Just Wait Until...

This parenting article really struck a chord with me this week.  Maybe it's because I'm more than halfway through my second pregnancy and people are full of advice and warnings along with the compliments and criticisms.  And sometimes the compliments and criticisms are one and the same; one person says "It's so great that you're still running!", while the next person says "I can't believe you're still running - isn't that dangerous for your baby??"  (Side note: that makes me want to scream.  Of course I wouldn't run if it were in any way uncomfortable or unsafe for me or my baby.  I have the blessing of my OB team.  I ran through all 40 weeks last time and, once again, I'll take it one day at a time. Every woman and every pregnancy is different.  I'm not exactly eating blowfish and drinking hard alcohol at my daily happy hour.)  

Sometimes it makes me crazy to hear people say, "if you think this is bad, just wait until..." because I just want to be in the moment and feel whatever happiness or despair that particular moment might bring me.  I don't want to compete with your happier or sadder moments!  When Sophie was born and we relished how much we enjoyed being parents, we heard "just wait, when she starts to smile, it will be even better!" and when she started to crawl and we talked about how much it changed life in our house, people said "if you think this is bad, just wait til she walks!"  We didn't want to just wait and see, we wanted to experience what was at our fingertips in that moment.

As the author of the article says, this is a total first-world problem.  However, it will make me stop and think about what I'm about to say the next time I talk to a parent-to-be or new mom or dad.  Just because I've been through it doesn't mean they're not entitled to experience it for the very first time themselves, in their own way.

Rant complete!  Happy Wednesday, and a link to the commercial that makes me laugh over and over.  

And this, just because she makes me smile!