Oh yes. This is the way things happen.
You get pregnant, have a baby, survive a year or so of sleep deprivation, memory loss, heavenly smiles, and diapers, and then one afternoon while you're making a sandwich your baby is sitting on the counter, nonchalant, happy as a clam.
This is what having a baby will teach you:
That you are not in control.
That you were never really in control.
That there is grace in loosing the battle, just as there is grace in quietly, patiently persisting with boundaries, bedtimes, and broccoli.
You will never be able to hear a story about a child suffering again without tears wetting the corners of your eyes, entirely unbidden, always unexpected, smudging your mascara as you consider what if.
It's okay to start over or give up a million times. No one knows any better than you do--and when it comes to your own kid, you do, actually, know best, no matter what anyone else tells you.
It's all about giggling.
Getting dirty is inevitable and essential. Make your peace with the effing laundry heap. It will never go away. Although--one thing that most certainly will go away, inexplicably, and often, are single baby socks. One by one they disappear until you'll have an entire drawer full of singletons.Think I'm kidding? Just wait.
It's about stopping and getting down on the floor. Especially with boys. It's all about the floor and what can be accomplished there: block towers and tickling matches, and moments of physical affection, rough and tumble that they crave. Moms who wrestle are awesome. It's not just a guy thing. Please don't believe it's just guy thing.
It's about the fact that floor will always have crumbs, paper clips, pencils, crayons, snippets, legos, blocks, matchbox cars, marbles, rocks, crumpled leaves, gravel, sand, bits of grass, sticks. Don't let it get to you.
Don't let the crying get to you either. Whatever feels like the worst day in the world, the worst hour, the worst minute, will surely pass. And then they'll be 20 months old and sitting on the counter, as if that's okay, as if it's not precarious and against the rules. And they'll be grinning and giggling and drooling, and saying "No! No! No!" when you remove them, or suggest an alternative.
It's all about alternatives. About distractions. "Oh look!" That's a magic phrase. Oh yes it is. {more...}