I love my kids, I just hate parenting
Parenting is not a competition. But that doesn’t stop some parents from treating it like one.
Last week I wrote a post about the self-loathing I felt upon stating my son’s age in months. The first comment I received was a joke about how I should get my son checked out because he’s not yet walking on his own.
At least I hope it was a joke.
There a lots of different types of parents: Good parents, bad parents, absentee parents, foster parents, single parents, gay parents, neo-Nazi parents, etc.
And then there are those cute little couples who have children and live near family. But I hardly consider them parents at all.
Real parents do it all by themselves.
Thankfully, he won’t remember teething.
He won’t remember shoving his fists in his mouth and chewing on his tiny fingers, just to get some relief. He won’t remember his parents’ frustration and exasperation as they attempted to diagnose and then treat what appeared to be a totally phantom issue (like so many of them are). He won’t even remember the blissful relief a few drops of Baby Orajel afforded him, but that probably has less to do with his unformed brain and more to do with the fact that Baby Orajel doesn’t do shit.
No, he won’t remember the days weeks months of pain that came with the slow emergence of his first teeth. But neither will Mom and Buried and I forget them anytime soon.
I can’t wait until he’s ready to lose his baby teeth in a few years, because at the first sign of a wiggle I am going to pull them out and grind them into dust!
My son hit the eleven-week mark yesterday.
The bigger news is that he hit the 13 pound mark a few weeks ago. Upon crossing the 12-pound Rubicon (WHY DID THEY CANCEL “RUBICON”?!), our pediatrician told use that he was perfectly capable of sleeping through the night without needing to be fed. “Twelve hours. I know it sounds tough,” she said, “and it is, but you have to establish the routine.”
Apparently he needs to learn to soothe and sedate himself, even if it means crying himself hoarse, and it won’t be until he gets to college that he’ll learn all the fun ways to do that!
Until then, “Crying It Out” is the way to go…or is it?