More on Parenting

I vowed I wouldn't be one of those parents that lets the child run the family. She can fit into our life, not the other way around.

ha. haha! hahaha.

I also vowed I wouldn't be one of those parents who no longer goes anywhere or does anything with anyone. Because baby. Schedule, schmedule. (not that I had a booming social life before we had the baby. or ever in my life. i'm basically a hermit. not a crab, but definitely a hermit.)

I was going to title this post "Out of Control" and discuss various examples of how our baby is running our lives despite my vows that she wouldn't. But last night I had a light bulb moment.

scene: baby refuses to eat baby food. mom has just given up trying to force baby to eat it.

"To eat carrot mush or not to eat carrot mush..."

me: "You win this round, Ellie.

*Gru's voice: liiiiight buuuuulb*

Maybe I shouldn't think of it as a battle."

husband: "Yeah. That would probably be good."

After that brilliant realization, I would feel hypocritical publishing this post as it was originally composed (and also embarrassed because in its original state it ended abruptly - the Boss baby called). However, I don't want you to miss out on all my hilarious, laugh-inducing amusing anecdotes. So I'll weave a few of them in.

I was going to say how weird parenting is. How it's really just both parties trying to convince the other that they have more control than they really do. But now I won't. Because it could just be both parties figuring out how to work together and share knowledge of their differing desires and opinions. And because I'd prefer to not sound like a control freak who sees every situation as a power struggle.

The other day Husband pointed out that E is a gem now compared to how she was a few weeks ago. 

He's right.

For one, we've had a good number of successful car trips in which she babbled nicely to herself or even slept! It used to be that car trips of any length included one of two things: screaming or pooping out the diaper. One was smelly; both were loud and annoying and made us think twice before we put her in that dreaded car seat.

For two, she is sleeping slightly more than she had been while on her 3 week strike. She won let us know that she needs to be closer so we, weak and permissive loving and understanding parents that we are, moved her crib right up next to our bed so that we can hold her little hand all night long.

For three, she is really great at playing on her own now. She finds super fun things to do like unlocking my cell phone, dialing 9-1-1, and chatting with the operator. Or unscrewing a flashlight, taking the batteries out, and zapping her little tongue. Swinging, currently the top item on her list of favorite pastimes, is also the safest of her interests and where she happens to be right now as I finish up this post.

We're still trying to figure out what life looks like with this little person around. I doubt we'll ever stop trying to figure that out. I think I am okay with that.