December 16th: Beth: Things I Have Learned

When Meagan approached me about writing a guest blog for her year-end wrap up I nervously eagerly agreed, and began to think of what I could write about.  I considered writing about “silencing the noise” that surrounds all parents.  I don’t mean the noise your child is making in the background as she unloads your food storage container cabinet-- as my daughter is doing right now; I mean the noise that is constantly shouted at parents from the periphery.  You know the articles I’m talking about: 50 Reason’s Why You’re An Awful Parent If You Look At Your Cellphone At The Playground, You’re Damaging Your Child By Giving Hugs, and all the others that we see shared five thousand times on our Facebook newsfeeds.  As a first time parent, I’m new to this.  I had no idea there was so much controversy over raising my own child, but apparently there is, and the choices my husband and I make for our child are open to scrutiny by millions of people who would do it differently.  Who knew?!  I realized that if I wrote about how I learned to silence the noise over the past year (19 months if you’d like to get technical) then I would be joining the ranks of these bloggers who know The Key To Raising A Perfect Child, so I quickly discounted that idea!

 

Next I tried to think of any difficult experiences that I have endured over the past year.  I am incredibly blessed that this year has been an easy, stress-free, wonderful year.  My 19 month old is happy, healthy, bright, constantly learning, communicative, loving, and 95% precious (let’s be real, she does have her moments).  My husband is the man who fits every box on my What I Want in My Husband and Partner For Life (PFL) List.  He goes above and beyond to achieve the status of World’s Greatest Husband and Father on a near daily basis, and even on the off-days he is still pretty damn great.  The last thing we say to each other at night after “I love you” is “Wow, another awesome day!”  We’re not perfect, I’m sure, but we’re perfect together for each other.  I am living my current dream of being a stay-at-home Mommy.  I live in a modest sized home, drive a decent yuppie-hybrid SUV, and want for very little, all because of my awesome husband.  I am blessed to have two parents who are incredibly supportive; I consider my mom one of my best friends and my dad still spoils me like it’s his job.  They adore their grandchild more than I ever expected a grandparent to, and I had/have amazing grandparents as models.  My in-laws are wonderful and I am lucky to have married in to a wonderful family.  So I can’t write about any family struggles though I know that we will have them along the way. We have been very blessed this year and we are so thankful for that! 

 

Then I remembered that I had a falling out with a friend, so I started to write about that.  That was probably the worst thing that happened in 2013. Two-thirds of the way through that exercise I realized that there really wasn’t a lesson to be learned from that experience.  I sent what I had written so far to Meagan and she guided me to the realization that sometimes there aren’t lessons to be learned; sometimes it just IS.  If I rehash everything that happened to cause that friendship to crumble I am still at a place where I feel that the friendship did not work for me.  So I have scrapped that draft.  Revisiting the arguments, the petty behavior, the snide comments, and ultimately the hurt feelings only gives power to those feelings, and I am well beyond allowing something so minor to affect me now.  We all have regrets, but at the end of the day the friendship was toxic and nothing I need to revisit or continue to dwell on.

So I’m attempting to write this guest entry again.  I have decided that my focus will be on the little things I have learned throughout the past year, however arbitrary they may be and in no particular order.  Here we go!

Things I Have Learned in 2013

·         An 8 hour road trip takes 12 hours, minimum, with a toddler.  

·         The CarSeat Cinema is a genius invention and Baby Einstein videos on the iPad make those 12 hour road trips a bit more bearable for everyone involved.

·         I am THAT mom.  Yes, the one that posts a picture (or 3, deal with it) a day on Facebook, thinks that everything my child does is the best, funniest, most clever thing ever, and who prefers to be with my child over getting a mani/pedi or massage.

·         It is essential to change the brush head on your Clarisonic every three months.  Do NOT try to extend it “just a little bit longer”.  You WILL regret it!

·         I will be a First-Time Mom until I die, no matter how old my child gets or how many children I have.  When Emily goes to college, I may have more experience, but I will still be a first-time-mother-of-a-college-student.  When she gets married I will be a first-time-mother-of-the-bride, and when she is appointed Supreme Court Judge I will be a first-time-mother-of-a-judge. 

·         It doesn’t matter what the other mothers in your mommy group are doing.  What matters is that you stick to your convictions.  For example, if you want to do Elf on the Shelf, do it!  Who cares if other people think he’s creepy? 

·         People who participate in MommyWars are insecure about their own parenting choices, which is why they get defensive and combative.  Do not get sucked in.  Do your best and don’t worry about them. 

