If I Had Motherhood To Do Over, I'd Still Do These Five Things

The following is a short list of my mistakes as a mom just with my first (a.k.a., "learner") child.

• High-pressure potty training. 
• Starting her in kindergarten and ballet and church kids' club all in the same week.
• That accidental half sumo wrestler/half alien hula girl birthday cake.
• Letting her sign on for a killer academic and extracurricular load her sophomore year in high school just because we knew she'd be able to handle it.
• Not having her take a math class the semester before she took the SAT.
• All the yelling. (Mine.)
• All the meltdowns. (Also mine.) 

The thing is that when you are a new mom (and that means "new" at every stage), everything seems to matter. And it seems to matter a lot. In fact, the mattering seems to start even before you have the child who will make you a mom in the first place. It matters what doctor or midwife you choose. Then it matters what detergent you buy to prewash your baby clothes. Then it matters where you give birth and how you give birth and what baby-wearing device you have and, eventually, if you should send your child to preschool and, if you should, which preschool, and on it goes. 

I know, because I worried about these things, too. But the blessing of being a mom with some mileage on her is that you have the keen perspective of hindsight. The older your children get, the more you're able to see how the story you've been writing turns out.

I'd be so grateful if you took a moment to head over to Simple As That to read the rest of this post. With a bunch of years behind me and my (mostly) delightful teenage children in front of me, there are five things that truly seem to have mattered...things that, unlike that hula girl cake, I'd do again.

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