Growing Up

Blake’s recent post, Things I Hope My Daughter Learns, got me thinking about what I hope my son learns. Of course, there are tons of things I hope he learns—how to ride a bike, how to play an instrument, how to cook a meal, and so on and so on. But I got to thinking about what I hope he learns deeply. Deep down inside his bones. What I hope he learns from me and my husband and our marriage and our faith. Things that will affect his overall life experience and, hopefully, give him a sense of joy throughout his lifetime. 1. I hope he learns stubbornness. I know I’ll probably regret saying this when he starts telling me...

Several times in my new motherhood, I have found myself telling someone, “This is, like, a thing now.” For pretty much any parenting decision you make these days, there is a corresponding label for it. And a few piles of books written on it, detailing why it is the best thing in the world. Natural childbirth, attachment parenting, unschooling, free range parenting, authoritarian parenting, cry it out, baby-led weaning. When Sam turned six months, I dutifully introduced solids – with my shiny new immersion blender and silicone ice cube trays (BPA free, of course), ready to puree all the things. Yeah, he would not have it. For a month, I fought with Sam, trying to get him to eat these...

Once I found out I was having a little boy, I was elated.  I heard it from everywhere, "Oh, boys just love their mommas!" I couldn't wait for the kisses, snuggles, and crying for me and only me.  Call me a bit self-absorbed, but after 10 months of carrying the boy and 21 months of nursing, I was ready to sit back and soak up all the admiration. Buuut that never happened. My son is the biggest daddy's boy that ever existed! And I'll be honest, I've let a 2-year-old hurt my feelings from time to time as he scraped his knee and ran past me to reach for daddy and demand his boo-boo kisses.  Or when he wakes up in...

Fun story: my son caught his first cold the other day. He got it from my husband and I, and he woke up with a runny nose and a cough. I kept an eye on him that morning and he seemed to get worse as the day went on. By noon his eyes were glassy and he seemed pretty miserable. I called the pediatrician and the nurse said he had an opening right then if we could come into the office right away. So I quickly loaded my son into the car and sped off to the doctor, only to wait an hour and a half. And what’s worse than waiting forever at the doctor with a sick baby? Waiting...

I’ve been a mom for roughly eight months. My husband and I are hooked—we love being parents. Sam is awesome. He makes the cutest faces and has found his loud voice and adorably shovels food into his toothless mouth. We quickly acclimated to poop and exhaustion and bath time and breastfeeding and naps. Or no naps. We’d even venture to say that it’s not so hard after all. We’re absolutely in love. But I have a confession. There is one aspect of parenting that I haven’t quite mastered yet.  Other people’s kids--I’m mildly terrified of them. When you have a kid, you also get a load of other people’s kids. Birthday parties. Volunteering for childcare. Play dates. People assume that when you...