This morning got off to a rough start. It began with a contingent of kids who were up at the crack of dawn.
Based on the level of clamor, I was surprised and unhappy when I came downstairs to find it was barely seven. An all-out fight was in progress, the kitchen had been trashed, and a batch of pancakes was steaming on the stovetop.
I co-slept with One from the time he was the size of a football, curled up like a kitten on my chest. It was to maintain my sanity. As I got longer stretches of sleep, I transferred him into a bassinet, then a crib.
Because he was my first, as he got to be an older baby, then a toddler, he snuck his way into my bed some nights. Once he got there, he did what he had done since he was in my womb – he paced. He literally swam laps from the top of the bed to the bottom all night long. It was the pits.
But co-sleeping when he was a newborn was a total lifesaver. So was putting him to sleep on his belly.
I tried not to feel guilty about either of those things, but I didn’t tell a lot of people, either, because I knew I was breaking the rules.
I wish this post could be about of all the things you can do to make camping go right.
But if you know anything about camping or kids, you’ll know that is just wishful thinking.
Recently, I was bra shopping with Two. As we walked up to the display, she exclaimed, “Mom, shopping for bras is so embarrassing!”
“Why?” I asked. “Half the world is made up of women and girls. They all have breasts or will grow breasts as they get bigger. How is that embarrassing?”
Her response was something along the lines of, “Well, when you put it like that…”
I remember being a preteen and teen and how Embarrassing so many things felt. It felt Embarrassing whenever I thought I said or did or wore the wrong thing. It felt Embarrassing just to exist in the same space as my parents, perhaps because I was more aware of my self-absorption when they were around.
In the photo at the top, I put some of the books I’ve been using as a jumping off point for our homeschool sex ed. They really are just a launchpad. I’ve actually used the books I’m reading for my own “continuing ed” when the books I have are lacking when it comes to anatomical accuracy.
