parenting

Firsts for the Fourth

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 1 Comment

While America celebrated Independence Day over the July 4th weekend, we celebrated a number of firsts with Sprout.

My in-laws visited for the holiday, eager to spend time with Sprout before our August trip with them. They saw the trip as a bit of a “practice run” for Disney, testing out how he’d do with a variety of new experiences.

The first was staying up far past his bedtime to watch fireworks. He had actually seen fireworks before, but he was only two weeks old at the time. Then, we couldn’t bring him anywhere crowded because he hadn’t received his vaccines yet and I couldn’t muster much effort anyway in my sleep-addled state. So we just walked over to a pedestrian bridge less than half a mile away to see the town’s show half-blocked by buildings.

In contrast, this year we trekked up to lovely Frederick, Maryland, which hosts a huge 4th of July celebration at its city park, complete with bouncy rides, bathtub races, tons of food trucks (not the fancy ones), and a big fireworks display. Despite the other entertainments, the very first thing I noticed was how retro their playground was. After reading so many stories about how playgrounds are becoming overly safe to the point of monotony, it was refreshing to see metal slides and a merry-go-round! They even had a sand pit, where Sprout had his first feeling of sand between his toes as my mother-in-law helped him walk through it. Later on, we visited the petting zoo exhibit, where he got up close and personal with some goats. While he was mostly curious about them, it didn’t help when the farmer wrangled the baby goats out of the enclosure without a warning, causing all of the kids – human and not – to freak out.

After wandering around, we settled down to wait for the fireworks. With Can’t Stop Believin’ played by an adequate Journey cover band as our soundtrack, I tried to keep Sprout from wandering onto other people’s blankets and stealing their stuff. Just as he was experiencing new things, I too had to lighten up a little. As the culinary choices were limited, I tried to feed him some quesadilla (cheese has protein!), but he was totally uninterested. Instead, he managed to find his appetite for my Italian ice, slurping it down. Since he hadn’t eaten any dinner and we were outside any resemblance of a normal schedule, I let him eat as much sugar and red dye as he wanted. To quote my mother-in-law, “It’s July 4th!”

Despite missing his afternoon nap and the fireworks starting more than an hour after his bedtime, Sprout managed not only to stay awake until the show but more impressively, be in a good mood. He would have been a disaster if we had been at home, but there was enough people to look at that he forgot how tired he was. He even held out throughout most of the fireworks, watching them with the intense gaze that he’s turned to everything new since the day he was born. It’s a look of: “This is fascinating, but I’m not sure what to make of it yet. I’ll gather more information.” That was, until the finale. The continuous and overlapping booms put him over the edge and he burst out wailing. Fortunately, once the display was over, he calmed down and promptly fell asleep in his stroller despite the obstacle course-like path back to the car.

The next day, we continued the festivities by visiting a local outdoor mall that has a train ride, a carousel, and paddleboats. In my family, the mall is best known for the place where we did slow walking laps around the pond to induce labor when I was three days past my due date. Needless to say, this time around was much less stressful. To see how Sprout would potentially handle rides, my mother in law wanted to bring him on the carousel. Chris sat Sprout on a horse, holding on to him from the side, while I rode an eagle next to them. Much like with the fireworks, Sprout’s expression was observant without being outwardly happy. I have a suspicion this is going to be a common look at Disney. While he didn’t smile, I think he enjoyed it – he certainly knows how to let us know otherwise – and I suspect he would become much more obviously joyful as he got used to it. He was pretty impassive the first time we pushed him on the baby swing at the park, but now he grins in response.

