Ignorance is Bliss?

I am a firm believer that God is a comedian! Lately he has shown me this more and more.

I am a person who always has great ideaology on how things should go. I have said numerous times sentences which started like this, "When I have children I will do..."

Ha! Ha! Ha! I shake my head at my total ignorance.

Statement #1 -- "When I have children I will not let them sleep in the bed with me." -- Hysterical! I did well with this when I was on maternity leave from work, but the first time Hoss Cat got sick with a cold when I was back at work I freaked out. What if he has trouble breathing during the night? I won't know. So I instantly put him in our bed and that was the beginning of the end. Now he is 15 months old and is still sleeping with us and I have never had a good night sleep since that cold at 3 months. And don't even think about trying the crib...scream fest begins! I did "intervene" when he was 9 months old and started letting him cry in his crib. After a week of gradually letting him do so he was sleeping alone again (a miracle!). I don't remember what it was that broke that trend. I am guessing one night he would not go to sleep so I put him in bed with us so we could sleep and then he knew how to break us! How the manipulation begins at such a young age I will never understand!


Statement #2 -- "When I have children they will not watch any TV until they are 2!" -- Again I laugh hysterically at this statement! It is great ideaology, but the practicality...I remember the moment Hoss Cat "discovered" the television. It was Christmas 2005, he was 2 months. I put him in front of the Christmas tree to take his pictures dressed as Santa (he was so cute!). He had never been so close to the TV and apparently his vision had not developed to the point that he could see it from his area of the room...far away from the TV. His eyes would not leave the TV at all until I turned it off, then he would look at it waiting for the colors to come back. Well, I think that may have been the beginning of the end! I guess he comes by it naturally. There are few moments in our house in which a television is not on somewhere. It doesn't matter what is on the TV he will watch it...at least for a couple minutes before boredom sets in. Last night he watched an entire round of Jeopardy. Maybe he will be a genius after all...which leads me to...

Statement #3 -- "When I have children I will raise them to be geniuses." My idea was to teach my kids everything they could possibly know before they turned 2...colors, #s, ABC's, names of everyone in the family, animals and sounds, and on and on. I guess I still do have time to work on this and succeed, but since Hoss Cat calls a duck "momma" I have a lot of work to do in these next 9 months.

Statement #4 -- "When I have children I will spend every waking moment with them." -- Again great idea, but really not possible. I am a working mother, not by choice, but by necessity. I think I recognized that I would be a working mother when I made that statement, but what I did not realize is just how much work a full time job and being a full time mom meant (is there such a thing as a part-time mom?). As soon as the clock hits 5 I pick up my son and go home where I feed, bathe, entertain and play with the loving child (and in return he calls a duck "momma"!). And when the feeding and bathing and entertaining are done, can't a mother just sit back and work a Suduko puzzle? Yes she can, but then the red headed baby pulls every toy out of his toy box and onto the floor. I tend to let Hoss Cat entertain himself for a while in the evenings so I can also unwind...but how I feel so guilty. I think of statement #2 and then I try to begin to educate Hoss Cat admist the toy disaster...no wonder he calls a duck "momma."

The moral of the story is that I have been humbled to become a mother. I think of all these statements and want to go back in time and beg for forgiveness from those people I "judged" for co-sleeping or letting their kids watch tv. In these short 15 months of Parenting I learned that at times it's all about survival! Please don't judge me! :-)