When my friends and I talk about our kids, we seem to have big dreams about what we want them to learn. What to teach and how should we teach them? What age will they learn best? How did/will you do it? Numbers, letters, manners, etiquette, behavior…we discuss them all in one way or another. However, what we don’t ever seem to consider is what we’re learning from them.
I’ve only been a mom for 3 ¼ years now, and while I feel I’ve gained some real knowledge in that time, I also know this is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. That being said, here are a few things I have learned about myself and life in general since having a child. Keep in mind, I’m very much a work in progress.
- Order vs. creativity. I am Will Ferrell’s character in The Lego Movie. Or at least I was. Kids don’t care about building things according to the set description or not squishing Playdoh colors together to form something that looks like unicorn poop. They just want to play. There should be NO rules to imagination (other than to keep to the designated play area because this mommy has not grown that much yet.) I had to allow myself to just let my OCD-like behavior go. My insides still have a little scream when I open the Playdoh containers, but I no longer want to scream out loud. Most of the time.
- Patience is a freakin’ virtue, right? Yeah, I’m not always the most patient person. I admit it. I can sit down and put a 5,000 piece puzzle together without feeling rushed, but I tend to run on a tight schedule if I have places to go and people to see. That all changed when I had my daughter. Now I’m late for pretty much everything and I find nothing more annoying than to be late. While I still tend to run hot when I should have been somewhere 10 minutes ago and yell “Let’s Go!” in a tone much too loud, I’m getting better. Baby steps. Now, if only if my daughter could learn to put her shoes on the correct feet, this mommy might not feel like her head wants to explode every time we need to leave the house.
- Pink is okay. I’m not what I would consider a girly-girl. The idea of makeup, clothes shopping and heels are torture to me, and when my daughter was born I was just so determined for her to be the same way. Her nursery was blue with a Peter Rabbit theme. My skin crawled when I was forced to buy pink onesies for her as an infant because there were no other options. Guess what her favorite color is now? Actually, it’s orange, but pink comes in a close number 2. She gets as much joy out of her pink sparkle boots as I do when she wears her blue “I’m going to be an engineer when I grow up” shirt. She can be many things all at once, and I’m cool with that.
- I’m a good mom. Please don’t mistake that comment as a statement of I’m better than you. That isn’t what I mean AT ALL. What it does mean is that we all have doubts about our parenting skills. There are countless family members, news stories, Facebook memes, magazine articles and talk show guests telling us what we should and shouldn’t be doing as parents. Screw them! My daughter is happy, healthy, creative, inquisitive, active and polite. I had to have been a part of that, right? Right?
What have you learned from having children?