That night, my in-laws got to be the guinea pigs for another first – the first time someone other than Chris or I put Sprout to bed. After a lot of bedtime drama that involved Sprout whining loudly at me for more than a half-hour a night, Chris recently switched to putting him to bed. But it would be a whole different challenge for someone else to put him down. Would he be worried that we weren’t there? Would he cry and reject consolation? Would he want to continue playing with Grandma and Granddad? Whatever happened, we wouldn’t be there to find out, gallivanting around D.C. baby-free. We bar hopped, going from one to watch the World Cup to another to play chess and skeeball. We wandered downtown, popping in a candy shop with adult confections, watching a street dance / acrobatics group that half-failed at their tricks, and listening to a jazz band on a corner in Chinatown. We finished the night with dinner at a fancy restaurant, eating Fruits de Mer and fois gras. The time was just for just the two of us, where there were no dishes to be done or baby monitor on in the background. It felt like a big sigh of relief. Fortunately, bedtime went just fine, at least according to my in-laws. They didn’t elaborate and I didn’t ask for additional details.

The last day of their trip, we trekked to the town pool. Sprout loves splashing in the bath, but that’s quite different from even the kiddie pool. After slathering him up with enough sunscreen to let you walk on the sun, we put him in a disposable swim diaper and headed off. Much to my surprise, his shorts were already soaked when I lifted him out of his car seat, five minutes later. Lesson learned – disposable swim diapers are designed to allow pee to flow through, not hold it in. Ick.

Despite this knowledge, I still waded into the kiddie pool, holding Sprout’s hand so he could walk. He was hesitant at first, looking up at me for reassurance. I’m constantly telling him not to stand up in the tub, so I’m sure he was confused by me encouraging him to walk through water. But once he caught on, he thought it was great, combining bath time with his current favorite activity, leading us around so he can practice walking. The fun only increased when they turned up the little fountains. Of course, he chose the one that had another kid at it who wasn’t interested in sharing. To avoid a showdown, I finally picked Sprout up and relocated him to a different fountain. Even when the kids were all at their own fountains, they kept eying each other and wondering what was so awesome about the other fountain that the other kid was using it. I spent an absurd amount of time at the pool as a kid, so I hope this is only the first of many visits.

From fireworks to fountains, Sprout had an eventful Independence Day weekend.

Breastfeeding Week: Open Letter to Advocates Against Covers

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 2 Comments

I believe in being positive, especially as a parent, but sometimes I get frustrated. I get angry when people are being oppressed, when someone is reinforcing prejudicial societal patterns, or when people are putting others in unnecessary pain. Rather than making Chris listen to me rant (yet again), I’ll write an Open Letter addressing whatever is making me angry.

As you can imagine from this week’s topic, I’m a big supporter of breastfeeding. I truly believe that hospitals, the medical institution in general, and all of society should support breastfeeding moms far more than they do, starting with placing the baby skin-to-skin immediately to accepting women feeding children in public. (Mega props to the Pope for furthering this cause.) I managed to breastfeed my son for a full year and am only now just tapering off. But I do have a reoccurring issue with how some advocates frame the issue of breastfeeding in public. While I appreciate that they don’t want to be shamed for nursing without a cover, I feel hurt by the way they refer to the idea of mothers covering themselves up. Terms like “breastfeeding burqa”, implying that I’m denying my baby fresh air (even though that article is pretty funny), and phrases like “I would never put my baby under a blanket!” make me feel as if I’m not “doing it right” or letting down feminists by wearing a nursing cover. While I think they intend to make nursing a more accepted activity, by denigrating a tool that enables many women to breastfeed who wouldn’t otherwise, I think they could be driving mothers away instead.

Personally, there is no way I would ever be able to breastfeed after a couple of weeks if I didn’t have my nursing cover. I am an extremely modest person; just scheduling the posts this week gives me the shakes. So when I started nursing Sprout in public, I became hyper-aware that people would be thinking about my breasts, even if they couldn’t see them. And that totally freaked me out. I was so nervous that even with the cover, I tried to make myself as invisible as possible. I sat in the back of the church instead of our usual spot; I fed Sprout in the car at an outdoor mall instead of on one of the many benches. There is absolutely no way that I could have started feeding him in public if there was the chance anyone would see my bare boobs, nipple exposed or not. And as any nursing mom knows, you absolutely need to feed your baby in public. Bathrooms are not appropriate places to bring hungry babies. So if it wasn’t for my nursing cover, I would have breastfeed my baby for a drastically shorter period of time. I suspect I’m not the only one in this situation. Now, some advocates would say we should just get over our neuroses and throw off societies’ restrictions. But it’s damn hard enough being a new mom – why add more emotional and social burdens than necessary?

