Hi there! Remember me? Susan, the slacker-blogger extraordinaire? No?? I don’t blame you, people. I’ve been a non-entity for a very long time now.
You see, I’ve been struggling with the “mommy” thing in the past few months. It really threw me off balance. I’m not a perfectionist, but I do demand the best of myself in the important areas of my life. I’d say raising Olive to be a good person pretty much tops that list. Unfortunately, a lot of other things had to fall along the wayside so I didn’t, oh I don’t know, RUIN THE BABY FOREVER.
I’m more zen about it now.
Sure, I still bust a freakout when I see her eat a dead bug, but I don’t hyperventilate when she eats a butt cheerio. For those of you not in the loop (everyone), a butt cheerio is an errant cheerio that Olive pulls from under her heiney and pops into her mouth while I strap her into her booster seat. Some of them are already half-eaten. No big.
I am trying to focus on how happy she is. I have to be doing something right, because my daughter smiles 99.9% of the time. The other .01% she flings herself into piercing screams. No one is perfect.
My new theory of parenthood is that if she’s smiling a large majority of the time and is reasonably healthy, I’m doing great. And if I’m doing great, I shouldn’t feel inordinately guilty for wanting to have some time for things other than my outrageously cute daughter. Like, say, my outrageously cute husband. Or my outrageously neglected social life. Or a shower now and then. (I’m not kidding about how much has fallen along the wayside).
Even the occasional blog post.
I’m not naive enough to believe that this new perspective will prevent all future blowouts regarding parenting vs. having-a-life. But I am hopeful that it might keep me from becoming completely unhinged at the end of a long, long day.
Anywhoo, just wanted to say hi. I’ve missed you.
Well, you can have a social life this weekend!
However, I know I’m no parent, but I’ve seen it over and over again. Being happy all the time isn’t always a good thing. If she’s always getting her way when she should be getting in trouble and not being punished for it, it will ruin you and her later in life. It’s just the way I’ve seen some friends and family raised. Unhappiness is a part of life and makes you a well-rounded person. You learn to appreciate the happy times more, and aren’t the happy times really worth appreciating?
Oh, she gets disciplined. You can’t be happy in life without learning the hard and fast rules. There are things she knows she shouldn’t do and stuff she knows she shouldn’t touch. She tests the limits, but she’s gotten the gist of it pretty quickly. So quickly that Mooch can now take a nap in the room with her and is relatively undisturbed. Amazing. Mostly, I have to remind myself of how young she truly is. She doesn’t look or act much like most of the one year old’s I’ve been in contact with.
Woohoo! That means we can hang out sometime soon, until MY life is taken over my an infant.
Hey! It’s Susan! She let herself out from under that rock!
I suggest a ranking system for any issue that arises:
Level 1: Possible dirtying
Level 2: Possible illness
Level 3: Possible injury
Level 4: Possible maiming
Level 5: Imminent death
Ignore levels 1 & 2, act on levels 4 & 5. Level 3 is negotiable, depending on circumstance.
I should teach parenting courses.