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Parenting, Twenty Years Later
Hint: It doesn’t get easier, just different.
Twenty-three years ago, on the Fourth of July, I had my first baby, a beautiful boy with downy hair and the sweetest smile. I thought I was completely ready for parenthood. After all, I had the mechanics down pat. I was the oldest sibling, the oldest cousin, the one who started babysitting outside the family at twelve years old. I had been through the diaper changes, the spit-up, the colicky crying for hours on end. I had even mastered Toddler-Speak and administering appropriate Time Out protocol, one minute per years-old. I was (and still am) known as The Baby Whisperer. Having my own kid? A piece of cake.
Uh, no.
What the manuals don’t tell you is that taking care of your own baby is vastly different than babysitting. For one thing, you can’t give the baby/toddler/mouthy older child back to their parents. You are the parent, it’s your problem. Crying babies are a lot more manageable when you get to go home and sleep. When your own babies are waking up every two or three hours to be fed, it can be absolutely mind-numbing. I remember thinking, in the haze of newborn days, that getting six hours of sleep was pure bliss. Today, sleeping only six hours at night would put me in a foul mood all day and give me a nasty headache.