Beyond the modesty issue, I wonder if Sprout himself would be able to eat in public places without the cover. He’s been a very observant, engaged baby since the day he was born. As a result, he’s always been easily distracted while eating. His very first night, I struggled to get him to latch as Chris and I talked. A moment after Chris left the room, he latched on perfectly, his attention no longer split between eating and our conversation. Even if he wasn’t too distracted in public to latch on, he would constantly be breaking his hold, exposing more nipple than a wardrobe malfunction would. He still does this when Chris walks in the room while I’m nursing. Even if I wasn’t quite modest, that would be a whole lot of public nudity and unfortunate leakage.

Beyond my personal experience, assuming people have the social capital to nurse their babies in public without a cover is a privileged position. Women of color and poor women already have huge societal burdens put on them and shouldn’t need to feel even more judgment. People are more likely to feel like they can make disparaging comments to them than a white, middle to upper class woman. Lastly, the consequences of social approbation are likely to be more severe for people who have less power to push back. While a manager of a restaurant or pool may give a more privileged person a warning first, they may go straight to kicking out someone who society already undervalues. Plus, these groups are already less likely to breastfeed, so they should have access to anything that might help them do it.

In general, we need to support breastfeeding moms in whatever way they choose to breastfeed. Shaming women or denigrating blankets or covers only harms new mothers that are trying to do the best for their babies and themselves. There’s enough judgment out there – let’s stand in solidarity in a positive way.

Breastfeeding Week: On Feeding, Formula, and Failure

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 2 Comments

“This is not a canister of failure.” That’s what my husband said as he held up a brand-new can of baby formula.

I had worked so hard to avoid feeding my son formula. I pumped four times a day on weekdays in addition to nursing him three times a day (morning, evening, middle of the night). I had built up so much supply in the freezer that Chris completely relied on breast milk while I was away on a business trip. I considered the single time my mom fed him 30 ml of formula while we were out to dinner an anomaly.

So when Chris told me that we were down to just a few liters in the freezer, my heart sunk. Although we had gotten through the trip with some supply left, Sprout vastly increased his milk intake the following week. Each day he drank more and more and I simply couldn’t keep up. If I was staying at home and nursing him, my body would have adjusted, but there was no way to pump more than I already was.

I just had to face the facts; Sprout was going to have to drink formula, whether I liked it or not. Coming to terms with this forced me to consider why I was so obsessed with Sprout only drinking breastmilk.

Part of it is that I really do believe breast milk is better than formula. Breast milk is easier to digest than formula, has just the right variety of nutrients and is simply the best food for babies. But I mainly drank formula as a baby due to my mom not getting enough breastfeeding support and I’m fine. Similarly, I would never say to another woman that supplementing breastfeeding with formula is wrong.

Part of it is that I really hate supporting the companies that produce formula. They’ve run huge marketing campaigns in developing countries convincing doctors to provide formula and women not to breastfeed. While breastfeeding is the best everywhere, formula feeding can downright dangerous in developing countries where women may not have access to clean water to mix it or a way to sterilize bottles. In addition, it’s shameful to be telling someone to buy something over a free option when they may not have enough money to both buy it and pay for their other kids to go to school. But as much as I try to avoid it, I still buy plenty of other morally dodgy items (Cascadian Farm cereal, owned by General Mills, jeans from the Gap), so it wasn’t just that.

