Ramblings of a Hopeful Parent

My first foray into parenthood came in 1992. I was a woman (barely), 22 years old, and married. When our first daughter was born, I don’t recall being afraid or daunted in the least with the thought of raising a child. In fact, I don’t recall thinking about it much past breast or bottle… cloth or disposable? Looking back, I didn’t know what I didn’t know, and that ignorance was, for that time, bliss. The ensuing years are a blur in my memory. Marriage, working, going to school, and parenting. We added to the family again in 1995 a son, and… ha ha, surprise, in 1996, a daughter! There seemed to be an endless stream of snotty noses and dirty diapers. Days were filled with meals and snacks, naptimes and preschool, and plenty of disagreements with my husband about how to discipline, entertain and otherwise parent our children. I, of course, was just mean to them, while he, of course, was an idiot! During these crucial formative years I was a stay at home mom, daycare for three kids was prohibitively expensive.. I did work part time- part for the money, part for my sanity! I spent my time teaching manners and the alphabet and trying to keep the house from falling down around our ears, which was not my strong suit. These were idyllic days, in retrospect.

Parenting, at its best, is an educated guess at how to best deal with the things life throws at you. At its worst, we fly by the seat of our pants and hope like hell we all turn out ok! This is how I pretty much feel about raising my son, Mekhai.

Mekhai came as a surprise, five years after my divorce, due right around my 35th birthday… which made me “advanced maternal age”. Not the way any woman likes to think of herself! And at my advanced maternal age, the way I parented was radically different. You would think that with all of the years and number of times as I’ve been through this I could do this with my eyes closed. But I have had to put so much more thought and intention into how I do things this time around.

To be continued…