Random thoughts of parenting.

One of my friends had a baby girl earlier this evening, her second, and posted it on FB a whole 5 hours later. Another friend has a baby due next year. Another friend desperately wants to get pregnant, but has opposite schedules from her husband. Two of my other friends are foster parents to kids who's parents "are not able" right now. It all leads me to think a lot about parenting, and how unfair it is our kids have to memorize an incredible amount of "stuff" in their school years, some of it they'll never need or want to know again, and yet, a simple class in Human Development is not a requirement. (Nor a class in personal finance, but that's another blog.)

How many of us have needed to know the anatomy of a fetal pig since graduation? How many of us have wondered if it's okay that our three year old strips at every opportunity, or if this behavior will lead to a future career and needs to be nipped in the bud?
How many of us have needed to know the difference between mitosis and meiosis? How many of us have wondered if our child drawing the same picture on every single sheet of paper in every drawing pad in the house means they're autistic or at least a little OCD?
How many of us think of pie (Pi) as something other than a dessert? How many of us wonder if our child will get sick from eating dirt for theirs?
How many of us stayed up all night writing papers on topics we can't even remember now? How many of us have wondered how to help the new baby to realize at night it's time for sleeping now?

So many of us agonize for months about childbearing methods, but don't think more than ten minutes about how to actually take care of the thing until it gets here. We have our stuff ready and the room painted. We understand the material things, but how do we prepare for the reality of it? Maybe instead of Lamaze or Bradley, our OB's should hand out pamphlets on baby classes. Let's face it, who has a real brain for "the baby channel" AFTER giving birth?

There's a lot of power in knowing what's normal and what's not. Yes, our grandmothers, mothers, sisters, and friends are a great resource, but how much stress and unnecessary worry could be saved just by knowing what's okay? What a percentile is and is not? When to look for milestones? When to realize it's not your fault, it's just the developmental stage they're in now?
For everything we ask our older, wiser moms about, aren't there ten others we worry to death without asking, for fear it seems silly or stupid? And really, how are people supposed to know if they're never taught?

And yes, your baby is normal if it sleeps 20 hours a day, or 12....