As soon as
I found out I was pregnant with my older daughter, the parenting advice started
flooding in. It came from family members, doctors, friends, coworkers
(including one who advised me to get a monkey), strangers once I started
showing, and of course the bazillion books and magazines out there. Some was
great and some was rubbish. Was it annoying getting tons of it? Yup. Did it
ever stop? Nope. It lightens up, though. Or maybe I just stopped paying
attention to a lot of it. I am grateful for it (well, some). Being a mom is
great, but it is tricky and is a constant – CONSTANT – learning process. I
still read parenting blogs and talk to other parents and people who spend time
with kids to get tips or insights from them. Each of my girls is totally
different, so what worked with the first doesn’t really work with the second,
plus as they grow, their needs change. I want to be a good mom which to me
means being open to learning from others. I am a bit amazed by the moms who
reject all advice, claim they know more than their kids’ teachers or
pediatricians, and that they would never ever read a single parenting book or
magazine. Getting pregnant is (for some) natural and easy (and fun), but the
raising of kids requires a bit more finesse, hard work, research, and often
trial and error learning. I don’t want my kids to just stay alive; I want them
to thrive. I assume my friends do, too. A lot of my friends are just starting
their families, and based on their facebook posts and pinterest pins, they are
already starting the Mommy stressing and researching and learning. Like I said,
I’m still a student, but here are some things I’ve picked up along the way over
the last nine years that seem to work with my girls.
Trust your gut. This was the first and best piece of parenting
advice I ever got (from my own mom). It applies to everything. As long as I
stay in tune with my girls, if I trust my gut, it steers me in the right
direction and helps me know what advice to take and what advice to ignore.
There is way too much advice out there, so this is the one every mom needs. If
you follow everything, you’ll go nuts. Know your kid and trust your gut. If
your gut says something is wrong, fight to make it right. Just because a book
says you should do something one way doesn’t mean you have to if you feel that
is wrong. Like the whole tiger mom thing. Not gonna do that. Or eating my
placenta. My gut just says no to that one. May be great for some, but not for
me. Sorry.
Dishes can wait. My husband hates going to bed with dirty dishes
in the sink, but I have learned the world doesn’t stop spinning and CPS doesn’t
break down the door if that happens. Sometimes it is more important for me to
spend extra time cuddling the girls than standing at the sink. The dishes can
wait, but a daughter can’t. Eventually dishes get done obviously, but some
nights they don’t. I feel the same way about laundry and vacuuming, but draw
the line at anything that stinks. Kitty litter and garbage have to go no matter
what. Sorry, sweetie.
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| this is me NOT doing the dishes |
Pick your battles really is good advice. Really. I love when my friends without kids
complain about other people’s kids and tell me how they would make their kids
behave. Um, it doesn’t work like that. Kids are little humans with their own opinions.
About everything. EVERYTHING. And as they get older, they will want to have
some say in their lives. Makes sense. As a mom, I can’t control everything my
kids do, and frankly I don’t want to. I do stand my ground on certain things,
though, and I am consistent about it (well, I try to be). My younger daughter
still tries to fight me on everything, but knows which battles she’ll lose at
least going in. Here’s my list of ten nonnegotiable
rules (and, yes, I use the word nonnegotiable):
- wear what you want as long as
it is weather appropriate, clean, and reflects a certain amount of pride
in yourself (dress for the job you want to have mentality)
- everyone must eat and sugar
from the sugar bowl and grapes off the floor don’t count as food
- help your sister – even if she
is being annoying
help your sister help the early homonid - personal hygiene is also a must
- physical violence against
others and oneself are unacceptable
- there is a limit to the amount
of non-intelligent tv anyone can watch (some days that limit is 0 minutes)
- no clapping when Mommy has a
migraine
- don’t let people see your
underwear
- don’t spit at your teacher (ok,
that was really my dad’s nonnegotiable rule, but I got so used to always
hearing it that I started always saying it, so now it is our rule, too)
- a duck is not a weapon (we even have this
printed as a sign in our house . . . really)
Proof. There's the sign. People ask why we have it.
