On the Job Training

This has been a week of firsts in a lot of ways for me. It has been a wonderful week and it has been a ROUGH week!

Parenting is on the job training. You don't get a trial run at it (like many other things in life). No matter what parenting philosophy or lack of philosophy that you follow, no matter how many books you did or did not read, and no matter how much good or bad of a job you think you are doing rearing your children...there is always room for improvement. Sometimes that learning process is through happy times and sometimes it comes about by mistakes.

For my learning curve this week, I learned that just because Jaxon performs well for national television on Monday morning doesn't mean he is going to remain in that same jovial mood for the entire week. Maybe I should have the GMA crew here more often. They seemed to put him in a trance.

I learned that even when mama is sick, Jaxon still wants to be entertained 24/7 (during the awake hours which don't always coincide with mine).

I learned that he somehow senses that I am sick and starts to give me true cuddles along with reaching for me to "pep" me up for the upcoming playtime.

I learned that once he starts learning a new task, he doesn't want to give up until it's conquered (ie: crawling and sitting) for anything that I may have in mind!

I learned that because of the last above said statement, you don't place and undiapered child on your lap until you are really ready to pay attention to his potty signals because he has been holding his potty trying to master his new skills.

I learned that mommy better be ready when increasing diaper free time and decreasing misses!

But most importantly, I learned that even though I am sick and thought that I wanted a "break"; I really didn't. I thought I wanted Don to take him and comfort/play with him while I sat on the couch and rested. Instead, I really just sat there watching him and waiting for him to come back to mommy to eat so I could snuggle. It's true...I'm a sucker for his cute little chubby cheeks and big "I'm happy and full" grin that I get when he eats now!

It's a tough job, but somebody's gotta do it!!