The Parenthood Experience

Before you become a parent you know that there will be late night feedings when you have an infant, you understand that you are in charge of a little person's life and you sort of know that your life will forever change once your child enters your world. You just don't quite realize how being a parent changes everything about you until your child enters your world.

When I found out I was pregnant, I was elated. Like most women do when they are pregnant, I read up on pregnancy, planned for the birth and either bought or registered for all things baby. I bonded with my little person when he was inside of me. I loved feeling the kicks, would sing to him and did everything I could to take care of that little person.

Then on a warm summer afternoon, my son was born. The feeling of happiness my husband and I had was just indescribable. My son was healthy, beautiful and he was ours. We took the parenting role with hardly any problems once we got home. I am still amazed by my husband's ability of taking care of both my son and I that first week. We got into a semi routine of late night feedings, diaper changes and worked as a team. It was exhausting and exhilarating all at the same time.

As my son grew from an infant to a toddler, we realized that things were rapidly changing. We still hadn't received a full nights sleep. Going places took a bit of prep work and planning and we had to really organize our schedule on when we would do things. And then even with careful planning and organization, life has gone from scheduled to unpredictable. I am not complaining, just stating the facts. Ear infections would make a content toddler not very tolerable. Naps if they last under two hours told us the outcome for the rest of the day would be less then pleasurable. Teething was another problem. The lack of communication a toddler has when he REALLY wants something was difficult to guess. For my husband and I, it woke us up to realizing a new stage has entered our lives.

My son is what you call all boy. He is an amazing individual with so much personality. He's feisty, stubborn, sweet, cuddly, and full of gusto. His personality traits can be so wonderful in entering into new situations. He takes them on head strong without a care in the world. He is not a shy individual. He dives in head first. With those character traits comes some down fall though in wanting to do things he shouldn't or can't, so therefore he gets quite frustrated. For instance, the other day he thought he could go down two steps with his ride on toy as if he was going down a ramp. Wrong! He cried for a second (I would of cried longer if I was him), but then went right on to playing. I was shocked.

So I guess what I am trying to say is that you can never predict what your experience will be or what little personalities your children will have. Its amazing the things they come up with or the little quirks that they have (good and bad). You can see yourself in your own child and then you can see your spouse in your child as well. Its like they carefully picked traits of you both and ran with it. We are learning new things everyday with handling temper tantrums, communication and connecting as a family. My son is not cutting my husband or I short on the whole parenting experience thats for sure.