A shift of axis

It's day two and thanks in large part to waking up at 7 a.m., dragging myself into the shower and mentally planning my workday before realizing it was Sunday, I've managed to begin my second day of writing (before 8 am) - hooray!

As some friends might have noticed, yesterday I modified a lot of this blog's right hand side "gadgets," keeping only a couple photos and adding more parenting websites. You'll also notice that the topics for my writing sessions might feature fetuses, infants, toddlers, and the person they make me (and B) fairly frequently. It's not because becoming a parent has become my sole identity. But having a child does shift your world onto a different axis, and at the moment I happen to know a lot of people who are going through that same primordial, irreversible, life-altering shift. As it's the process that perpetuates our species (and created each of us), there's a lot of things to think about. And with thoughts come opinions. And with opinions come differences in them.

One of the most irksome challenges of this transition to someone expecting and then caring for a child, has been the inevitable lectures that have come from others, advising and then evaluating everything from my birth choices to how I put my baby to sleep. Frankly, it is exhausting and discouraging to have to defend every choice you make as a parent (because no matter what you choose, someone will disagree with it). In the meantime, you're doing whatever you can to cling on to your own exponential learning curve, while the miniature being around whom your life suddenly revolves does everything he or she can do to communicate her own set of needs, dislikes and desires.

In addition to those "usual" challenges of parenthood, there is the complex cocktail of emotional decision-making that comes with our personal choices for me to be a working mother, to enlist a nanny, and now for B to be a Stay At Home Dad (SAHD).

And perhaps worse of all, I've realized through this process that I'm only human. No matter how much I cringe as others try to share with me the highlights and benefits of their chosen birth/sleep/feeding/working choices (or simply decry the alternatives), I realize the process of making our own choices for our family has influenced me to support them as well. Perhaps its the sheer strength of our love, devotion, exasperation or commitment to our children that makes choices on how we relate to them such hot-button issues? Does this much love naturally beget a similar level of passionate dedication to what we think is best for them (or us)?

B is currently most passionate about getting our family to the beach this morning before San Diego's most precious resource - parking - is nearly exhausted. And as my hour is almost complete I will leave discussions of certain choices to other posts. Let this serve as my prologue, a caveat that recognizes that some people will be offended by my choices (and reasons for them) because they do not mesh with their own. I empathize with you. I'll do my best to not vilify others who have not made the same choices we have.

Most of all, this entire blog is really just about me... a writing exercise that happens to be in a public space. But not a public space that I actually expect many people to read. I don't know how people become super-bloggers, but I have no illusions that my ramblings will go viral on Facebook. Hopefully those who are reading this are only a few friends, family, and the odd person who stumbled here accidentally, and the vast majority of you will forgive me for any bruised toes. After all, the only perfect parents out there are those without children, myself included!

Now, off to the beach!