Parenting Realities

With you first child you are so obssesively crazed about everything. . .that you whip out the "What to Do During Your Child's First Year" book at least 17 times a day to make sure you have followed all the rules correctly for each age week, and to check that green colored poop isn't sickness and of course just to make sure you are stimulating your baby with the most age appropriate activities. You wash the dropped pacifier with soap and water and then sanitize it in the microwave before handing it back to your screaming child, and you definitely do everything to keep your child sleeping appropriately on their backs so they won't smother themselves with a stray pillow or crib pad. . .and then after you have completely lost your sanity and sleep your child turns two and it all goes out the window. In fact, I found myself actually ignoring the fact that Avonleah was licking rocks outside the other day, I thought, "hmm maybe I should tell her that those rocks might definitely have dog urine on them. . .or not . . .she's got a strong immune system, why start a fight over something I probably did as a child and survived just fine." So she licked A LOT of rocks and then she started painting the sidewalk with a paintbrush and water and I looked over and all the sudden she had the paintbrush in her mouth sucking bits of sidewalk germed water out of it. . .perhaps I should have handed her a water bottle to quench her thirst, but that would have required me to get my tired booty up and trudge all the way into the house and probably wash a cup since they would all have been dirty. . .enjoy that dirty water Avonleah, don't say I ever let you get dehydrated! I often believe that we have relaxed so much over the past four years that I'm afraid we may need to tighten up a bit to be safer parents. . .you know things like buying our children bicycle helmets and not actually rolling out of the driveway until Avonleah is completely done bucking her car seatbelt! Thank goodness we've relaxed on the whole "you must sleep on your back in a sleep sack with no blankets or pillows in the bed thing" because little Adelaide has the cutest sleeping style. You just lay her down with her pluggy, her soft "grandma pillow" on one side and give her her little silky blanket and she pulls it up over her face and falls asleep in like 1 minute flat. . .it's amazing. . . no wonder Avonleah never slept, I should have let her smother herself with a silky blanket. . .