this is the kicker--all sorts of adults that I might talk to! Seriously, the whole time we were there, I was making eye contact & conversation with anyone who happened to look my way (which was easy, since I had a baby with me, and everyone wants to talk to babies!) I spent about 15 minutes in a candy store discussing what to buy with the clerk, and I went over & interrupted an old neighbor simply to say "Hi." What is with me? Oh, that's right, it's the old "I've-been-talking-to-my-baby-daughter-for-the-last-few-hours-and-am-craving-some-adult-conversation." Like I said, I've heard of it happening, but it hadn't hit me until yesterday. What's even weirder is that I had had two other adult encounters earlier in the day, so it's almost as if I was on a roll and needed to continue that pattern. Hey, at least I've found an outlet--talking to anyone who glances our way, whether they want to or not!
Anyway, this is a really long post suddenly, so I think that's all I'm going to write. Let me know if any of you have had this experience! Ooopps, there's an adult at the door--gotta run!