A Mommy Story

While I was laid up over the past two days I spent some time browsing my new Parenting and Parents magazines. Nothing like my monthly dose of “What rare disease or disorder could your child have?” to cheer me up.

Truthfully, I love reading all of the advice they dole out in these magazines. While some of it applies to me, most of it does not. I notice that many of the same topics come up over and over, leading me to believe that there is an “epidemic” of these problems among parents.

Now, my daughter certainly isn’t perfect. She’s stubborn. She’s strong willed. She has a fiery temper that could bring some dictators of small countries to their knees. She doesn’t nap long enough. She still won’t completely hold her sippy cup (we’re making progress, though!). She bites and hits when she’s angry.

But after reading these magazines, I see that really I’m pretty lucky. We’ve managed to avoid some major battles. While I could credit it all to my spectacular parenting skills (sarcasm there, folks), I don’t think that’s it. I think the particular problems we encounter as parents are due to two parts: the genetic cards we’re dealt, and how we manage those cards.

Here’s a list of some of the “major issues” (as determined by reading parenting magazines) we’ve managed to avoid so far.

Pacifiers – Oh, when she was a colicky newborn, I begged for her to take a pacifier. I would have given all my assets for someone to come along with the perfect pacifier that she would accept with ease. We tried just about every kind, but she wasn’t interested. In a big F.U. to Freud’s stages of development, she proved that her oral fixation was more towards screaming, and less towards sucking. However, it seems that this may have worked out for the best. Other kids her age and older are fighting their parents over weaning off the pacifier. That is one battle I’m happy to not deal with.

Extended sleep routines – Bedtime here involves daddy giving her milk, then carrying her upstairs, putting her in her crib, pulling the blanket over her, and walking out. She rolls over and goes right to sleep. She doesn’t insist on a book, or three, to read. She doesn’t even mind much if daddy isn’t the one to put her to bed. I have a friend who still nurses her 23 month old, and bedtime for them involves nursing him down, patting his back, and laying with him until he falls asleep. It usually takes 45-60 minutes! Plus, she has to be the one to put him to bed – it doesn’t work well at all if his father tries to lay with him to get him to sleep. Now, while I think in that situation she’s partially to blame for the difficulties she goes through, there are other kids who are just scared to go to bed and be away from their parents, which leads to long, drawn-out routines. Little Miss Independent doesn’t care about being away from us at night, I guess.

Co-sleeping – It seems that half of the families on Nanny 911 have the problem of co-sleeping when their kids are 6 or 8 years old. I guess some kids like co-sleeping so much they refuse to give it up. We originally co-slept with Cordelia, but only until 4-5 months. It’s not that we didn’t like it: she didn’t like it. When we moved her to her crib, she started sleeping better and only waking 1-2 times a night at most. It was clear that being in bed with us was not her style. At least it gave us the ability to have sex at night again.

Refusing to eat – Some of my friends are dealing with this one. They have toddlers who occasionally refuse to eat and survive on dust and air for entire days. Not my bottomless pit. Food is something she’s very serious about. Missing a meal is unheard of here, or at least, if we miss one, she’ll make sure we do hear all about it. While she has some serious preferences towards certain foods, she’ll always find at least one thing to eat, like three dinner rolls.

Respecting pets – Our cats were here before Cordelia, and we wanted her to learn to be gentle with them early on. So far we’ve been successful. The cats love her, and she adores them. Other toddlers tend to chase the cats, or get so excited around them that the cats become scared and run for the upstairs. Cordelia is very gentle with them. She will wave cat toys around for them to play with. They are her furry brothers.

Fear of strangers – While she occasionally gets upset when I leave her, most of the time she’s comfortable with anyone. I keep waiting for the stranger anxiety to come back, but nothing yet. We were at a housewarming party on Sunday, and Cordy was the center of attention. She had no fear going up to people she’s never met and talking to them (or trying to sneak food off of their plates). I hope she eventually develops some fear of strangers, or teaching her about bad strangers when she’s older will be difficult.

Now, I’m certainly not saying that my daughter is a candidate for Miss Toddler USA. She’d probably dirty the pageant dress when she threw herself down for a tantrum, smear food in her hair, run away with the microphone and bite the judges. But sometimes it’s good to see that she doesn’t have every behavioral problem out there. She’s a normal toddler, although a normal toddler who happens to have some different issues than others.

So, what common issues do your children not have?