Only human . . .

Here's another one of those weird thoughts I have from time to time.

Ollie is a little person. We call him an angel, our golden boy, perfect baby, but the truth is, he's just a person. I'm not demeaning him by thinking of him that way -- quite to the contrary. It's actually better for me, Jess, and him if we don't idealize him or our family dynamic.

This morning, Ollie woke us up at 4:00 a.m. to eat. He did this because he didn't eat enough last night before bed, and then he woke us again at 6 to eat, and wouldn't eat more than a couple of mouthfuls before becoming disinterested. Now, our primary impulse is dismay: "Why is our perfect angel doing this? Why is our perfect baby acting this way? What's wrong with him? What's wrong with us for being kind of annoyed at the lack of sleep? What kind of monsters are we to be annoyed with our angel?"

But if you think of him as a little person, that perspective changes. He's a human being. He has needs, and wants, but sometimes, he's just going to be a jerk. That's the way people are. And so long as we don't shout at him, or display our annoyance, it's okay to be annoyed when a person is being a jerk. It doesn't mean we love him any less -- it just means we could have done with a little more sleep.

Loving someone unconditionally doesn't mean you're blind to their flaws. In fact, I don't think you can really love someone all the way if you *are* blind to their flaws, because then you don't really know them well enough for love that strong.

I guess we ought to get used to the "wanting to hug and strangle at the same time" kind of love. I mean, soon he's going to be a terrible two's toddler, and a teenager, and a grown man telling his dad, "you're wrong about everything." Best get used to the idea that he's his own person, and sometimes his desires are going to run absolutely contrary to our own, but that we won't love him any less for it.

You Did This To Me!

Some day, Ollie will be a teenager. He'll want to stay up until 3 a.m. partying with his friends and sleep until noon. He'll wonder why Mom and Dad insist on going to bed before midnight most nights, and why they get up at 6 or 7 even on the weekends. What kind of strange people are these? Don't they know that all the fun stuff happens at night?

And we'll try and tell him that we used to be exactly the same way. We'll talk about those nights where we didn't notice it was late until the sun came up, and the days we rolled out of bed groggy to have breakfast at noon. But then we had a baby.

That baby was an awesome baby, and he slept through the night, which meant he went to bed around 9 or 10 and got up at 6 or 7. No matter when Mom and Dad went to bed, he got up at the same time, so they started adjusting to his sleep schedule. They found that when they got up early, they got to spend more time playing with him and having fun -- that the morning was actually good for something. Since most of their friends were having babies, too, most of the fun stuff quit happening before midnight.

So the answer to "why are Mom and Dad so lame?" is "you trained us to be this way."

Somehow, I don't think he'll get it, though. After all, it took me fifteen years to understand it :-).