These Things Should Come with a Manual!

Think your kid's going to look prim and proper all the time?  Think again!

I continually run into little parenting hiccups and think, "why the hell am I reinventing the wheel?!"   I took preparing for parenthood very, very seriously, and being a responsible almost parent and workaholic by nature, I researched endlessly.   I wanted to know everything about everything.  I made sure we took all of the classes offered for new parents at our hospital and I kept TLC's "Baby Story" show on repeat, just in case I needed a visual.

However, as I grow as a parent and face new challenges, I find that I am figuring things out on my own, with no manual, all the time.  An easy example of this happened hours after Ashton was born.  Imagine that you've been a parent for like 2 minutes and the nurse leaves you alone with this alien for your first night together.   In this case, Ashton fell asleep and Jimmy and I triumphed at our parenting success, as if we discovered the cure for cancer.  All of the sudden, Ashton starts making this horrific noise, like he is coughing up a hair ball combined with the gurgle of drowning.  We spring to action and attempted to figure out how to save this little being. As if on cue, 3 minutes after the ordeal is quasi-handled, the nurse comes in with not a care in the world.  Our hypersensitive, I-can-fix-anything, new dad musters the courage to ask about the near death experience, and the nurse casually informs us that 90% of infants expel amniotic fluid hours or days after they are born.   WHERE THE HELL WAS THAT IN OUR 438 BABY BOOKS?!!!

I think the problem with the parenting books is that the author wrote them after the fact, and only the big issues remained in their memory.  Or more stupidly in my opinion, the authors feel like events such as the above example are handled differently by every individual parent, so offering an untested personal suggestion might remove their credibility or deny the new parent of his/her right to do it their own way.  The good news is I don't have any credibility other than my two years of experience and I just don't care whether or not anyone has their feelings hurt by my suggestions.  You can take 'em or leave 'em.  But it would be really neat to have you comment on the blog with a story or suggestion!

So I have a running list of things every parent should know that no one cared to share with me. Stay tuned for my posts with hilarious stories and pictures illustrating these new parent 'flamboozles.'