A lot of my disappointment in needing to supplement came down to simple pride. I was genuinely proud that my body could feed my baby and I believed that through sheer will alone I could produce all the milk he needed. After all, if I just tried hard enough and was just dedicated enough, I could overcome the limitations of the pump and therefore, of returning to my job.

But it simply wasn’t true. I couldn’t force my body to do something it wasn’t suited to do. To feed my child, I needed to set aside my pride.

So Chris started feeding Sprout formula, mixing it with breast milk. And the world didn’t come to an end. Sprout liked the formula just fine and continued to increase his intake, far past what I pumped on even my best days. I kept pumping as much as I could and doing the best job that I could as his mom.

Now that I’m winding down pumping (thank God), feeding him formula and now cow’s milk doesn’t seem like such a big deal. But at the time, admitting that I couldn’t do it all myself was So Damn Hard. But sometimes you just need to accept help, even if it’s from a can.

9 Things I Wish I Had Known About Breastfeeding from the Beginning

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 3 Comments

9 Things I Wish I Had Known About Breastfeeding.png

I took the breastfeeding classes at the hospital. I read the relevant sections of the pregnancy books. I even practiced positioning with a teddy bear. I was ready for breastfeeding. Or at least I thought I was.

As it turned out, I actually was – I managed to nurse both kids for an entire year. But all of the preparation in the world didn’t teach me some lessons that real life imparted. Much of the literature on breastfeeding goes one of three ways: technical “how to” descriptions, lyrical meditations on its beauty, or warnings about its difficulty. My experience didn’t match any of those. Both times, it was a mix of the painful and easy, the boring and beautiful.

Here are a few things I wish I had known from the beginning:

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Confessions of a Hipster Mom

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 1 Comment

I’m a hipster parent and I’m not afraid to say it. While I would have been loath to call myself one in the past, these days it’s hard to deny it.

The word hipster carries a lot of baggage; it’s somehow transformed into an antonym of itself. While it once meant someone who only liked things ironically, it’s somehow morphed into meaning someone who likes things a little too much and too sincerely. We’ve gone from unengaged Brooklynites who mock silly t-shirts by wearing them to hands-on politically active West Coasters who show their love for silly t-shirts by wearing them. (And still others just use it as short-hand for a person of the Millenial Generation.) While some of the outward signs of hipstersdom – like “quirky” old-fashioned names for your kids – hasn’t changed much, the fundamental attitude has. While I hated the old version that involved “punching down” by making fun of off-beat folks, I fully support embracing your own brand of weird.

So what led me to embrace my hipstersdom? The show Portlandia. From the Battlestar Galatica obsession to the free-range chicken to the parenting books fiasco, I’ve shook my head, laughing, “That is so true” an absurd number of times. I grow my own vegetables, advocate for bicycle rights, read feminist blogs, spend Saturday mornings at the farmer’s market, patronize local businesses, diaper my kid in cloth diapers, buy second-hand clothing, and own multiple pieces of jewelry featuring birds. While the show’s characters are over the top, I know in person or have at least read online some lesser version of almost every one of those characters, including the dumpster divers. (We once bought a carton of eggs from Dumpster Diving Guy before we realized what was going on.) My friends do things like bake donuts shaped like mustaches and talk about throwing out the entire monetary system and replacing it with a system of their own making. While Portlandia is gently poking fun at this lifestyle, I like it because it’s ultimately a love letter to my type of people.

Even though I don’t live in Portland, I think it’s especially worth embracing off-beat sincerity as a parent. If there are two absolutely necessary skills for being a parent, it’s sincerity and the ability to love people for who they really are, no matter how odd. You can’t ironically love a kid – it’s just an oxymoron. Similarly, you can’t really love someone if you don’t accept their quirks. And if there’s a group of people in the world who are full of quirks, it’s kids. Even people who grow up to be the most normal, boring, well-adjusted people are weird as kids, simply because they have a perspective that’s so different from adults. Some of the funniest mom bloggers chronicle these “special moments” – My Four Year Old is Weirder than Your Corgi and Horrifying Conversations with Mini on Rants from Mommyland are two of my favorites – and they are definitely worth celebrating.

