And dangit, I missed my opportunity to pull the God card and really have y’all hate me for that one.

But seriously, I’m glad that he was thinking of it, because I’m hoping that it makes it sink in a little faster.

Stephen, I feel for you. I hope that Eli gets through this pretty quickly for all of your sanities.

But even now, I still get a lot of the “you think this is tough? Wait till…” on the rare occassions I do confide in an “experienced” parent. Of course, on the other hand, when I confide in Misty, she is nothing but encouraging and helpful, so maybe I just need to talk to Misty and not bother with the others!

I have a hard time not trying to meet unnamed expectations.

Example: We went to the dentist yesterday. They have a space capsule in the waiting area, presumably for the kids to play on while waiting for their turn. All the kids (all older) were playing quietly while mine was running willy nilly up and down the stairs, doing countdowns at the top of his voice and just generally having a good time. Two mothers on my side of the room were visibly cringing over the noise, I guess.

I asked him several times to quiet down. I didn’t say anything about the running because I was pretty sure anything short of tying him to a chair wasn’t going to make that happen. When he didn’t dial down the volume after several attempts I made him sit in the chair beside me for a couple of minutes. This, of course, produced lots of whining.

While he was doing that, I was thinking to myself about those two women, “Bet you gals are enjoying the whining way more than the happy (too loud) laughter.”

The side note to this story is that when we got to the dentist’s chair, he was great. He sat patiently and let them dig around in his mouth. Both the girl who cleaned his teeth and the dentist said they had much older patients who wouldn’t sit as well as Eli or for as long. So while we made a great impression on the dentist, the people waiting in the waiting room, not so much.

Although, to be honest, speaking from the other side of the fence, it takes a conscious effort to avoid the knowledgier-than-thou attitude.

p.s. good luck – it took us over a year of trying before we were successful with our first. Hope you fare better.

Good for you. I hate the smug “more experienced parent” bit. Actually, I’m getting the smug “been pregnant already” bit. “Oh, yeah, just wait! Morning sickness! Labor Pains! Hahaha!!!”

I might just start adopting your strategy. Except that I *am* the teacher.

Let’s make a pact. You never pull “more experienced parent” on me, and I’ll never pull “been pregnant already” on anyone who comes after.