I don't trust myself

I have ordered 4 different books on child rearing and I'm in the middle of reading one I already had. Upon seeing an earlier post a friend let me borrow 3 of her parenting books. That makes 8 books total and I anticipate reading every single one of them from cover to cover if I can, hoping to gain some sort of insight as to how to raise my child. Why? Why do I think I'll be able to find it there? Why do I feel like I need someone else to tell me how to do it? It came to me last night as I was turning my light off and putting my book on my night stand. I don't trust myself. I don't trust my gut or my own personal resources to tap into as guidance and I need to overcome this.



I know I'll never parent perfectly. I know I'll be apologizing to Elyse for times I was wrong or acted in ways I shouldn't have. I know I'll never have all the answers. I know I'll never know a lot of things and I know that I need more confidence. I really think these books will help me with that.



We're trying to teach Elyse not to touch/play with or on the entertainment center. She will crawl over to it and go to pull on the drawers. I look at her with a straight face, shake my head and make our decided upon "no" noise. She watches me intently, whimpers and puts her hand down briefly. Then the entire thing is repeated with her second attempt but this time she crumbles at being disciplined, and I mean crumbles. She starts hysterically crying and for the first time today she even had a bit of a tantrum. I didn't know what to do. She has never had a tantrum and in all honesty I thought she was too young. Did I just break my sensitive child's spirit? I've seen all the "strong-willed child" parenting books but where are the "parenting your dramatic child" books? I could feel the doubts rising and my confidence falling and I knew I needed to stop there. I picked her up and explained in an unemotional voice that I loved her and that I'm so happy God made her but that as her mommy there will be times I set boundaries and make rules for her that she won't always like but it doesn't make them any less necessary or important. I told her she was okay and there was no need to be so upset, tantrum still going on I set her back on the floor and walked away. She carried on for a few more moments but then quickly found the interest of a toy and I could hear her babbling and giggling so I returned to the room and played with her. The talk was obviously more for me than it was for her and when it was all said and done I feel like I handled it okay but I still can't believe I'm actually parenting. Parenting a 10 month old none the less and apparently a dramatic, sensitive one at that. I have no idea what I'm doing and if this one incident is any indication of what I'm up against I am in for quite the ride.

It's been 3 days since then and I can honestly say she hasn't attempted to touch or go near the entertainment center once and I can hardly believe it. I'm not counting my chickens yet but it has encouraged me none the less.

New things: She went for a weight check today and was 16# 8oz which is in the 6th percentile. She gained 4 oz and dropped 3% points in 4 weeks so in theory if she keeps with this trend she will fall off the charts by one year, possibly sooner. No alarm bells sounded, no interventions recommended, we will just follow up in another month. She has some top teeth now and has started grinding them on her bottom ones which makes me cringe but it's something new to her so of course she does it over and over. She is a waving champ and one of my favorite things that she does now is when I lay her down to sleep she pops right up, grinning ear to ear and waves at me as I close the door. I just love it. She has also started "dancing" when her toys play music which I find very amusing. I think she said "shoes" today which would make that her first word. While we were sitting in the pediatricians office she grabbed her foot with her shoe on it and said "choo". The mom sitting next to me asked, "Did she just say shoe?" I said, "It sure sounded like it, but that would be a first." Because her weight is that of the average 6 month old people are often surprised at the things Elyse does or says but once they hear her age they aren't nearly as impressed ;).

The weekend: Friday night we ordered pizza and just relaxed a bit. Saturday morning I drove around a little at our semi-annual community garage sale and bought a few new toys for Elyse. After her morning nap we went to the beach and despite the stagnant heat at our house the breeze coming off the water made for perfect beach weather. We took a little walk along the beach and as we were coming back to our tent and chairs I noticed someone rummaging through our stuff. I told Matt what I thought I was seeing and he quickly ran ahead. Sure enough there was a woman going through our belongings and once Matt approached and questioned her she claimed her children dropped something although no children were around. Thankfully we left our wallets, cell phones, etc. in the car but it wasn't until a little bit later that we realized she was one bag away from our camera and camcorder. Both of those things could be replaced but we hadn't downloaded our video camera since we bought it the week Elyse was born. Every single video of her would have been gone. That is not replaceable.

We were thinking about it later that evening and we both realized how perfectly the scenario played out. Had we not seen her we wouldn't have learned a lesson or appreciated the hedge of protection that was around us that day. If she had taken our cameras without us seeing her at all I probably would have blamed myself for being irresponsible and misplacing them which surely wouldn't help my case for getting a digital SLR and I would have a very hard time forgiving myself for losing those memories. We caught her at the perfect moment to gain knowledge, understanding and gratitude without anything being sacrificed on our part. The timing was perfect and we're so thankful for that.

Parenting having been on my mind I asked Matt, "What would you say to Elyse if she was older and was asking questions about why that woman was doing that and why we handled it the way we did?" I pondered my own answer or actually my lack there of. Yes, parenting will be harder than I imagined.

Time to go read some books.