I also like that hipster parents live out their values. While this can get overly self-righteous or judgmental towards others, knowing what you value and teaching those values to your kids through your relationship with them is something that’s too often left out of discussions on parenting. Kids see enough sarcasm and irony in society; knowing their parents actually believe in certain ideas like justice, respectful dialogue, and good music is rather reassuring.

While hipster as a term and culture have changed over time, the need for parents to love their kids sincerely never will. To paraphrase Austin’s famous slogan: “Keep parenting weird.”

Guest Post: St. Francis, Love, and Letting Go

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / Leave a comment

I have a guest post up at my awesome church’s blog reflecting on the Saint Francis’ prayer and how it relates to parenting. Even though I’ve been saying this prayer every morning for years, I never quite understood the depth of it until I became a mom. Also, the post is illustrated by a really cool picture of St. Francis, my favorite saint.

Here’s the first two paragraphs as a preview…

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“Let me not so much seek to be consoled as to console / to be forgiven as to forgive / and to be loved as to love.”

While I repeat these words – part of the prayer colloquially known as Saint Francis’ prayer – every morning, they truly get put to the test at night. As the mother of a one-year old, I’ve gained a much deeper understanding of these words over the last 12 months. After rocking a newborn as I paced the house to catching snatches of sleep upright on the couch because it’s the only way my baby can get any himself, I now understand that as a parent, this prayer isn’t a request – it’s a rule.

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Read the rest at the Church in Bethesda blog!

10 Tips for Feeding Your Child Great Homemade Baby Food

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 1 Comment

10 Tips for Feeding Your Child Great Homemade Baby Food. Want to make your own homemade baby food? These tips will save you time and energy! (Photo: Baby holding an avocado.)

Cracking open a jar of baby food, I wrinkled my nose. The ingredients seemed fine – nothing unhealthy, certainly nothing unsafe – but the smell wasn’t exactly appetizing. I was definitely glad that I wasn’t eating it. I was also really grateful that jarred baby food was a back-up plan for us for the most part.

That’s because for both of our kids, we prepared homemade baby food ourselves. Here’s what we learned in the process.

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Happy First Birthday Party Sprout!

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 4 Comments

Happy First Birthday Party, Sprout!

A birthday – especially one as momentous as a first birthday – deserves a party. Of course, Sprout’s first birthday party was more for us than him, but getting through a full year as parents is also worth celebrating! It all turned out well in the end, but the party definitely confirmed that I am not a Pinterest mom.

I love hosting and having parties, but I’m not the fondest of preparing for them. Most of the time my main contribution is washing the loads upon loads of dishes that Chris dirties in his quest for culinary bliss.

But this party was fundamentally different from our former shindigs. Most of them have been in the winter and this was in the summer. We wanted to invite a lot more people than usual, so we could include not only our friends but also our relatives and church folks. As we can’t fit that many people in our small house, we rented the pavilion at a park across the street from our house.  Because we wouldn’t be right next to our kitchen, this (thankfully) limited Chris’ culinary ambitions.

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Kidical Mass Rockville Hits the Road

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 3 Comments

Since I got pregnant, I’ve been thinking about how I would carry my baby on my bike. Biking is such a big part of my life that I couldn’t imagine giving it up or not including my kid in it. My research on family biking led me to Kidical Mass, a nationwide movement to encourage families to bike together, especially for transportation. While all of my bike volunteer group’s rides welcome younger cyclists, the idea of a ride for little ones where we wouldn’t have to worry about slowing everyone else down was appealing. Plus, I wanted to push back against the idea that new parents need to get a minivan and be even more auto-dependent than ever. As I was extremely pregnant when I first found out about Kidical Mass, there was no way I could organize it that season. (The thought of a bicycle seat immediately postpartum is pretty horrifying.) But I committed to organize Rockville’s first series of Kidical Mass rides this summer. This past weekend, I finally made good on my promise and found out if Rockville is ready for family biking or not!

