Parenting 101: Don't Analyze, Accept.

My first official parenting, eh, lesson?  At least, it's the first I'm blogging about.

Don't Analyze (read: don't over-analyze), Accept.

This morning my early to bed, early to rise sweet daughter decided 6:00 AM was perfectly acceptable to be bright eyed and bushy tailed.  However, those big blue eyes only gleamed and that smile only curled for maybe 20 minutes before the grump-a-saurus-baby-rex (what Ryan calls her) returned.  She was still tired, but like most babies, she didn't realize that was the real issue.  She is staying awake for longer periods of time.  She doesn't want to miss a single beat, and often that results in a grumpy baby.  What does this have to do with over-anazlying?  Everything.  Mornings comes too quickly and there is never enough sleep to revive the bags under my eyes.  I haven't a good full nights sleep in well over a year.  I am tired, living off fumes and god-sent coffee.  When 6:00 AM rolls around I'm practically begging my daughter to close her eyes "just 30 more minutes."  Her response is always a series of coos and babbles indicating she is fully awake and no amount of nursing will woo her back to sleep.  Alas, I swing my feet off the bed, rub the sleep from my eyes, stumble around for my glasses, and head out the master bedroom door to start our day.  My husband is almost always still fast asleep.  Now, I'd like to say that my lack of sleep is the direct cause of my short temper, but I'm not positive that's the whole truth.  Facts are facts.  I am grumpy in the mornings.  I always have been.  I'm not the kind of grumpy that feeds off others or attacks others.  Rather, I'm the kind of grumpy that requires a short period of silence, aloneness, a chance to fully wake up.  In other words, please don't talk to me until I've been up atleast 30 minutes, and preferably not until after my shower.  Go ahead, laugh.  I am.  I am a mother.  My days of morning-silence and uninterrupted showers are over, at least, for a few years...I have to choose not to be grumpy in the mornings.  If I don't, my temper is short and my responses to Emma's fussing are not what I want them to be.  There it is.  Notice the "short temper", "Emma's fussing" all in the same morning time span.  As I was getting Emma dressed for the day, I felt like the light bulb switched from off to on.  I was listening to her not-quite-a-cry fussing, running through the possibilities as to why my baby was not happy...teethe?  She needs to poop?  Gas? Hungry?  Tired?  My tone of voice changed when I rhetorically asked "Why are you so cranky?"  Bam.  I was frustrated.  Sure I was tired, but I did not think about what I was saying or how it would come out.  Does she understand me and this phrase yet?  No.  That shouldn't matter.  She can sense my vibes only adding to her irritability.  Then I remembered the disagreement Ryan and I had the night before and the acceptance that I was, again, over-anazlying, creating a problem where there wasn't rather than accepting the situation and issue for what it was.  I was doing it again.  I was trying to fit Emma's crankiness into a bubble that would give me an answer, something I could fix.  Once I fix whatever is wrong she would be all smiles, my happy baby.  Right?  WRONG.  Very wrong.  I'm grumpy.  Emma's grumpy.  Ha.  Maybe she's not 100% like her daddy.  I saw glimpse of myself in her again.  Yes, she was tired.  Did a little boob and cuddles solve this?  Temporarily.  However, facts are facts.  She's not a morning person.  She appears to be when she first wakes up, teasing me with doe-like eyes and a gorgeous gummy grin, but if every morning the same pattern of events keeps happening then maybe it's just personality.  Surely she can't be tired, hungry, and gassy every.single.morning.  No, she's just not a morning kind of girl and that's ok.  There you have it.  This momma has been "schooled."  Here I am thinking that I need to teach my child all these things when reality is, parenting isn't much about teaching, it's more about learning - as in, I am learning.  I need to take a step back.  I need to recognize my daughters characteristics and personality traits rather than try to fit her into a problem - solution scenario.  I need to accept her for who she is.  I need to step back and acecpt every situation for what it is before trying to pick it apart. 

I foresee many, many lessons in my future.  Emma will teach me how to be a parent.  I can use these lessons to make myself a good parent, or I can continue to selfishly try to fit her into my pre-conceived parenting ideas.

I'm still in amazement at how intricate this parenting thing is.  I wonder what lesson I'll learn tomorrow!?