Used to Be

This afternoon I was at a park with Cub. We were enjoying ourselves, sitting under a big tree and eating some baby squash. Mmm. As I was feeding him, a mom passed by with a little boy who had to be about 1 1/2 years old and said, "Nice eater. Mine used to be." I asked her if he's still a good eater and she sighed in defeat and said, "Nope. Now he won't eat anything." Then walked off.

There was another mom with her daughter eating on the next bench over. Her daughter was about two years old. The mom pointed over at Cub to her daughter and said, "See, look at the cute baby eating. He's a good eater. Now you eat your food." The daughter glanced over at Cub and could care less whether he was eating or not. The mother came over and joined us on our bench. We started talking. She continued to try to encourage her daughter to eat like the nice baby. Most of what the mother had to say was how her daughter used to be this way, but now is this way. She used to be very pleasant but now throws terrible tantrums. She used to like this, but now she doesn't. The poor mother was discouraged and exhausted. What happened to her "used to be" daughter?

Recently a few friends expressed similar frustrations. One of them described how she felt apologetic about her baby's behavior at a recent event. She felt the need to explain to everybody, "she's not usually like this." She was so embarrassed by her baby's crankiness. Worried that people would associate it with her parenting. After the event she thought about her reaction and felt silly. She didn't know why she felt so compelled to explain away her daughter or be apologetic. She's a baby. Babies have off days too. And many times they're just trying to keep up with their own changing bodies and minds.

One bit of advice I got over and over again when I was pregnant and when Cub was a newborn is babies change... often, be flexible. Just when you get used to one thing, they switch it up on you.

I'm not a baby expert nor am I a psychologist so I don't know how we're supposed to navigate through these changes. But I do know they will happen. All I can do is to try to embrace the many different changes and to try to laugh through them along the way.

Truth be told, thank God babies and people change! How boring would we all be if we remained the same all of our lives?!