Some things
no one tells you
about being a
parent …
or that you won’t
believe until you have had your own …
- That you can get pregnant while nursing. Dylan was conceived when Emma was five months old. Yeah, I know harsh.
- That you will find yourself picking LEGOs out of the grimy dirt, when you sweep, every single day for up to ten years but who’s counting?
- That going out with friends would become a rare treat. And most of the time it will be sans your partner/spouse.
- When you do finally go out together with friends you will talk about your kids all night, even when you resolve not to do so, and you’re thinking you’ve got to stop, and you don’t even want to talk about them. You will.
- You will never again go out to a coffee shop or bookstore just for fun with your partner/spouse, if anything it will be a drive by for coffee or books.
- Your life will be filled with at least 30% more picking up and your house will never be clean or organized.
- When your kids are young you will arrange “play dates” so that you can spend time with adults and when they are older you will arrange play dates so you can be away from your kids.
- You will soon consider Phineas and Ferb and Sponge Bob high brow television.
- You will find some children’s movies that you like, eventually, if you watch enough of them.
- There are no absolutes in parenting, because every child is different as well as every parent.
- That having no television at all in your life really is a good idea. People say it but few really do it, but if you start from the beginning it is totally okay. Your kids will be better off.
- That emotional hormones happen to boys as well as girls in the 10-13 years (I haven’t gotten farther yet) and it is okay to let boys cry. They will be better men for it.
- That your car windows will never, ever be without smudges so just let it go. Seriously I have tried to let it go, I really have, but I still hate smudges in my car.
- that your kids will be okay, no really they will no matter what you do (within reason.)
- It is never, never worth it to give in to a tantrum you will pay ten times over for your moment of weakness, times how many kids you have.
- Children are born selfish and it is a parents job to teach them they are not the center of the universe.
- They will eat their buggers, you can’t stop ’em. And it’s better than the alternative which is putting it somewhere.
- that these things really, really are true …
Please add to this list, parents!
Logic & Imagination 
I was relieved at 14 and then convicted/freaked out/bummed by 15. I was hoping my tantrums were somehow going to be forgotten some day.
(“Remember that time when you lost that Scooby Doo book 3 times and then we had to pay for it, and then you found it right where mom had told you to look and she was turning purple and holding on to the door handle while yelling–I think so she wouldn’t hit you,” says the 8-year old (this was 3 or 4 years ago, I can’t believe he remembers). “No,” says the 11 year old, giving me hope.)
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I don’t give into their tantrums, but I do sometimes give in and have one of my own. :)
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That you really will say . . .
“I can’t believe how fast they have grown – I remember when he/she was just a baby.”
That you will marvel at the fact that this child, your flesh and blood, has moments of brilliance, words of insight, and actions of faith, that just blind you with surprise.
That no matter what you say, how many times you say it, etc, that _______ (fill in the blank – towels, underwear, socks, etc) will be left on the floor in the ________ (bathroom, bedroom, hallway, etc).
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Tonya,
As you will see from my reply, that’s exactly how I took it! LOL It’s been so long since I had a kid tantrum (and I was very good at NOT giving in), that I immediately thought she was talking about “losing it” in front of the kids.
Ah well, feet of clay, brain of straw.
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