Parenting bloggers Heather of 6:30 and a Glass of Wine and Pat of Manchild were asked a series of 10 questions about parenting. These are their responses.
1. What type of parent are you currently? strict, easy going, worrying, etc.
6:30 – I think I was easy going once for an hour or so one afternoon in the third grade. Since then, and especially since giving birth, easy going has gone. I worry. I fret. I imagine the worst case scenario. And I’m actually pretty strict. As strict as you can be with a fifteen month old. I have a pile of “fancy” books on the coffee table – you know, the big artsy kind that fool people into thinking you’re worldly and cultured- I will NOT remove those books, and little Mr. Baby has been made aware of the parameters. So far they remain unscathed and in their place. Did I mention I haven’t yet learned to pick my battles?
Manchild – Removed, I’m the one working so I’m gone most days. It makes me feel like I have two sons. The one who is happy and cute in the morning after a full nights rest and the other that has been up all day who wants only his mother and resembles a two-headed demon.
2. What have you learned from your child?
6:30 – That I’m a nut job. And that I love him, with great heaving gobs of love.
Manchild – That I apparently do like babies after all. Well, at least mine. Please keep all other ones away as I am full up in the baby department.
3. What could you do better as a parent?
6:30 – Relax. Relaaaaaaaaax.
Manchild – A lot. But for starters I could learn how to get him to sleep without 90-minutes of crying (baby steps, I know)
4. Do you find yourself “Keeping up with the Jones” or paying attention to fads?
6:30 – Recently, my husband and I took our son into a pool. In the nearby lane, a no nonsense mother was tersely instructing her two tiny daughters to swim. She had a nine month old. Swimming. It was as if we suddenly sprouted straw hats and buck teeth-we felt like the pool hillbillys with our baby who was whining and clinging to his father in fear. I definitely had that moment of, ‘ look what those kids can do’, but it passed.
Manchild – Not yet, but lets just say I won’t be happy if I hear someone’s kid hiking bigger mountains at a younger age.
5. When was the last time you said something positive to yourself or your spouse about your parenting
6:30 – Er…..yeah, I don’t spend a lot of time praising myself as a mother. I do however spend a lot of time praising myself for having the hands down cutest baby in the history of the world.
Manchild – What are you saying 6:30? Have you seen my son? Click here for photos.
read the final 5 from the Q&A tomorrow on the Manchild blog