My List

I usually think in terms of lists. I don't know if that's weird or if other people make mental lists all day, every day, but that's me. And I think my daughter does it, too. When I ask her what they did in class after I pick her up from school, Iris happily catalogues, "We played outside- check! We painted- check! We did our Weekly Reader- check!"
Anyway...
Lists. I have been thinking, for a while now actually, of a list of things I think are valuable parenting "thingies" that no one usually talks about, or warns you of, or maybe things veteran parents just take for granted as fact without realizing that it's a learned truth...
Or maybe this list is just things I personally have found to be valuable lessons along the way but that other people would write off as hog-wash (things I still need to remind myself of on a daily basis, too).
No doubt about it, parenting is an intensely personal undertaking. But I always like knowing how other people do it, the tricks other people have up their sleeves and the lessons others have learned.
This is by no means a finished list and it is in no particular order. I just want to get it out there so that I can make room in my brain for more lists. This is a work in progress (and probably geared more toward new parents? I don't know. I don't know why I have been thinking about these things really. Just things I know now that I didn't always know that someone else might benefit from!):

- If you don't have a pediatrician that you feel comfortable calling up after business hours to ask for advice or to call in a prescription, find a different pediatrician. 
- The amount of band-aids you apply to a scrape (real or imagined) directly affects how quickly it will heal.  (They are only band-aids. Dole them out with abandon!)
- Crying for 15 minutes won't give your newborn brain damage.
- If you are feeling overwhelmed trying to keep the house clean and laundry caught up and dishes washed while trying to take care of your child, you need to stop and simply focus on one thing.
- If you stopped and simply focused on any one thing other than having fun with your child, you are doing it wrong. None of that other stuff really matters.
- Watching TV won't give your child brain damage.
- Everything is new and awesome to kids. You don't need to bend over backwards or even leave the house to make each day great. you don't even have to be all that creative, really.
- Never specify on your child's Christmas or birthday gift list that you don't want toys that make noise or light up or whatever. People will buy those obnoxious lumps of brightly colored plastic regardless of what you prefer. And your kid will love those obnoxious lumps of brightly colored plastic. Embrace the fact that your kid will not always want to quietly play with wooden toys and sit silently with books. You can always "lose" the batteries after a week.
- "Educational toys" are a load of crap. Kids learn just as much with a stick and a mud puddle.
- Let your kid get dirty.
- Regular routine is good. Strict schedule, not so much. Don't keep your eye on the clock so much. Let each moment happen as it happens and slow the pace!
- If you find a sippy cup that is truly spill-proof, buy 100 of them.
- Don't put milk in cups with complicated valves.
- Breastfeed. Do it. At least give it a fair shot before ditching it.
- Don't encourage your kid to crawl.
- Infancy seems like it lasts forever. Days with a newborn can be incredibly dull and impossibly long and just plain difficult to get through.
- It seems trite, but infancy actually flies by incredibly fast. The days are long but the months are so so fast.
- No one ever thinks that their perfect, complacent newborn (or 6 month old, or 10 month old, or 13 month old) will ever ever be as bratty as that other person's toddler. They would never let that happen!
- Everyone wishes, at some point or another, that their bratty toddler was still the perfect 6 month old they once were (see what I did there? mmhmm).
- No one knows what they are doing when it comes to being a parent. Everyone is flying by the seat of their pants and making it up as they go along. If they tell you otherwise, they are lying.