When I Have Kids, I'll Never #2

As Cooper grows, so does my list of things I do as a parent that I said I’d never do. I did a post like this when he was just a few months old and I thought it was a lot of fun, so here’s #2!

1)      I said I’d never let my kids in the bathroom with me

I like my privacy. I don’t want my husband in there when I am going to the bathroom and I said I’d never let my kids in there either. Well it turns out letting Cooper in is easier than having him standing outside the door screaming and pounding on the door. Or even worse, hearing nothing but silence from outside and worrying that he has found a new way to try and kill himself.

2)      I said my house wouldn’t be overrun with toys

I am a neat freak, so I planned to be a minimalist parent. My kids wouldn’t need a thousand toys. I'd have a place for everything and clean up every night. Well it turns out people love to buy babies lots of toys (and we do appreciate it, really!) and that babies get bored quickly and do need quite a variety of stuff to keep them amused. As for keeping everything neat and organized? Our collection rapidly outgrew our storage containers and we quickly acquired some large items that didn’t fit in containers. By night time I am so completely exhausted that the last thing I want to do is clean, especially when I know it will all just get messy again first thing in the morning.

3)      I said I’d never let my kids eat in the car and trash the backseat

Cooper is not a fan of the car right now. Turns out I’d rather have to vacuum up huge quantities of Cheerios every few days than listen to him scream the whole time we are in the car.

And then of course there is the whole separate category of  things so strange that I never even imagined I’d be doing them. Like try to get a decent picture of your child’s butt crack in order to show the doctor his diaper rash. It involved multiple lamps to get the right lighting and then a lot of coordination as I tried to simultaneously hold his cheeks apart so you could see the rash, keep him from launching himself off the changing table, and hold my phone and take a picture.