Learning to parent

Really if only there was parenting school. But there isn't and the only parenting school we had was when we were kids and our parents parent us. Then again, we're also trying not to do things our parents did.

And i think i mentioned before that knowledge does not equate wisdom. While i read lots and lots of books on parenting, from basic baby care to cooking baby food to building character, it's only knowledge. As a new mum (not that brand new but still every day is my first with my sweet girl), we are learning how to parent better, working on the ways we talk and interact with our little one, learning to grow together as a family that honours God.

Sometimes i catch myself doing things or saying things i realize i should not be doing/saying. Or i find myself lapsing into laziness and selfishness.

It's quite a soul searching journey isn't it? God somehow hands us this task of guiding a new life and yet this new life also guides us to search our inner self.

Eliza is teaching me
- patience :
and i thought i am a very patient person. but when things don't go the way i had planned to be cos she doesn't want to sleep or eat or do this or that (as most toddlers do), i'm naturally at the end of my patience. To the extent that i lose sight of the whole task at hand or fail to realize why she acts the way she did and scold her unnecessarily. It's not that i don't discipline her when needed but sometimes i just want things to go the way i had planned and she didn't follow to plan and i 'force' her to do it (esp the nappping part).
- honesty :
you know how often our parents will tell us if we do this we'll get this or do this and then do not fulfill them (i find that i forget to do some things i tell Eliza i'll do :S not a good excuse but i'm trying to make sure i do what i say )?
Or they'll coerce us and use scare tactics on us to make us do what they want us to do, even if it's a good task? (my sil uses that on her boys and recently Ww & I decided that we won't use like things like 'momo' or 'scary' stuff to unnecessarily scare her into our control)
- play :
interestingly daddies seem to be 'funner'. Ww's more ridiculous and lame and rough with his play with her, which is really quite fun and i'm glad that the june holiday week we had as a little family and these two days while daddy is on MC, they have more time to bond with each other, such that Eliza wanted Ww to put her to nap instead of my mil! anyway, it's being just fun that's fun