Having a baby is like falling in love. At first, it's pure infatuation.

You spend days on end staring into your loved one's pupils. Nothing makes you prouder than stepping out with your little heartthrob.

Then the honeymoon wears off, and you're left with a clingy but taciturn life partner (approaching two decades) who turns his nose up at your food, makes eyes at strangers and farts ad lib.

Sleep deprivation takes its toll on even the most serene mama and if you're stuck indoors talking gaga all day, you might think about padding the walls.

Do you look at your babies or children and get inkilings of what they might be?

How early can you predict what they might be in the future? At birth, one year old, two, three, thirteen, twenty one?  Personalities, temperament, interests and preferences can appear very early.

One of my favourite reads as a parent is the family supplement in The Guardian Weekend on a Saturday.  Many of the articles are like extended blog posts, packed full of the stories of real family life. Last weekend I read it at our local arts centre while my daughter did her Drama lesson and one article profiling Matt Damon's family really got me thinking.

His mother, an early year's professor, felt she knew her son would be an actor, and his brother an artist, from when they were very young, based on how they liked to play. Her predictions came true. As an early years professor, and with hindsight, it's perhaps easy to predict, or to feel you have predicted something. But there was something in it. I laughed at the image of a two year old Matt Damon refusing to leave the dressing up area at play school and I applauded his mum for telling the staff not to worry and to just let him be. While I try and give my children a fully rounded play experience, they both have very different ideas about what they enjoy.  As they grow I can see more and more natural preferences emerging. Property management, chef, office worker, pianist, artist, astronaut all look like favourable options...

Parenting advice. You can't escape it.

It starts from the minute you mention that you're trying to conceive. It spreads when your bump begins to show. And once baby arrives, it kicks in full force.

Cover his head, he's cold (actually he's sweating); Feed him, he's hungry (he's just vomited from eating too much); Put him down, you'll spoil him (because love and comfort ruins babies); Don't breastfeed him to sleep, he's using you as a dummy (that's actually quite insulting)... oh it goes on and on.

Here I am on my 29th birthday, 5 months pregnant with my first and looking for new, non alcoholic ways to celebrate.  We hired a boat on the Thames and picnicked.  You might spot the Jo Jo Bebe Maman bag, the birthday presents have shifted slightly, to mark my mum-to-be status

I think it is fair to say I was an early adopter to pregnancy amongst my closest friends.  Shortly after this my husband and I decided to leave behind our life and friends in London to set up business and home in Nottingham.  I decided to leave teaching and to be a full time mum for a few years. Looking back it was a pretty huge transition.  I approached it alot like freshers week at university and joined as many antenatal or baby related groups as I could.  I soon made lots of wonderful new mum friends, many of which I see on a weekly basis 5 years on.

But what about my friends of old,my school friends, the gang of girls I went to university with and then gravitated to London with?  I missed them hugely, I didn't see them as often and sometimes, especially when I had to say no to things, because I was still breastfeeding, because I didn't feel ready to leave my babies or because I was tired or strapped for cash, I felt our lives had moved in different ways. But, despite missing a few birthdays, not keeping up on gossip and feeling a little like I was missing out on their child free fun, we are still going strong.

Parenting it's a juggling act .....

..... it's easy to get lost sometimes, in the frustrating things, like being overtired, not having time to go to the gym or the toilet, not being allowed to hold a proper conversation, but what's the bigger picture? What do we gain? Lazy Daisy is a really positive space, which to me seems like a great foundation for the life changing journey that is parenthood. So this week I asked fellow parents if parenthood gave them a greater sense of purpose in life.

Here are ten of the life enhancing changes children made in our lives, do you agree?