Mommy Konfessions: First Child Mistakes

When I first became a mom I read all the books and blogs about babies and toddlers and I thought I had it all figured out. I was still scared to death, but I really thought I had it all under control.

Well, there's nothing like some time and a second child to realize how wrong I was.

My boys

I've made so many stupid little mistakes with William that I am now trying to rectify with Jacob. Just to list a few:

• Allowing him to watch too much TV
• Letting him have a binkie for so long
• Letting him have a bottle in bed
• Not enforcing table manners
• Not taking care of his teeth from the beginning
• Letting him graze all day long

You know, stuff like that.

And at the time that I did, or did not, do these things with Will, it all made sense. He loved his binkie from day one. It kept him happy and calm. As he got older and could hold his own bottle, and then sippy cup, he wouldn't sleep without it. Letting him graze all day, in front of the TV and not really forcing him to sit and eat meals with the family made him happy.

But the bottom line here is, I was being partially lazy and just willing to keep him happy so that he wouldn't scream and cry all the time. This stuff starts so innocently. I worked during the first year of Will's life and hated it. So by the time he was a year and a half and I became a stay at home mom, I spoiled him out of guilt.

It just became easy to give him what he wanted. It wasn't until we were around other people that I realized that William was the person in control in our relationship. And then I had Jacob and I realized that my kids needed more discipline. And so I tried.

But it's still so hard during the first year of any baby's life. You can't really spoil an infant and they are so demanding, I just got used to giving Jacob, and Will, anything they wanted. It felt easy, at the time. Until I realized I was pretty much their slave, and I did not like that feeling.

Now that William is four and Jacob almost two, I see more and more the mistakes I made. It is so hard to try to fix those things, but it is absolutely necessary. So now, the TV is turned off at 3 pm everyday, no matter what. I've begun regulating their meal and snack times. We already broke Will of his binkie and then bottle-in-bed habits, but we still need to break Jacob of having milk in bed.

Damage has already been done to William's teeth, but we now brush everyday and so does Jacob. And I'm sure as time goes on, I'll find more stuff that I wish I had tackled earlier in their lives.

So to all my fellow parents out there, know this: You will make mistakes with the first, maybe even second, child. Those mistakes are fixable. It'll be a lot of work, but worth it. So just keeping working on doing what you think is best for your child.

What are some things you realize now that you could have done better when first became a parent? Leave a comment! Thanks for reading and have a great day!

Happy Thanksgiving!

And here follows the obligatory gratitude post. ;)

But seriously, I have a lot to be thankful for. If you're friends with me on Facebook, you'll notice that I don't do the daily gratitude thing in November because, well, why try to do something I know I'll forget to do two days in?

So here follows some things that I am grateful for this year.

1. My family. Daniel is the most amazing husband and father ever. My boys are gems (most of the time). I'm so lucky that I live near my sisters and that my parents are able to come visit us, as well as being not too terribly far from Daniel's family. Oh, and Happy, I love my dog. :)
2. My job. I'm so grateful that I get to be a stay at home mom. As hard as it can be sometimes, I love being home with William and Jacob. Also, I love being able to spend a whole day in my PJ's. ;)
3. Writing. I love to write and create new worlds and characters to populate those worlds. I love coming up with stories. Again, it's not always easy, but it's worth it.
4. All the material things I take for granted. I live in a nice place. We have a good car. I'm able to buy food, clothes and other, less essential things. I love the internet and the TV. And books, so many books!
5. My religion. I'm grateful to be a member of The Church of Jesus Christ and Latter-Day Saints. It gives me peace and direction in my life, as well as connecting me to good people and new friends.

Well, I think that about covers it. I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving (if you celebrate it) and try not to over eat.

Oh, a programming note: Starting next week I'm going to start a series of writing tips over at Kricket Writes. I've been thinking about doing this for a while and I finally figured out a plan. So look forward to that. :)

And Happy Thursday! Thanks for reading!

The Numbers Say It All

**I would like to start this post by saying that this is not a "gay bashing" post. I don't consider myself homophobic or anything. I've had friends who are gay and have had the nicest neighbors that are trans-gendered, but that doesn't mean that I think what they are doing is right. BUT, I do believe that they deserve all the same rights that other Americans have. I strongly believe that we need to add "sexual orientation" to that long list of people and things that we can not discriminate against.**

So I saw this article today on Google news and I found it very interesting. It's basically citing this study that says that only 3.5% of the American population identifies themselves as being homosexual. The reason this is a big deal is because that the homosexual community has been saying that 10% of the population was homosexual, when it's actually been only 3.5%. That's a pretty big difference. I find this to be very interesting for a couple reasons.

I, like many others, have seen the show Glee on Fox. I have a love/hate relationship with this show. I like the music and the dancing, but I've found the story and the characters to be a little much. I know TV

exaggerates real life, but they seemed to be stretching it too far. And the one thing I thought was odd was the "token" gay character. And if you know the show it feels like all the students in the show are "token" characters in some way. They have the "token" black girl, the "token" disabled kid and so on.

And to be fair, you have to have African-American and Disabled-Americans in these shows. I found this article that says, "In 2009, 19.5 million people, or 9.9 percent of the civilian non-institutionalized population age 16 to 64, had a disability." And this Wikipedia article about the 2010 census states that 12.6% of the US population is black.

But, the big but, only 3.5% of the US population is homosexual. So why do we feel that we have to have them in every show? Why do we have to make it seem that every other person you meet on the street is gay, lesbian, etc.?

And really, I find it interesting that the homosexual community is always trying to pump their numbers and make it look like they're a stronger force to be reckoned with than they really are.

Those are my thoughts, what are yours? What do you think of the sudden surge in homosexual characters in TV and movies? And what do statistics like this make you think?