Next time around

Pushing the stroller on the last stretch of the almost 2 mile hike.

This weekend we took our daughter out to a state park. A common practice for us, since we love nature and the outdoors. However, we made the mistake of going in sandals and flip-flops. Of course, the park was beautiful and we decided to hike one of the trails. Word of advice: Never trust the opinion of someone who doesn't seem to have had a child in recent years when you ask them about the "difficulty" of pushing a stroller on a trail!

My husband had to push our little umbrella stroller (the cheap kind) up a huge, steep, muddy and rocky hill. I dragged myself behind them, laughing my head off every time I saw his flip-flops and the absurdity of our actions. I made a note to self to never hike in sandals again and to get a hiking stroller. This made me think about mistakes we've made so far as new parents. Here's a short list that might help someone out there:

1- Not sleeping during the early stages of labor: This is a real biggie!! The excitement and keeping myself propped forward to help the baby made me ignore the fact that I needed to get some sleep. We were up the whole night looking at the contractions monitor (I begged for the epidural despite my desire to go natural for 9 months), watching TV, and joking around. By the time the actual pushing began, I felt I was in a surrealistic Dali painting. Everything seemed bogus and I could have sworn the mid-wife and nurses were going to perform a c-section on me right in the birthing room! Once the baby was born, there was no way to get some sleep. My husband and I would talk to each other and then say "Did I just tell you something?" Trust me, this is not the best way to start your parenting journey! Sleep.

2- Putting the baby to bed late so she wouldn't get up earlier: Another big one. For several months, we entertained our baby up to 10:30pm thinking if she fell asleep earlier she would wake up at 4am or earlier! Oh boy, were we deluded. When we finally found out it was the opposite way, we moved bedtime up to 8pm, and surprise, surprise, she slept until 8am. I also discovered there were many things I could still get done before plopping down in bed.

3- Using the wrong tools for certain activities: The clearest example of this was the hike I described earlier. Make sure that if you're going to do something, you have the right tools. I walked for months pushing the heavy, travel-system stroller until a neighbor showed me how easy it was to push a walking one. Nonetheless, I made the same mistake twice.

I'm sure there are more lessons learned in this past year and a half, but I don't want to spoil your learning experience, you'll figure them out soon enough!