Listy

I never thought I’d:

• Co-sleep (totally fell into that one, and I’m glad!)
• Get excited about diapers (cloth will do that to ya if you are a lover of fabric)
• Yell (I do my best to hold it in, but when the kid smacks me right in the face, I sometimes lose my temper)
• Give my son a pacifier

I’m proud of myself for:

• sticking with cloth diapers, despite the naysayers
• having a somewhat natural labor (while I did consent to induction, I managed to forgo pain meds) despite the naysayers
• breastfeeding for 17 months and counting, despite the many problems we encountered
• pumping at work for 15+ months (which will hopefully be over in a few short weeks), although I didn’t find this too difficult – it ended up being a great time to get reading in
• going against the norm and not circumcising my son
• using the pacifier only sparsely (and we haven’t used one for about a year now)
• educating myself on foods, particularly allergenics, so as to avoid nuts, chocolate, etc. in my <2 yo (especially since food issues run in my husband’s family, and because Jack already has a pea allergy)
• keeping Jack’s baby book up-to-date
• sticking to my ideals
• limiting television (I would get rid of the tv if it was only up to me), especially Baby Einstein

Things I aim to be better at:

• scrutinizing vaccinations (we will say no to the chicken pox and flu vaccines, but I need to understand the vaccine debate better in general)
• cooking more meals from scratch
• attending more play dates
• figuring out how to get Jack to sit still long enough to get his nails clipped regularly
• getting more “me” time
• emergency preparedness (I still have to get a will together, and acquire a first aid kit; I am scheduled to learn CPR next week)
• saying no to gifts that don’t fit in with our gender neutrality and no sports rules (unfortunately there is the little voice in my head that tells me I’m being ungrateful, but I would rather seem ungrateful than compromise on what I feel is best for my child) – I manage to say no about 80% of the time but sometimes I let things slide when I shouldn’t
• improving the parenting partnership with my husband