As the spring season approached, I got serious about planning the rides: picking dates, putting it in our town’s recreation guide, writing press releases, pitching blog posts, and posting it to as many social media outlets as possible. For our first ride, I decided to start at one of our community centers and ride to a local ice cream parlor and back. At only 1.5 miles each way using multi-use paths, residential streets and a short hop on a bike lane, I figured the route was low-key enough for even fairly small munchkins to participate.

Unfortunately, I was terrified that my suburb – which most people in the area know for a huge multi-lane state highway – just wasn’t going to have the interest. While we’re actually pretty bike-friendly (Bronze level), but most people don’t realize that. Plus, suburban parents have a stereotype of being tied to their cars and overprotective of their children. Lastly, I have a history of events with mixed results. Often the ones I work the hardest on organizing have the worst turnout, so I was nervous I was going to create all of this hype for nothing.

Then the Kidical Mass DC organizer pitched our story to a reporter at WTOP, the D.C. area’s major news radio station. After quite a bit of phone tag, we finally had our phone interview. While I tried to stay on my talking points as much as possible, good little communications person that I am, I think I still rambled a little. Catching the interview on Friday morning, I actually punched the air, even though she did chose one of my more inane and vaguely defensive quotes. (In response to a question about safety: “I bike more cautiously with my baby in a trailer and I’m a pretty cautious bicyclist anyway.” So much for good sound bites.)

After the reporter told me that the interview was going to air during the next morning’s drive time, the opposite fear struck me – what if we had too many people? What if I had a bunch of little kids on bikes whom I couldn’t keep together and safe? The response to my panicked email to my volunteer group didn’t allay my fears, as everyone was either traveling or leading other bikey activities. Chris said he could sweep (stay in the back of the group and keep everyone together), but with his relative lack of biking experience, I hated putting him in that position.

When I woke up the day of the ride, I thought, “Thank God the weather is cooperating.” The sky was blue, and the temperature was blessedly low for DC in June. The wind was a bit strong, but it provided some nice cooling power. We hustled to get Sprout, the snacks and our baby gear in the trailer so we would have plenty of time to pedal over to the community center. The fact that we had to skip Sprout’s morning nap provided me with one more reason to worry, as I didn’t want him crying while I was leading the ride! Despite the breeze, incredible weight of the trailer, a broken traffic light, and me jumping a gear, we managed to get there a few minutes early. I breathed a sigh of relief at that at small mercy.

My nerves began to calm as people showed up toting small children in trailers and on their own bikes. Overall, six families with 17 people in total showed up! While most of the kids were in trailers, there were 3 little ones on their own bikes, along with two older kids. Much to my relief, the leader of our sister ride Kidical Mass Gaithersburg showed up and was willing to sweep. I gave a brief safety talk, we took a group photo and then we were off!

Kidical Mass Rockville launch ride

Or least off the curb. I cycled into the community center’s parking lot, only to find out there was no curb cut back to the trail. With some effort, I hauled my bike and the trailer up to the trail while everyone waited for me. Not an auspicious start.

Then, we had a few abrupt drop-outs. Waiting for everyone to cross the road less than a quarter-mile into the ride, I noticed our sweep had arrived but our group was noticeably smaller. We actually lost two families! In one of the families, the dad was on a bikeshare bike and the two girls were older, so they may have decided the ride was too slow and going to take too long for their taste. The little girl with the other family kept saying before the ride that she was going to ride on the sidewalk, so the large road crossing may have scared her. The Gaithersburg Kidical Mass guy said that dropouts occasionally happen to them as well – people’s expectations don’t always match the ride, even when you describe it well.

