what i've learned as a mom

{crickets chirping}

Apparently not nearly enough.

OK...if I think long and hard about it I can think of maybe a few things.

That thing about nothing being able to prepare you for being a parent? Totally true.  Oh, you can read books and practice your diapering technique and Lamaze breathing, but until you've walked the floor with a one-week old baby in the wee hours of the morning, you really can't claim to know what it's like.  My mom, bless her heart, made us a big ole pot of chili the day she left to go back to St. Louis when Kate was a week old.  It was good chili.  Lots of beans. Lots.

Kate didn't like the beans so much.  Constant wailing.  Nothing could calm her.  I walked.  Ron walked.  I watched Ron walk some more.  Finally...a baby-sized toot and all was right with the world.  Lesson learned?  If you're nursing and the food you eat makes YOU fart, it will have the same reaction in your baby.

I've also learned that the little ones are pretty darn resilient.  I didn't drop either one of mine on their heads or anything, but I learned early on not to sweat the minor bumps and bruises that are unavoidable when toddlers become mobile.  Because if I went to pieces, they were going to follow suit and it wouldn't be pretty.  Both kids managed to bite through their tongues or lower lips at one point during their childhood and there was plenty of blood making an appearance, but soon enough it (and the tears) stopped.  I sound like a hard-hearted old hag, don't I?  I'm really quite compassionate.  When the occasion calls for it.

One of the harder lessons I've learned - and by harder I mean that it made me address some fairly ominous character flaws - is that it's ALWAYS best to count to ten (or higher) before opening your mouth when reprimanding a child.  I am the Queen Mother of knee jerk reactions and, therefore, I have said things that should have been kept in the snarky vault for eternity.  On the flip side, I've realized that a sincere apology, followed by a discussion of why I can say those kinds of words and they can't, always helps.

The one thing NO ONE tells you - because if they did you'd send your kids to a boarding school until they're fifty - is that parenting grown children is way harder than even a 13-year old girl.  Holy schmoly.  When your kids are little, their problems are little and can be easily fixed.  The older they get, the more complicated and convoluted the problems become and the harder they are to fix.

But.  Aha.  Therein lies the rub.  The role of the parent is not to be a perennial problem solver.  It's part of the circle of life to let your kids make mistakes and - God willing - learn from them.  AND NEVER REPEAT THEM AGAIN.  But I'd wager a month's supply of Metamucil that any parent of a grown child reading this has agonized - either in silence or in a full blown blow-out (that would be me) - watching their child walk out on a tightrope without a net in some life situation.  It's in our nature.  We can't help ourselves.  Once a parent, always a parent.  We worry.  I'm sure my mom still worries about me.  She probably worries about me worrying about my kids.

So...all you young parents who think being a parent gets easier, I'm here to tell you the truth.  It doesn't.  But that doesn't make it any less gratifying.  It only extends your contract and keeps the distillers of fine whiskey and vintners in business.  And it makes your hair gray.  Or fall out.  Or both.

I've still got some learnin' to do.  Hopefully Kate and Tyler will hang in there with me until I get it right.