The Perfect Parent~A Mini Series

We all start out to be " the perfect parent".  We read the books, take the class, eat the right food and hope to have the perfect labour to welcome our new bundle of joy into this world.  There has never been a more beautiful baby, and surely this child will be the one to end war, end starvation and run the country, all before he or she is 25.  Yes, I have the perfect child.

Very quickly reality sets in that first night home.  A horrific sound awakes your exhausted mind, crying!!  Yes that first night I was in such a deep sleep that I had forgotten that this perfect bundle of joy, was going to wake...and wake often.  I've never slept in a deep sleep like that ever again.

Suddenly those perfect images in every book are a bunch of crap.  There's no taking turn's feeding or changing the baby.  Even if it was perfectly "fair"with a chore chart with Mommy's name and Daddy's name and gold stickers marking each time a diaper was changed.  You'd swear your husband found your stash of gold stickers and secretly places as many of those shinning stars by his name as possible.  Why?  Because your exhausted, your hormonal and raising your voice has just become the norm.

I raised both of my kids pretty much on my own (yes another child follows, so the crying isn't all that bad)  My husband (now ex) works on the oil rigs, I was pretty much alone most of the time.  I have no biological family in the Province I live in, so there wasn't anyone who just came to help, and help is what I needed.  My daughter was not a healthy child, born with an immune deficiency she was sick all the time.  I was exhausted, overwhelmed and depleted.

I will never forget the day I realized that parenting was going to be what I made it.  My daughter asleep on my chest laying on the couch I watched a huge spider fixing his web.  The spider had been there for weeks growing fat and equally scary.  Everyday however, the spider would have to fix his web after that nights catch damaged the delicate silk.  The whole point of a web I suppose!  The spider however, carefully went around and around making his web perfect and beautiful, knowing that he would have to do it all over again tomorrow.  I am just like this spider, if I want to create not just a life for my daughter but a beautiful one I was going to have to work for it every single day.  This is when I decided to be " the perfect parent" or as perfect as I could be.