·         I am an expert on raising MY child.  Not yours, MINE. 

·         Some people just like to be controversial in order to make themselves feel better.  Avoid them!

·         Trust your instinct.  About everything.  Your instinct is usually right, rarely wrong, and (BONUS!!) you can claim to have a heightened sixth sense when your instinct turns out to be correct!

·         I am a huge nerd.  I make corny jokes and do goofy things and I don’t care if that makes me uncool in the eyes of others.  I’m not out to impress anyone else. 

·         If you set your cruise control at 46 on Fry Rd you will hit every green light between Hwy 290 and FM 529. 

·         Sometimes even the pediatrician gets it wrong.

·         My child won’t go to sleep unless we sing The Itsy Bitsy Spider, Patty-Cake, and Where is Thumbkin after she is put in to her bed.  She will stay awake until you come in to check on her and sing them then.  The lesson?  Don’t skip the music!

·         “Don’t do that!!!!” means nothing to a toddler. 

·         It is futile to put a bow in my daughter’s hair before getting in the car.  She will remove it before we get where we’re going.  That doesn’t mean I don’t do it anyway.

·         Experiencing life through my daughter’s eyes is amazing.  I feel like a kid again, experiencing everything for the first time.

·         It is totally worth it to wake up 45 minutes before my daughter so that I have a few minutes to myself before I have to become MOM.

·         What I do with my 19 month old has very little bearing on who she will grow up to become.  Choosing her friends carefully, not taking her to the park when it’s 100 degrees outside, and helping her on playground equipment does not mean that she will grow up to be anti-social, lazy, or helpless. 

·         Kids grow up way too fast.  Each age and stage is brief.  Don’t rush childhood.  It’s okay to dress my daughter like a little kid.  That’s what she is!  There’s plenty of time for her to be a big kid, teenager, and adult.  She’ll only be my baby for a short amount of time. 

·         19 months old is way closer to being a baby than a kid.  Treat her as such and don’t get frustrated when baby behaviors outshine the kid behaviors.

·         I can survive on less sleep than I imagined and still be in a good mood!

·         I am good at being crafty and I really enjoy it!

·         Family pictures will always include more bad out-takes than perfect, everyone’s looking at the camera, smiley pictures.  Sometimes those “bad pictures” are the best ones!

·         It’s impossible to have a pretty smile while wrestling a squirmy toddler. (See: the above- mentioned pictures.  We really aren’t members of an underground toddler wrestling league or anything crazy and we don’t typically “wrestle” our toddler.)

·         It takes much longer to get things done with a child around—not because she’s in the way, but because it is so much more fun to just sit and watch her explore, and then POOF! There went an hour. 

·         I do not need approval from anyone but my husband and my child.

·         Baby weight doesn’t just “fall off” unless you have enough money to hire a personal trainer for 5 day a week workouts, a delivery food service, and a nanny to watch the baby.  Celebrities and the media lie about this all the time.

·         I have a zen-like patience for my child.  I never even dreamed this was possible.

·         I cannot control everything.

·         Life happens way too quickly.  Try to soak it up, even the rough stuff, because it means you are living.

·         Let the past go.

·         Don’t spend a lot of time doing something you don’t enjoy.  Obviously, something like laundry has to be done, but find something to enjoy about it—like the smell of freshly laundered clothes or the satisfaction of an empty clothes hamper.

·         Someone else’s idea of perfect is not the same as my idea of perfect.  That’s okay for both of us.

·         Since I’ve learned to filter things out that aren’t directly relevant to my life I am much happier.  Selfish?  Probably.  Less stressed and strung out?  ABSOLUTELY.

·         There is no need to “keep up with the Joneses”.  They have problems, too, and you probably don’t want any part of them.

·         Mistakes are okay.   And we don’t always have to learn from them.

·         I will never have all the answers but my mom does.

·         A sense of humor makes everything better.  Don’t be so serious all the time.

·         Not everything that happens has a lesson attached to it.

·         I am a different person now than who I was in my 20’s and even the first year of my 30’s.  I like the person I am now better than the person I was then.  Obviously this means that I’m like wine (or cheese).  I just get better with age!

Truth is, I could continue working on this list until the new year but for the purpose of getting this to Meagan in a reasonable amount of time I will end it here.  Maybe not everything was learned this year; maybe it was just reinforced somehow.  Either way, if it’s on this list it stuck out to me at some point.  What’s on your list?