When I was gestating Timmers, I was obsessed with everything baby. Learning the best things for me to eat and do while he was in the belly. Figuring out all the things I would do when he was out: baby yoga, sign language, co-sleeping, breast feeding, cloth diapering, etc. I spent hours pouring over the inter web, etching in stone how we were going to raise our offspring.

Then he was born...and reality bitch slapped me in the face and shoved some humble pie down my throat. Every new parent goes through it, the initiation into the I Just Want to Sleep and Pee Without an Audience Club. The complete understanding of why your parents did all those screwy things. Riding the high horse is not a luxury you can afford anymore. Mine happened when Timmers was 4 weeks old. I was sitting in my living room at 2 am pumping after I feed him from the bottle I swore I wouldn't give, filled with half breast milk and formula that I swore I would never feed him. My kid is great, but a horrible sleeper. Not only that, when he does sleep he makes a ton of noise. I had decreed that he was to sleep in the co-sleeper attached to our bed until he was weened from the breast no earlier than a year...but I hadn't slept for more than a hour in sucession for 4 weeks. So, he was banished from our room to sleep in his own. As I sat there trying to remember when the last time I showered was, thoughts started to race through my mind. It was every judgement I had ever expressed for my family/friend/random shopper's parenting choices. There were many. Reality, you are a cruel mistress.

We have done baby yoga, once. No sign language, unless you count Luke and I gesturing wildly at each other to BE QUIET I JUST GOT HIM TO SLEEP!!!!! Co-sleeping is when he wakes up too early and I drag him in to bed with me because Rit is still sleepy. Breast feeding-long story. Cloth diapering, yes. I have allowed my child to use my flip flop as a chew toy, much to the dismay of the germ-a-phob mom in my playgroup. He has a wicked temper and throws himself backwards, smacking his head on the ground when you take things away. She would have been much more horrified if I took said shoe away, he did that, and I told him that no one likes a cry baby.

Now when my friends without kids, horrified by watching someone let their kid do something they deem questionable, say "I will never let my kid do -insert thing they will probably let their kid do-!", I smile and nod. I know that someday at two in the morning they will remember this conversation and want to go hop in a delorean and shove those words back in their mouth. Especially since they are friends with me and I will say "Hey, Fanastic Parent, I thought you weren't EVER going to let your kids do that!" After you have kids, fewer and fewer things are black and white. Most things are gray or brown, because brown is the color of poop...which you will talk about more than you would have ever thought possible.

Today I stand tall and proud knowing that at some point in my child's life, I will ask him if this is his dirty bowl sitting on the coffee table, he will look at me and say "no", and I will say "did I ask if this was your bowl? Clean it up!!"

Colin was exactly the same way! We couldn't sleep in the same room because he grunted, moaned, BREATHED so loud it woke us up all night. We moved him out at 4 weeks too.

Best decision we ever made.

He'll now sleep from 8pm to 8am every night. It's great.

My sister spent the night when he was about 6 weeks old. She could not believe how much noise he made. He cries in his sleep...still. I'm glad to know that mine isn't the only loud breather. Sheesh! Luke and I were amazed.

I hope one day he will sleep 12 hours straight. He sleeps from 8 to 4-6am. When he does 4am, I drag him in bed with me and force him to sleep more. The books say not to do that. My sleepy ass says for them to kiss it, no one likes a crabby Rit.

Truer words...I had a nice neat little laundry things of "I'll never do that..." (baby #2 only makes it worse)

Ignorance is not only bliss, it's extremely condescending and totally talking out its neck. I would know.