Shower me, baby!
There is an amazing baby shower going on right now for Liz of Mom-101, Christina of A Mommy Story, and Tammie of Soul Gardening -- visit right now for all the fun they're having! Send these lucky mamas some love....
Every shower has games with prizes, and this shower is no exception. In fact, see if you can guess which baby photo is mine! I'm not giving you any hints. But here is a photo of me.
Taking part in this shower, I'm supposed to share the best advice I have been given about parenthood and also, ahem, the best assvice.
Except I feel like a loser because I am trying so hard to come up with the assvice.
Sure, people have wacky ideas about parenting. And they love to tell you what you should do. Grandmas in the supermarket tell you your baby isn't dressed warmly enough and that he's cold -- when it's 80 degrees outside. Flybaby's own grandma wonders how come I haven't fed him table food yet -- what, not even eggs? I bet he'd like eggs -- when I'm just concerned about my infant Heimlich maneuver skills. There was also the time his other grandma suggested we could resolve his acid reflux problems by giving him formula with a specific bottle recommended by her friend, whose daughter-in-law's cousin's baby found to be nothing short of a miracle -- despite the fact I breastfeed Fly. (Oh, and at Easter, we found this bottle new in its packaging hiding in a back bedroom, probably waiting to be secretly used the next time grandma gets to babysit.) There's the old rice-cereal-in-a-bottle trick that people love to thrust on you. The whiskey-on-the-gums aid when your baby is teething. But fortunately, despite my slight annoyance with all of this assvice, nothing has harmed Flybaby. And that's what counts.
As far as the best advice I've gotten, well, that's a lot easier.
About three years before JP and I even thought about having a child, our friends had a baby. When he was about three months old, they visited us, and we got to see their beautiful boy for the first time. Right away, he needed a diaper change. My girlfriend Jan and I went to a quiet room to change him. As she was sitting with him, Jan spouted poetic words about what it meant to be a mother -- poetry I didn't understand: her baby was the pinnacle of God's creation; the sun rose and set around him; no mother had ever loved a baby more than she did hers; this little three-month-old boy was a genius who would someday save the universe.
But then she said something I did understand. She told me, "When (when! not if!) you become a mother, people will give you all kinds of advice. Now that I'm a mother, I'm going to give you only one piece of advice: don't listen to anyone else's advice! Your baby is a unique individual, and you know him best as his mother. You have to decide what is right for your baby, so don't listen to anyone else."
Now, I can't say I've been keeping my ears closed, exactly. But when people start telling me what I should do with Fly, I just remember Jan's words.
She's the one with the genius baby, after all, so she should know.
Best wishes, Liz, Christina and Tammie . . . .
Every shower has games with prizes, and this shower is no exception. In fact, see if you can guess which baby photo is mine! I'm not giving you any hints. But here is a photo of me.
Taking part in this shower, I'm supposed to share the best advice I have been given about parenthood and also, ahem, the best assvice.
Except I feel like a loser because I am trying so hard to come up with the assvice.
Sure, people have wacky ideas about parenting. And they love to tell you what you should do. Grandmas in the supermarket tell you your baby isn't dressed warmly enough and that he's cold -- when it's 80 degrees outside. Flybaby's own grandma wonders how come I haven't fed him table food yet -- what, not even eggs? I bet he'd like eggs -- when I'm just concerned about my infant Heimlich maneuver skills. There was also the time his other grandma suggested we could resolve his acid reflux problems by giving him formula with a specific bottle recommended by her friend, whose daughter-in-law's cousin's baby found to be nothing short of a miracle -- despite the fact I breastfeed Fly. (Oh, and at Easter, we found this bottle new in its packaging hiding in a back bedroom, probably waiting to be secretly used the next time grandma gets to babysit.) There's the old rice-cereal-in-a-bottle trick that people love to thrust on you. The whiskey-on-the-gums aid when your baby is teething. But fortunately, despite my slight annoyance with all of this assvice, nothing has harmed Flybaby. And that's what counts.
As far as the best advice I've gotten, well, that's a lot easier.
About three years before JP and I even thought about having a child, our friends had a baby. When he was about three months old, they visited us, and we got to see their beautiful boy for the first time. Right away, he needed a diaper change. My girlfriend Jan and I went to a quiet room to change him. As she was sitting with him, Jan spouted poetic words about what it meant to be a mother -- poetry I didn't understand: her baby was the pinnacle of God's creation; the sun rose and set around him; no mother had ever loved a baby more than she did hers; this little three-month-old boy was a genius who would someday save the universe.
But then she said something I did understand. She told me, "When (when! not if!) you become a mother, people will give you all kinds of advice. Now that I'm a mother, I'm going to give you only one piece of advice: don't listen to anyone else's advice! Your baby is a unique individual, and you know him best as his mother. You have to decide what is right for your baby, so don't listen to anyone else."
Now, I can't say I've been keeping my ears closed, exactly. But when people start telling me what I should do with Fly, I just remember Jan's words.
She's the one with the genius baby, after all, so she should know.
Best wishes, Liz, Christina and Tammie . . . .
Labels: fun, motherhood
posted by Damselfly at 2:35 PM
5 Comments:
Thank you Damsel fly! Great advice to ignore the assvice...scribbling it in the baby book as we speak.
Ah, I thought you were building up to that classic bit of advice to cover the little boys front before you change his back!!!
Advice we can all live by!
Thank you for helping us raise money to fight against lung disease! You're a peach!
I know which one is yours!! Tee hee! But my guess doesn't count because I've seen that picture before...at YOUR baby shower! (Although at your shower, I guessed that your picture was Monica's...lol!)
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