Having officially been inducted into the Been There, Done That Club, I am now entitled to smile knowingly and sympathetically at first time parents whose haggard appearance and constantly worried expression are cute in a "Oh yeah, I remember that" way. And although I haven't reached the upper echelons of the club (the Been There Done That With Teenager Clique) and will never be awarded any of its prizes (the Been There Done That Times Four or More Award) I do still feel qualified to give you my emerging list of Things I Wish I Knew the First Time Around:
1) Infants, when they first come out, are %$*&@@! tiny. This makes them seem fragile. On the other hand, they've been tossed about willi-nilly for the past 9 months and are used to odd and dizzying positions. This combined with their smallness makes them easy to cart around in one hand while doing any number of things with the other.
2) Infants, when they first come out, grow out of the little tiny infant stage so fast that you really don't have to worry that Aunt Bertha's old baptismal gown is yards too big right now. Just wait an hour. She'll fit it into it then. If she hasn't managed to deposit her various bodily fluids onto it in the next hour before she grows out of it, it may even be suitable for the next generation of infant.
3) All the infant is a stage. Crying at 2am? Spitting up pints? Unable to bear being in the crib/cradle/pack and play without your constant shining face? Don't worry. Soon they'll be doing other vaguely annoying things and giving up that current habit. And before you know it, they're three.
4) Crying is not the end of the world. It is merely the beginning of the apocalypse.
5) Every baby is different. They say this but its hard to believe until you're trying the tried and true on your next born and she stares at you with a quizzical look that says "What the &^%%^$ do you think you're doing?" Then you find that your new infant actually likes, for instance, to be carried around belly down on your arm so she can drool contentedly on the ground in long droppy, wet strings. What this means about her future personality, one can only guess.
That's all my wisdom for now. Excuse me, I have to go rescue my second born from my first born, who is trying to "share" a Mr Potato Head by pushing it into the first one's face. For some inexplicable reason, Lauren is unhappy about this situation. She'll probably grow up and dislike potatoes, and she'll never know why, until she has her own children and sees what a mess they can get themselves in. By that time I'll have graduated from the Been There Done That Club and hopefully be ready to join the Grandparents Club.
Whoa. Somebody said this parenting thing never ends.
