There is a variety of parenting advice out there that can be had just for the asking (or more often, for the not-asking!). But there are some situations in the face of which even the most competent child-carers throw up their hands in defeat. Here’s a list of the advice I wish someone could give.
1. How to un-glamorize the toilet plunger in the eyes of a toddler.
2. How to drink coffee and eat chocolate in front of your baby/toddler without him demanding that he be allowed to partake. (No, I don’t give my baby coffee. That’s not what I meant by “one of those mothers.” Are there any of those mothers?)
3. How to watch TV without your baby getting any of the dreaded screen-time that he is supposed to avoid completely until he’s two. (For that matter, how to do anything you shouldn’t really be doing without your child of any age wanting to emulate you. How to be a Bad Person and Raise a Good Kid – that’s a book I would read.)
4. How to convince your baby to bang on his toy piano instead of your computer keyboard.
There is a lot more advice that I could use, which will be abundantly clear in my next “Wins and Losses” post, but for now, any thoughts?
Stay-at-home mom to baby Paul and wife to future law student, Sam. We live in a miniature dollhouse in Queens, NY and I sometimes pretend to be a grad student.
Haha! What great pictures of Paul. Let me know if you figure any of these things out!
Believe it or not, David’s mom told us that when she was little, the Amish used to give their babies coffee with soggy bread. They called it “coffee soup.”
Here is the sad little truth, you will spend a lifetime teaching your children all these things that they need to be successful in life, and ultimately “think” that perhaps you had many “wins” after all, and then your 20 year-old daughter will comment, that she “learned everything about how to run a household” NOT FROM YOU, but from her sister-in-law. I love your blog by the way!
Hannah just said I could write the book “How to be a bad person and raise a good kid.” Hahaha!
Is that a compliment? And now she said I let her be a bad person with her and watch smutty shows.
Haha! Hallmark really needs to make use of Hannah’s talents for Mother’s Day cards.
Amber – can you imagine these boys caffeinated? The odd thing about Paul is, he likes to play with an empty coffee cup, but only if we put a drop of coffee in it so that it smells like coffee.