Before I became a mother, I was a perfect parent; even in my early mothering days with a little infant, I still felt I had a lot of the answers and few problems.

I made a lot of great decisions for my son and our family:

Although he was born in a hospital, I labored at home till I was in transition (imagine driving to the hospital in transition- I so wish I had a home birth!)

We had a “natural” birth. The first time my son suckled at my breast, his umbilical cord was fully attached.

His grandmother (not a nurse) gave him his first bath.

We nursed… and the advice my midwife gave me was, “if you put a baby and your nipples in the same room, that baby’s gonna figure out how to nurse. Don’t listen to the lactation consultants, they are looking for what’s wrong, not what’s right.”

We took a mommy-baby yoga class and started forming lasting friendships with dear friends who are still in our life.

I wore him around the house in a sling, then a wrap, then a back carrier.

I think I followed the “attachment-parenting” model almost to a T without knowing what it was. (I refused to read books or go to classes- I wanted to parent intuitively).

My son met all the bench marks perfectly or early. Infancy passed (he was walking by 10 months old) and with toddler hood upon us, life got a lot more difficult. 

My very confident baby, was now a very confident little person with a mind of his own and the physical ability to accomplish his wishes.

Since that time, I have made so many mistakes: I have yelled, thrown things, slammed doors, let him watch TV- all sorts of things my pre-motherhood perfection would totally snark at.

And sometimes I become hyper-critical of my mistakes. But really, I am great with kids.

Bring me a behavoral problem with a little background, I’ve got some viable ideas for how to attend to it…

I am temporarily a foster mother to a little girl and she is thriving in my care. But I do still need moments of reflection for better ways to attend to my own son.

Then last week, my son and his friend were playing with our little baby girl.

My son said: “I’ll be the daddy and you be the mommy. That means we hug her and kiss her and feed her and love her a whole bunch. And she’ll be okay.”

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