I'm not the kind of mom I thought I'd be

From my very limited pregnant understanding, there are different parenting categories, like attachment parenting, babywise parenting, more that I don't know, that you can decide to identify with once the baby pops out. I don't actually know anyone who has done this. Every parent of an infant (including me) that I know goes with one type of parenting. It doesn't have a fancy name, but in a nutshell, it's do the best you can to get through the day with a healthy child, question every decision you make - "is this going to ruin my child?" (spoiler alert, the answer is always yes), and for the love of god, try your best for everyone to get some f#$%ing sleep. So far, that parenting style has got us through nearly 8 months with no disasters, knock on wood.

I tried to keep my expectations of how I would handle motherhood low, since who really knows what life is like with an infant? But even so, I've strayed pretty far from the mom I thought I would be. Particularly in the following ways.

1. Sleep

We want this.

They want that. "Can't stop won't stop"

I love sleep. I figured I'd suffer through the first few months, then as soon as the experts said it was allowed, sleep train. I'm a teacher, so my job is literally to make kids cry (KIDDING). Obviously I could handle a few tears in the name of 8 glorious uninterrupted hours. Our pediatrician is all for sleep training right away, and pregnant me thought this was something we agreed on. Then I heard my own child cry and it all went out the window.

Here we are 8 months later, rocking to sleep, cuddling up, nursing to sleep (although lately that's not effective) and not minding the occasional co-sleeping.

Lazy Saturday morning.

I'm still all for it in theory. And tell myself I'll do it when we really need to. But I can guarantee it wouldn't work right now. If there's one thing all the baby sleep websites agree on, it's consistency. I know I would crack. So I regularly panic that he'll never get a good night of sleep in his life unless we move in with him as an adult and co-sleep, all because I was too weak when he was a baby.

Thursday I read some blog and it actually said, all in caps, that if you don't put your baby in the crib awake YOU WILL NEVER SLEEP THROUGH THE NIGHT. I'm not even joking, it said NEVER just like that. So naturally I panicked, because at that very moment Eric was snuggling Dalton to sleep, because he just loves sleeping on his daddy.



Then I realized - I'm a blogger too. Bloggers don't actually know anything. Some of us openly admit that, and some of us pretend to be experts for pageviews. Clearly she's in the latter camp, because we all already have slept through the night, on occasion.

2. Baby food

This just in - our kid likes buffalo wings and pizza.

I am definitely as busy as the average person with one child. I feel I could really hold my own in the classic "who's busier?!" pissing contest. I'm two episodes behind in Game of Thrones and that's actually an improvement over last week (but can I still talk about it with someone because I am DYING).

Just chew on this raw asparagus and stop bothering me. Winter is coming.

I got a food processor as a gift in August (from my friend with an awesome blog) and I was like, cool, maybe I'll make some baby food. I didn't plan to go crazy about it, because ain't nobody got time for that. It's actually really easy though, and I love to cook, and it turns out I love to cook for my kid even more. Soon he'll be a toddler and probably only eating chicken nuggets, so I might as well enjoy it while I can and attempt to make all his food and make it delicious.

It's definitely cheaper that way. I bought ingredients (beets, apples, carrots) for about the price of 3 of those teeny single serving jars and made about 15 baby servings the other day. We also do a lot of "here kid, have what we're eating", like penne with shrimp, feta, mint, and spring veggies (one of my favorite recipes make it immediately). I like that he eats all sorts of things that aren't usually considered "baby food", like chicken curry, for example.

I'm not on some sort of crusade against store bought food or anything. I bought puffs and teething wafers. I'm just lazy. It's a lot easier to buy and prepare one meal rather than one adult and a separate kid meal. I'm fine with the jarred stuff if I don't get a chance to make anything. Unlike formula, which I pretend to be fine with and I am in theory but deep in my heart I know I will cry the first time I give it to him, this I'm actually ok with.

2a. Organics

I've been buying all organic produce for Dalton, which I don't really understand because I was definitely under the impression it was a grocery store conspiracy before. BUT WHAT IF?! It actually doesn't make any sense because I don't eat organic, and still supply his actual nutritional needs. We also let him try pizza, buffalo wings, and a bagel with cream cheese this weekend, but I'm sure those organic beets canceled all that out. So far, we have not found even one food he has disliked.

3. Cloth diapers

I love our mother earth. I recycle. I bring actual silver wear to eat lunch at work instead of throwaway stuff. I tried to stop using paper towels except the reusable kind were inferior. But I wasn't about to become some hippie washing poop before heading off to my drum circle just to help limit waste in the landfills.

Then I had a baby and realized that once you are a parent, you are going to be dealing with poop, regardless of your diaper choice. We Facetimed with my BFF Kari and she gave us a tutorial, complete with a nursery tour and even modeled a diaper change. Modern day cloth diapers are pretty much just as easy as disposables, and soooo much cheaper.

Most importantly, they are significantly cuter.

Turtle power.

I mean...zebra butt.

Naturally, it was off the table until we owned our own washer and dryer, and now that we are actually living that dream, we made the switch. We haven't started sending them to daycare yet, but once we run out of size 3 disposables there, we will.

Long story short: I'm pretty different than I expected to be, and I'm still at the super easy stage. The part where I have to figure out how to mold him into a good person and productive member of society - TERRIFYING. Give me poop and 2am wakeups please.

Porch dinner date!

What part of adulting have you handled totally differently than you expected to?