Parenting: First the Worst, Second the Best

When we had our first child - I had wild expectations for them. This child - made from us, of course they will do everything awesome, because: WE ARE AWESOME!!!

We studied so much on how to be the best possible parent. Getting all the advice. Reading all the books. Watching every video out there.

We armed ourselves prepared for anything and everything.

Except, things didn’t happen like we read about them. Some things:

• sleep training
• feeding
• potty training
• walking (without crawling)

Let’s just say, I had high hopes because I trained in the best way to teach those things and it was disappointing when reality did not match expectations.

When our second child came - we were still busy with the first, so we didn’t have as much time to comb through all the research or prepare things like the first time.

We just… winged it.

I thought:

Well, things didn’t turn out so bad with number one - we must be doing something right.

Another thing happened with child number two that didn’t happen with the first: I dropped my expectations.

Gone were the: get everything done right the first time, because I know what it actually takes. The advice, books, videos, etc. were there, yet, the reality is my own.

This made everything the second one did for me as either as:

• “Yup, as expected” OR
• “WOW, they did it faster than expected. I’m impressed!”

I went from constantly disappointed to sometimes impressed. I am glad the second one is there to show us we are good parents.

At the same time, the first child did do a lot of work on US: to train us to be good parents.

The second one just has to waltz in and look good.

That’s why I’m glad we have two kids - we learn so much from both, even doing the same thing.