My Girl

Looking back, the majority of posts lately have been about Caleb and how I am adjusting to parenting a toddler, now preschooler. But there is another very important little one at our house: my girl.

Chloe is chill. She takes everything in stride. Brother beating her over the head with a car? A quick yell, and she moves away from him. Mean mommy takes away the markers she is trying to eat? Stomps her feet a couple of times and finds something else to play with. And she loves books. I mean really loves them. She will bring me a pile of books and happily sit in my lap while I read to her for half an hour.

She wakes up in the morning glowing. She is full of smiles and cuddles for mom or dad. She claps her hands when she sees her daycare teachers and friends. She says "Hi!" to just about everyone in the supermarket.

She is that confident, exuberant, effortless beauty that I always wanted to be. I hope her charisma and laid back attitude stay with her - especially during those tumultuous teenage years.


Sometimes, I look at Chloe and I wonder what I did so differently between my two kids. Caleb is shy, and occassionally self-depricating. I wonder if it is the difference in my confidence in my ability to parent this time around or truly deep-rooted personality differences? Believe me when I say that I understand (even though I am an only child) that there are differences between my kids. I know that even if I was doing exactly the same thing with them, that they would turn out to have their own personalities and quirks. I guess it just makes me reflect back on my psych minor and wonder the extent of nature vs. nurture.

On Parenthood

We have officially been living in our house for two years now. And FINALLY, I feel like we are making some friends. There are two sets of parents who have little ones Caleb's age whom we have become closer with. Close enough to count them as our emergency contacts for daycare. Close enough to call up for an impromptu dinner or playdate. And it's nice. Really nice.

But it's not the same as having a good girlfriend.

When we were living in Alabama, the girlfriends that I had that had children of their own we in the same new stage of mommyhood that I was in: inexperienced, full of doubt, and a little scared.

I'm still scared.

I'm scared that I am going to so thoroughly mess up my child that he won't be a productive member of society. I am scared that when I lose my temper with him that I am scarring him for life. I'm scared I'm over-disciplining him. I'm scared that I'm not disciplining him the right way.

I want so badly to have a child that is a competent, rational thinking, charismatic, loving member of society. And I'm really afraid of screwing him up.
The moms that I've met here are confident. And chill. I don't feel like they obsess over parenting like I do, because it seems to come so naturally to them. I wanna be chill. But it's not in my make up.

For example, we had a playdate today with a mom and her two boys who live down the street. We were going to play in the pool, eat some hotdogs and hang out. I worried so much about it I had bad dreams last night. Then I frantically cleaned the first floor of the house this morning. And to be honest, the playdate went well, but I over-thought every little thing and stressed out about how I spoke to my children in front of this other mother.

So, I need to learn how to chill. Are they selling personalities yet on ebay?