Recently I have been realizing that although having a kid isn’t always intellectually stimulating, I am learning a lot of things along the way.  Just over the past few days I have discovered the following:

1) Baby teeth can disappear.  Alethea had six teeth showing the other day and now she only has five.  One of the top ones has gone back up into the gum line.  How weird is that?!?!?  I just hope that it doesn’t mean we have to go through another few weeks of grumpiness to get the tooth back again.  That just wouldn’t be fair.

2) Children have an odd sense of what constitutes fine cuisine.  My baby who has actually chewed up and swallowed a piece off a corrugated cardboard box refused to eat the piece of Daddy’s hot off the grill Angus beef hamburger she was offered for dinner the other night.  Crazy kid.

3) I can feel Alethea’s teeth even through blue jeans.  Yes folks, We seem to have entered a biting phase.  Getting bit through blue jeans doesn’t hurt so bad.  When she bit my bare neck, it left a mark for several hours.  I’m not sure what’s gotten into her and why she’s gunning for me.  She has made no attempt to bite Peter while I’m becoming a little scared to hug her since I never know when it’s coming.  What have I done to my child to cause so much resentment so early in her life?

4) Even with a crowded crib, Alethea can tell when something isn’t as it should be.  The other night when we put Alethea to bed, her brown fuzzy blanket with the silky edge was in the dryer downstairs.  Although she went to bed with her remaining five crib items (nuk, backup nuk, pink blanket, teddy bear and stuffed puppy) she seemed to be having a hard time settling in.  It took me a bit, but I finally realized what was missing and sure enough, the second she had the blanket in hand, she laid right down and went to sleep.  I wonder if that blanket will be her security item.  Or maybe she’ll have 6 security items?!?!  Oh, boy!

Note to self:

When baby is about to sneeze during lunch, move the spoon away from the baby!

* You can’t seem to recall what in the world you did with all the free time you’re certain you used to have before you had a kid to look after

* You vaguely remember a time when 10:00pm didn’t feel like staying up late, but you’re not sure if that was really you or just a dream you had one night

* You find yourself wondering whether the green substance crusted to your baby’s nose is boogers or pureed green beans and then realize it doesn’t really matter anyway

Feel free to add your own “You Know You’re Really a Parent When”s in the comments section of this post!

So I’ve been reading a book called “The Baby Whisperer Solves All Your Problems” and while I have to admit the title is pretty cheesy and yes, does make me think of the show “The Dog Whisperer” on the National Geographic Channel (which by the way, I love to watch, even though we don’t have a dog.  But I digress…) it turns out, it’s not a bad book.  The Baby Whisperer seems to be something of a middle road between Attachment Parenting (let the kids sleep in your bed and carry them around constantly) and the various Cry it Out methods that are variations on putting your baby in the crib and letting them cry until they learn to fall asleep on their own.  Don’t get me wrong, I know and have heard of parents who swear by one of those methods or the other, and I say if it works for you and your child, that’s great, but neither one particularly fits my parenting temperament.  I am currently working on implementing some of the Baby Whisperer ideas with Alethea and I am hopeful that we are working towards better sleep habits for Alethea.  So far, naps are improving and most of the time (day or night) she is sleeping in her crib, although she still has fairly frequent night wakings.  But like I said, we’re working on it.

I really wish I had read this book sooner… like before Alethea was born would have been good.  The author talks a lot about overstimulation, which would have saved us a lot of frustration if we had realized sooner how touchy some babies (like ours!) can be.  She also emphasizes that you should “start as you mean to go on” since it’s easier on everyone not to try to change the rules in the middle of the game.

So all of this got me thinking, I wonder, what books I should be reading now to prepare for Alethea’s toddlerhood?  If we’re going to start as we mean to go on with potty training, discipline and the like, we’d better have some idea of how we want to go on before we start!

This is where all the parents out there get to chime in, what book (or books) have you relied on while raising your toddler?  Or perhaps you have some toddler raising advice you didn’t find in a book.  What is a practice that you recommend beginning right away in order to “start as you mean to go on”?  What bad habits did you avoid (or have to break!) when raising your toddler?  Please let me know all your best toddler raising secrets!

On Sunday, July 26th Peter and I dedicated Alethea to God during the service at our church.  It was really sort of an awe inspiring moment for me to think about the really amazing gift that Alethea is and how utterly dependent I am on God’s help to raise her.  I knew there would be many challenges in raising a child in such a crazy mixed up world, but honestly didn’t expect to find myself in desperate “Help me Jesus” sort of prayer this early in her life: Help me Jesus when she’s screaming her head off and I don’t know why; Help me Jesus when she wakes up for the seventh time in a given night and I just want to cry along with her; Help me Jesus when the baby is sleeping soundly but for some reason I’m still wide awake.

We’ve had a roller coaster several days with insomnia for me, night waking for Alethea and general difficulty with feeding, but just as I was feeling like I barely could keep my head above water, God sent along two of my Christ-following friends to encourage me, one with flowers and an extra swing and one with lunch and an hour of good mother-to-mother conversation.  Thank you Jesus!