Raising Little Ones Sure Has Changed

 I can relate to this photo...a Mom's gotta do what a Mom's gotta do! I recently went to a baby shower for a friend of mine (who is obviously much younger than me) and found myself running late as usual and totally unprepared. I went to the grocery store to buy fresh fruit to make a fruit tray to take and found myself desperately short on time. They wanted us to bring a pack of diapers for a game so I screamed over to the baby aisle...which I haven't been on in fifteen years. As I searched for a cheap pack of diapers I quickly realized there WERE no cheap diapers and threw a $9.99 pack in my buggy panicking that I only had one hour to slice up a fruit tray shower and GO to the shower! I turned around behind me and searched the shelves for a gift as well...may as well kill three birds with one stone.

I found a quilted "Thing-a-ma-bob" that you can put in a high chair or shopping cart to keep your baby all nice and comfy and put a buffer between them and all the germs of the world. I flew home to wrap the present and found we were out of tape so I settled on a gift bag we had that said "Happy Birthday" and decided I would just hide my present when I  got to the shower. I did just that , because every present was wrapped or packaged perfectly and looked like a picture out of a baby catalog.

I sat with some old friends at  the shower and remarked that I had run out of time and hit a new low buying a shower present at the grocery store. I told them what it was and one of the women at our table (who I DIDN'T know) remarked how handy they were! My friend next  to me said "When my kids were little I just stuck them in a shopping cart and they gnawed on the handle while I shopped." That started the old "Clean pacifier" discussion...you know, when you have your first baby and they drop their pacifier you run to the kitchen and boil a pot of water. When the next one comes along you run it under hot water after it gets dropped. When the third baby arrives and drops it you stick it in your own mouth (taking the germ hit FOR them and plug it right back into baby number three's mouth.)

 You know how my kids have survived? I started building up their immune system from the get go. In the event of a nuclear apocalypse the only thing left roaming the earth will be cockroaches and my kids!

 Then I saw this above photo and thought "Been there done that (kinda.)  When TJ was about six we were at the beach staying in a condo with my sister. The condo was on the third floor and I wanted a pic of TJ and me sitting on the rail of the balcony with the ocean behind us. TJ is like his Dad...not too fond of heights and it took forever for me to get him to sit on the railing beside me but when I did the photo turned out priceless....TJ looked terrified and I was laughing so hard I was almost crying. For Pete's sake it was just SAND three stories below us. I still have that picture and TJ still hates it.

My sister went to Miami to visit a good friend of hers when her boys were young and on an outing in the Everglades they came across an alligator sitting on the bank. My sister's friend (who never had kids of his own thankfully) said "Get over there and I'll take a picture of you boys ." Then he said to move closer and my sister said she thought that was close enough. He prodded them to move closer while my sister started to sweat. After the THIRD "Move closer" the picture was taken and  the Game Warden rambled over and remarked "People forget these are wild animals." My sister says she still has bad dreams about that photo shoot.

Then when they survive long enough and you keep having more kids you begin to think about yourself again...hence the above photo. Everyone in the photo looks terrified and  looking out for their own safety while the toddler seems to be saying "Here I am, come to ME!"

Young parents come into the restaurant with their kids and it takes  literally five minutes for them to settle the kid in their comfy  quilted "thing-a-ma-bob" and plaster down a plastic mat for the kid onto the table for a sterile eating surface. Then they all get out the hand sanitizer and pass it around. I feel like I should be wearing a Haz-Mat suit just to take their order.

Protect a kid too much and you shield them from the real world. My view is expose them to the real world and teach them to make good choices!

I can remember being a cautious mom and that is a good thing. Overdoing it just blinds your kids to reality and makes it harder when you aren't there to boil their pacifier.

Live and learn!

Til next  time...COTTON with three kids that have the immunity of a cockroach!