Thankfully, the rest of the ride went much more smoothly. The two kids on their own bikes were a hoot. They were up front with me for much of the ride and pumped up the rather substantial hill. The little girl kept yelling, “These hills are going to make our legs soooo strong! Strong legs!” Indeed. The little boy was equally as enthusiastic, although a bit of a danger to himself. I had to remind him multiple times to stay behind me. He took that direction as literally as possible, riding so close that he almost ran into the back of the trailer a couple times. While it was frustrating, these rides are designed to teach kids how to ride safely on the road, so teaching him proper etiquette was important.

My favorite part of the ride was hearing both of the kids say, “This was awesome!” While they liked the ice cream, they actually seemed to enjoy the ride itself the most. Cultivating a love of bicycling is so rewarding; I was glad to be part of that joy.

Sprout did pretty well this time around too. He didn’t fuss in the trailer and enjoyed hanging out at the ice cream place’s patio. He actually fell asleep on the way home, his head tilted to the side, weighed down by the helmet. A bit uncomfortable most likely, but otherwise a good reward for a job well-done.

A Year of Love

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 4 Comments

One year and one day ago, our son came into our lives after 40 weeks and 5 days of pregnancy and 10 hours of labor. We welcomed him on Father’s Day, making space in our lives for this new little person. Yesterday, we celebrated his first birthday, looking back on a year of challenges, sleep lacking nights, learning and a lot of joy.

At his six month birthday, I said that babies distort time itself. While the changes over the first six months astonished me, the changes in the last six have been even more radical. Last weekend, our friends brought over their four-month-old. She was adorable and smiling, but so different from Sprout. In fact, he seemed to have more in common with our other friend’s two-and-half year old than her, even though they’re closer in age.

In the last six months, Sprout learned to scoot, then crawl, “cruise” with the help of furniture, walk with a helping hand, and as of yesterday, stand independently for short period of time. He was just barely starting solids then; now, he’s had nearly 50 different foods. Now, he eats well with his hands (unless he drops food on purpose) and has some skill with a fork. His spatial and social skills have evolved with his physical ones. He now hides behind me, shuffling back and forth from my left to my right shoulder, and giggling when I pretend I can’t find him.

We’ve certainly had our share of challenges over the past year. In the past week alone, I’ve been absolutely baffled at how to handle getting him to sleep (yes, again!), what to do when we have to skip naps, what to do when he spits out his food, how to put his bike helmet on without a meltdown, how to get his pajamas or diaper on without a wrestling match, and why he’s being mood swingy at any particular point in the day. I frequently think – or just say to him – “I don’t know what you want!” He insists on being the center of attention when I’m getting ready for work, which is alternatively annoying and endearing. His adventurous attitude is wonderful, except when he pulls tissues out of the garbage or literally eats dirt. He regularly amazes and confounds me.

But that’s the beauty of parenthood – it’s always full of change and opportunity. Even if one day has gone badly, there’s always another. While he’s learned so much the first year, so have I! As Sprout has developed his own personality, I’ve tried to teach myself as best how to relate to this little person with a radically different perspective in the world. As he’s developed needs beyond the basics, I’ve learned how to listen to someone who doesn’t have any language skills. (As I’m not a great listener to begin with, this has been particularly hard for me.) I’ve learned to play without expectations about what that may mean, just following his lead. Chris and I have both learned to discuss, compromise and teach each other more than ever, reaffirming our shared values.

Even though only a year has passed, it’s hard to process the memories of life before Sprout. I’ll remember doing things, wonder where he was, and then recall that it happened before he was born. He’s so woven into our lives that while some people see children as restricting them, he’s made our tapestry even bigger and more colorful. True, there are certain things I can’t participate in, like office happy hours or bar skeeball leagues and I do miss them. But there’s so much I get to experience with him.

While I was terrified before he was born – even though we planned everything – I realize now that we were as ready for him as we ever could ever be. That was the perfect moment for him to enter our lives and become part of our family. And I’m so glad he did.