I Never Thought...

There are a lot of things I said I'd never do...or said I WOULD do before officially becoming a mom. Looking back, a lot of it seems silly. (Not let my child watch TV??? Ptthhbb.) In any event there are also a lot of things that I've learned over the last 19 months that should be recorded for posterity...and so, without further fanfare...

1. I said I'd never be one of those moms who lets her kid watch TV. Okay, for the record, I still don't think TV is the best choice of activity for a kid who's not even two years old yet. BUT...TV is the best babysitter I've found so far (sorry Nanny Kellie.) It is infinitesimally easier to vacuum, fold laundry, take a shower, zone out for a minute if I turn on Sesame Street or Dora. I do attempt to keep the TV viewing to a routine minimum. About an hour in the a.m. when we first get up (this allows Mommy time to drink coffee, check email, and write) and I quite enjoy the snuggle time with G3 before we start our day. Late afternoon is also a time when I will put the TV on for him...but I am hoping to replace that antsy pre-dinner hour activity with some outdoor play once the weather turns. In any event...I certainly don't hope to raise a couch potato. But yes, my kid watches some TV every day. So be it.

All he needs is the remote and a bag of potato chips...

2. I said I'd never be one of those moms with a kid stuck on the bottle...or the paci. Or...as its referred to in our house, "DINKY!" Dinky is the beloved friend of G3, who rests on his shelf during the day and comes out for naps and bedtime. Dinkies usually go on the road with us, as the unruly G3 sometimes needs his company to remain chill in his stroller. Dinky solves everything. G3's face lights up at Dinky, and nothing is cause for more celebration than finding a dusty, hair-coated Dinky under the couch. I always felt somewhat judgemental whenever I saw a toddler in the store with *GASP* a pacifier hanging out of his mouth. Silly me. My apologies. Dinky is such a comfort to my son, and although I'm happy that as G3 grows he is less and less dependant on Dinky, I am nowhere near ready to wean him off of it. I should mention that G3 is an excellent nighttime sleeper, and I'm sure having that comfort object (along with Duckie, Horsey, Sheepy, Duckie II, and sometimes Elmo) is a huge factor in why he goes to bed so well.

Dinky saves the day, yet again.

3. I said I'd never have a kid who didn't like vegetables. After all, we eat lots of them. We started him on vegetables long before fruits and he loved almost all of them. I made him homemade baby food and fed him mostly wholesome, fresh, and healthy foods as he transitioned from mushy foods to real solids. But of course, like every other child in America, G3's palate changed and he has definite likes and dislikes...and vegetables are for the most part, a dislike. I am fortunate that he likes fruits, and yogurt. He will almost always eat bread and of course any form of tasty treat, such as fruit roll-ups, fruit snacks, pudding cups, cookies, ice cream...french fries, ketchup, chips, and cake. Yes, I've fed all of those things to my child. And I give him chicken nuggets and turkey dogs regularly because "protein" is also on the list of foods he dislikes. Never understood before why a mom would order her child the chicken fingers and fries in a restaurant...why not something healthier? Now I get it. Not to say I don't offer him vegetables at least once a day, and encourage healthy eating...no one is prouder than I when he begs for "coo coo", which means yogurt. And which brings me to my next point.

You're kidding, right? You expect me to eat squash and carrots? Right.

4. I said I'd never use "baby talk". Well, as you can see, the first offense was calling his pacifier "Binky" which only recently got changed to "Dinky". But really. Does PACIFIER roll of your tongue? And then it was Duckie. And then it was "Milky" and "Juicy". And "Coo Coo!" I do have a bit of defense for this one though. My parenting book "Happiest Toddler on the Block" actually recommends talking to toddlers using language they understand, particularly when upset. For example, asking a crying G3, "Gabey want Milky?" is more likely to make an impact in his cave-child brain than "Gabriel. Would you like a glass of milk?" Anyhow, of course we talk to him like an adult and encourage learning new words. But if calling a glass of juice "Juicy" improves positive communication...so be it.

5. Play clothes. I did not understand these. Why would you want to dress your kids ugly? I did not understand why moms showed up at the park and playdates with their kids in mismatched, worn out, holey clothes. Ha ha ha. The VERY few times we've played outside so far this year have enlightened me to the concept that little boys are going to get dirty no matter if they are outside for 20 minutes or 20 seconds.

Hey you can't look like this every day!

6. I never really understood public meltdowns. Like, can't people control their kids? Teach them how to behave, damn it!! All right, another pause for everyone to laugh at me. Although I will say that G3 is a very good boy when we are out (at the right time of day, with a full belly, a drink, a snack, and possibly something fun to play with like Mom's keys) he has his days when it doesn't matter what I do, he is going to meltdown. It's happened to me a few times, and I'm sure I've got many more in the future as he becomes more and more independent. I do my best to teach him how to behave, but I also try not to test him. Sure, there are days you just need to go and do something at a time that isn't convenient for your little monster. And there are days when everything is right and he's just...in a bad mood. But anyhow, having been the one holding the flailing, screaming child while trying to check out of the grocery store, I am more understanding. Yes, the bratty devil children exist...but I think a lot of the time its just a frazzled parent and a frazzled kid.

Toddler+Quiet coffee shop full of college students having book club meetings and checking their email=Tantrum waiting to happen

7. I never thought I'd be a mom who doesn't bathe her kid daily. Recently, chatting with another mom at a party, she made some comment like, "And just to think, there are some kids out there who don't get a bath every day!" And I just nodded and turned my head in shame. Um, here we do bath night every other night. I am SURE this will increase during the summer, but for the days when we rarely leave the house (please let this be ending soon!! Come on spring!) I admit I totally don't care if he goes to bed with dried yogurt in his hair or some peanut butter on his ear lobe. He'll live, and the world will keep turning.

I could probably keep going here for a bit. There is just such a wide space between what I "thought" I'd be like as a mom, and what I am. So many things that I worried about before (such as the horror of feeding your child chicken nuggets) seem so silly. I worried that if I didn't get into the habit of reading him a story EVERY. SINGLE. NIGHT. that he'd grow to be illiterate and have to cheat his way through med school. Okay. We don't read books EVERY NIGHT. But I bet we read them at least a few times a day, and its quite often that I find him sitting amongst one of his many baskets of books, "reading" out loud to himself. And books are the one thing about which I'll never say "Oh bother. We have too many!" So, we're okay there.

Others things, that I didn't even think about pre-child, became so important to me--such as making sure he gets fresh air as much as possible. Or the absolute, utter importance of sleep for a child to be healthy, both physically and mentally. I am a stickler for bedtime and attempting to make naps happen regularly. I just feel that adequate sleep is so, so important for my little guy. Without it, how will he have the energy to play, learn, and experience his world?? After all, turkey dogs and french fries only go so far.