Before I had children, I figured that only very weak people failed to control a normal baby.
I mean, really, normal babies can’t walk, they barely talk, they can’t pack their bags and leave—what was there for a parent to fear?
Plenty, I learned. Like a sleepless night if I wasn’t calming baby by rocking her to sleep at just the right speed, with just the right song, and then creeping out of the room with just the right touch.
Or a mall meltdown if I didn’t time our shopping trip long enough before lunch or short enough after nap. Or a complete shutdown if I pushed her too fast to try new things or meet new friends.
All these demands were enough to make a grown mom fume. After all, who cooked the food, paid the bills and wiped the messy bottoms? I paid my dues—shouldn’t I get to be boss?
It didn’t take long before I learned that the child I’d expected and the child I had were sometimes very different people. For example, I’d dreamed about a self-soothing night-time sleeper. Instead, I had a baby who needed lots of help to relax. I expected a friendly, social butterfly. I had a “let’s take it slowly” kind of recluse.
As long as I tried to re-make my child in my own image, neither one of us was happy. Once I started to follow her cues and respond to her needs, I discovered that her way of doing things weren’t always wrong—just different from what I expected.
I still make rules about bedtime, nutrition and never, ever biting your brother. But when it comes to deciding how we live out each day, now we share.