Thursday (17w2d)

*Foodment*

Big firsts!! Yesterday I made my first post-BFP dessert (chocolate blanc mange), and today I cooked dinner for the first time post-BFP (spaghetti with jarred sauce). Can I say that I'm both very excited and extremely pleased with myself????

*End foodment*

So, today was our first appointment with our late pediatrician's replacement!

Was the utter awesomeness there?

Not sure! But we're going to stay until further notice. It went really well.

We actually saw the Nurse Practitioner, not the pediatrician (didn't know about that in advance). She was very experienced, with a background in pediatric GI, and seemed pretty neat. She spent about an hour with us doing the two physicals.

Some good points: Absolutely no fuss was made about vaccines - she just confirmed that we were non-vax and then moved on. Awesome! Also, there were no lectures or rolled eyes when I said that our bub is still breastfeeding. Another good point! I didn't manage to sneak homebirth into the conversation, but two out of three is really not bad.

Additionally, at the end, she just said "See you in a year!" No trying to drag us in for more (unnecessary) visits - she just said that she was glad that our bub was under the care of such good specialists, and that she'd see us next year.

Good stuff.

In fact, the only catch to the morning was a certain five-year-old who chose to be a goofball for the last bit of the appointment. We had some serious conversations when we got home.

I have noticed that parenting tends to run in alternating modes. Mode #1: "I am really on top of this, I've finally caught on, I love being a mom, my kids are going to be okay, life is good." Mode #2: "I have totally mistaken my calling, I am an utter failure as amother, my kids are headed for prison, and furthermore, I'm going to wring that kid's neck."

This week has definitely been more in line with Mode #2!

But I have also learned that parenting is an ever-changing adventure, and even though it has not in any way come naturally to me (nor did I get an easy child for my first!), at least I am learning. Right now I am working on closer tomato staking with our eldest, and on keeping a closer eye on the little things that add up into the big things. I think we're making progress, though it's always a journey.

One part of the journey this week has been our decision this afternoon to confiscate all Calvin & Hobbes comic books tonight after our son is in bed (coming in about ten minutes). He started reading them (looking at the pictures) a few weeks ago, and we thought it was really cute. Until it became clear that he was looking at Calvin not as a source of harmless amusement, but as a role model. Have you read those books? Ack!!! I didn't think about it, because I read them for my entire childhood with no harm. But they have been incredibly harmful to our little guy, simply because he takes the things he sees and acts them out. Bad, bad, bad! So farewell to Calvin & Hobbes, at least until our dude gains some serious maturity. Expecting some serious sulking tomorrow.

Our son has a finely-tuned radar that locates and seeks out bad examples - and follows them. It's uncanny. I think it's a good thing that we're homeschooling! He needs to have some character and some independence trained into him before he is set loose on the world.

But enough moaning, I need to get back to the dishes. *Sigh*. One of the bad points about starting to cook again - it's not just take-out trash to throw out!

A better update later!