Because it needed to be said.
Before your baby is born, or at least as soon
as possible, decide on the key goals so you and your partner will be on the
same page. My
husband and I are different people (shocking). We interact with the girls
differently. We don’t do anything the same way. Before our older daughter was
born, though, we did sit down to talk about what we wanted for her. We made
some broad goals (you may already know about my preference for broad goals
versus specific ones) and we have stuck to them. By having those in mind, we
may have different paths but we have the same destination. Here are our key
goals for our girls:
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| celebrating Ukrainian Independence Day |
- broad world view We want them to know that the world extends beyond their town. That
means traveling, learning about geography, and learning a foreign
language. It isn’t too tricky considering each of their parents is from a
different a different country and has a different native language.
- respect others Even if people are different, they should still be treated with
respect.
- knowledge is a good thing We want the girls to thirst for knowledge
not to fear it or distrust it. We want them to be constantly learning,
enjoy learning, see the value in learning, and appreciate their teachers.
We don’t want them to glorify ignorance in any form.
- know that they are loved Above all, we want them to know that we
love them. A cool bonus has been the outpouring of love from other people
the girls have gotten. We figure the more people who love our kids, the better.
That just builds a stronger harbor for them to set sail from.
Keep your own sanity by not turning the world
into Babyville. When
Sofi was a baby, I felt my brain turning into mush just from the little bit of
time spent watch Teletubbies with her in the mornings after breakfast. I knew I
would lose my mind if I had to spend all day doing only things geared towards
babies or speaking baby talk. I just couldn’t do it. Plus, at that time she was
one of the only people around who understood English (we were living in Ukraine
Also, my
husband and I didn’t use baby talk with them a lot. I mean, we did sometimes
because we are human and the girls were insanely cute babies and it was
impossible to resist, but we also would just have normal conversations with
them. Before I became a stay at home mom, I was a retreat leader, so I was used
to spending all day talking to groups of teens. It was hard for me to stop. I
just kept going with the girls. During meals, I would talk to the girls about
all sorts of stuff whether or not they could actually talk back (the younger
one didn’t really speak English until she was about three and then needed
speech therapy to really clear it up which wasn’t until she was four) which
made the conversations one sided for a while, but now they are fun.
I watch the
news each day to keep up to date on the world outside my family; I make sure to
talk to other adults whenever possible even if just via facebook; I read books
that have absolutely nothing to do with being a mom; I talk to my husband about
his day and his job, too. All these things help me to remember that, even
though they are the center of my universe, the girls are not the entire
universe. It would be so easy to just focus on the girls all day, but I feel
like I would lose a bit of me if that happened. Plus, as they get older, I have
more time to spend doing my own stuff again. It is good to stay in touch so I
can ease back into the non-Sofi/Yasya world when they don’t need me so full
time.
Laugh. A lot. Parenting is hard. The stress and pressure and
sleep deprivation and financial strain and constancy of it can get to you. So
remember to laugh. When I remember to laugh, it is all worth it. That’s why I
have pictures of my kids and their art everywhere. I look at them and smile and
feel less tired. That is why I try to just keep my facebook statuses as their
silliness to remind me of how much fun I am actually having. Really, most of
the time, being with them is joy. Sometimes, it isn’t, to be honest. Sometimes
all moms worry so much and get so overwhelmed we cry and call our sisters for
help or just to vent. Then we look at those pretty blue eyes and remember Yasya
saying, “you should wear blue socks with pink cowgirl boots because somewhere pink
and blue flowers might exist and that would be pretty, you know.” And then it’s
all worth it.
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| This is how most of the time is. The yucky crying, stressing, fighting time really is much less but can feel like more if I forget to focus on the laughter. |
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