2 Things

Tomorrow, Jase will be three months old.  Which sounds crazy, but when I look at him, I totally believe it.  The kid is huge!

Minutes old.

Three months old!

As I've been looking back at the past three months, I've realized that there are two big things that I've learned as a parent.

1. Parenting is a two steps forward, one step back process.  Don't get too excited when your baby first starts sleeping through the night three nights in a row.  Because for the next three nights, you'll be woken up for a 2 a.m. feeding.  Don't get to used to the baby sleeping in his own bed, because tomorrow night he'll wake up at 1 a.m. screaming for no apparent reason, and will only stop once you've sleepily pulled him into your bed.  Eventually, these things will actually happen for realsies.  But for now, it's two steps forward (celebrate!), one step back (cry quietly to yourself when you realize that it's 1 in the morning, and you're awake).

2. The people who tell you to "Sleep while the baby sleeps" may be giving sound advice, but they obviously don't know what they're talking about.  While I was pregnant, that was probably the biggest piece of advice anyone gave me.  But here's the problem: when you have a baby, you truly realize that there are only a finite number of minutes in the day.  And an awful lot of them are taken up by the sweet little munchkin.  Feeding, rocking, burping, changing diapers.  The list is almost endless.  Everyone says "The laundry can wait.  The cleaning can wait.  Order in dinner."  The problem lies in that, one day you will actually need clean clothes.  One day, the cleaning will actually need to be done.  And when you've just had a baby, there are (most likely) limited funds available to have dinner delivered.  What this tangent all comes down to is one simple fact:  Most people cannot "sleep while the baby sleeps."  Instead, countless moms use nap times to wash the dishes, do the laundry, sweep the floor, and scrounge up something for dinner.  Preferably something with actual nutritional value, but in reality, you do what you can.

Other mamas, do your experiences agree or disagree with what I've learned?  What did you learn in the first few months of being a mom?