Before I had kids I had a list a mile long of things I would NEVER do once I became a parent. I’m sure you can see where this is going-I quickly found myself eating my own words more times than I care to admit. Here are just a few examples:
I Will NEVER Let My Kids Wear Clothes with Characters On Them
Elmo t-shirts? Mickey Mouse baseball hats? I would look at those items in disgust as I walked around the children’s section in my pre-kids days. I swore I would NEVER dress my kids in character clothes! I had visions of my boys dressed in cute polo shirts and khaki shorts with little boat shoes on their feet and a hat on their head to round out the outfit. Although they do dress like that sometimes (like once a year) they can be found most of the time wearing a Superman t-shirt or Batman hoodie. I have started to embrace this and even bought my son a new Superman shirt with a cape for his first day of preschool just because I knew he would love it.
I Will NEVER Let My Kids Sleep In Our Bed
I just knew that my babies would sleep in their crib from the beginning and that our bed would be totally off limits to them. Four years and two kids later, I can say that has been far from what our realty has been. Although my kids sleep in the their bed the majority of the time, we can often be found with a little guy sandwiched in between us at 5:00 am. We have even gone as far as having my husband sleep on the couch when we have sick little ones so they can snuggle up in bed with me.
I Will NEVER Drive a Minivan
I knew this was one thing that I would never give in on. I would never own a minivan. Yet somehow I found myself sitting in a car dealership just a few weeks after my second son was born getting ready to purchase a minivan. The price was right, the space was abundant and my husband was smitten with the minivan and I before I knew it I was trading in my keys of my cool SUV for my mommy mobile of a minivan.
I wrote a similar post a while back: http://wordsofwilliams.com/never/
To add to it, I said she would never wear Crocs, but I bought her the lookalikes at Old Navy and she wears them almost every day 🙂
Oh yeah, how could I forget about the crocs. Another thing to add to my list. Said my kids would never wear those crazy rubber shoes and now Drake wears them. 🙂
I swore that I would never do oh so many things. 😉 One was let them use pacifiers. With the first it worked. And with S it doesn’t happen often but they are amazing for when she gets overly tired and needs a little comfort! I also swore I would never be the girl who put girls in all pink! But I found it was impossible for people to tell my bald babies were girls without an ABUNDANCE of pink!
We are big paci users in this house. Drake used one until right after he turned 2 and Charlie is a little obsessed with his right now at 18 months. 😉
I agree with the characters on clothing. I SWORE I’d never allow it, but my son loves Elmo so much it is hard to deny him that simple pleasure. I’ve also swore he’d never watch SpongeBob, so far so good…..
We have held strong on SpongeBob too!
I always thought I would never co-sleep and never prepare separate meals for my kids…. Hmm… Glad God chooses my kids to humble me! I wouldn’t accept it very well otherwise. 🙂
Yep, I’m guilty of the separate meals too! Actually WAY more than I like to admit. 😉
I’m with you on the character thing… although I have given in to Hello Kitty (because it’s cute) and to LEGO guys (because Abel loves LEGOs). 🙂
I will say that I tend to buy the more “vintage” looking character shirts and some of them are actually cute. Plus it has saved me a lot of fights with Drake because he has shirts he really loves to wear so I can avoid the clothes battle.
So far, I am still winning on the No Character Shirts and No sleeping with husband and I; but have lost the battle to preparing a second meal….sometimes it just easier to feed them before hand, so I can enjoy my meal without a battle!
I was afraid to sleep with my kids when they were babies but as they got bigger sometimes it was just easier. And I MIGHT secretly love it. 😉
I said a lot of these things. But the one I was most adamant about was, I will NEVER let the kids watch a DVD in the van when we’re just driving around town. I was SO judgmental about people who did that. Well, three kids later, two who spend A LOT of their time in the van screaming, the DVD player is running constantly. Ugh. Still makes me sad! But I just keep telling myself it won’t be like this forever!
Oh yeah, I can relate to that too!Sometimes you just have to pick your battles and that is one that I was not always willing to fight.
I was the same way, I give in on the DVD only when the drive is +25 minutes, other than that they have to deal with out the DVD
I am not sure I had a list of things I would never do (the ones I do have in my head I have stuck to like not letting my child drink pop). I do think there were things I thought I WOULD DO but those got thrown out the window for various reason. Like have perfectly well behaved children all of time or be super flexible and just go with the flow but then I had a very difficult first baby.
I agree with that. Although I actually sometimes surprise myself doing GOOD things I never thought I would do, like putting a lot of thought and time into a birthday party. I never really saw myself as that kind of mom, but I really love and enjoy doing that noe!