Round Two: Things I’m doing differently with my second child

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When you are preparing to become a mother for the first time, it’s difficult to comprehend just how steep the learning curve in raising a human actually is. No amount of research can do justice to the sheer number of lessons to be learned and the speed at which they will come at you.

But somehow we manage to keep these tiny beings alive and become more seasoned in our parenting as each day passes. By the time the second baby comes we have this child rearing thing down pat…right? Baby number 2 is a chance to right all of your wrongs; to look back at the silly mistakes and expectations and do it the ‘right’ way this time around! Yay! So here it is… a very condensed list of things I vow to do differently as I enter my newest adventure in parenting!

Letting my house be a mess.

One of the major regrets I have in looking back at my son’s first year of life is my desire to “do it all.”  The amount of time that our littles will allow us to hold and squeeze and schmoosh them is too short to spend even a moment of it accomplishing mundane and insignificant tasks. So here’s to letting that laundry pile up and to using your socked foot to sweep crumbs under the cabinets where your guests won’t see them!

Embracing (and trying to love) my new bod.

I spent countless hours mourning my pre-baby body and even more time killing myself to get it back. Some women have it in their genetics to bounce right back… I am not one of those women. So I’m cutting myself a little slack this time. There are more pressing matters than the number on my bathroom scale. In fact, screw that scale! Until she is able to deduct the weight of my milk producing boobs, she has no place in my life. After all, they HAVE to be like half of my body weight at this point, right?image

Breastfeeding and being grateful (even when it sucks).

Since we are on the topic of boobs, I would like to say how grateful I am to be able to nurse my second child. For many reasons, it didn’t work out with my first and that was a very difficult loss to accept. So even when it hurts, or I’m sick of smelling like an old milk carton, or I’m just plain exhausted and wish my husband could do something, ANYTHING, to help me…I choose to be grateful. Even though it’s something our bodies are supposed to be able to do, it doesn’t come easily to everyone and I’m lucky to have gotten a second chance.

Accepting that, in parenting, nothing (and I mean NOTHING) goes according to plan.

Oh, you have a birthplan? That’s cute. You might as well toss that crap out the window on your way to the hospital! And while you are at it, you should probably learn to forego having expectations and assume that if something CAN go awry, it usually will. I am a planner by nature so learning to let go of the reigns a little is tough. Not as tough, however, as seeing a lot of hard work and planning on my part go right down the toilet when something unexpected happens. I try to embrace the chaos of uncertainty and go with the flow.

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