Baby Milestones I Won’t Miss – I’m bringing this one back after meeting up with a friend whose son is finally past the baby/toddler stage. We laughed our butts off sharing the painful moments of parenting that we hope to never re-visit.
This Baby Milestones I Won’t Miss column is pretty old. The original was written a while back. You can even tell by some of my entries that I’m starting to date myself a little bit :)
I was cleaning out the basement recently to clear some space and to get some items to sell at my mother’s annual garage sale. I suddenly became very nostalgic when I tripped (literally) over some of my children’s old toys. Gone forever are the days when my son would plink away at his baby keyboard mat and gone are the days when my daughter would sit for hours with her Fisher Price Little People Barn playset. The time has gone by so fast! My life was locked into fast-forward back then and I guess I always imagined my children always being at an age where they would play with these toys. Somewhere along the way these toys, and about a million others, were stashed or good-willed to make way for new ones. During the basement cleaning I was beginning to get more than a little emotional.
I talked to my husband at dinner that night and we both reminisced about the toys and the milestones that came and went seemingly before we could blink. At the height of our baby milestones nostalgia, my husband started laughing and said “yeah, but what about all the bad ones?” We started rolling as we came up with our own “good riddance list.”
Baby Milestones I Won’t Miss
Baby Milestones I Won’t Miss – The Wiggles – The Wiggles (and Baby Einstein videos) were the equivalent of crack cocaine for my son. He held this addiction pretty tightly for about 2 straight years. Wiggles songs permeated our house regularly and, to this day, I can still sing “Rock a Bye Your Bear” and do the accompanying dance perfectly. Little did I know that the Wiggles were a gateway drug to an even stronger Spongebob Squarepants addiction.
Baby Milestones I Won’t Miss – The Diaper Pail – I’m not going to get too gross here. Let’s just say that with a 6 month old and a two year old, our diaper pail worked overtime. So much so that we stored the thing OUTSIDE on our patio. Those diapers would freeze like bricks in the winter.
Baby Milestones I Won’t Miss – Potty Training – If you don’t know the joys of not putting Cheerios in the toilet bowl anymore to give your son “something to aim at,” you’re not there yet.
Baby Milestones I Won’t Miss – The Snot Sucker – The bulbous, light-blue snot sucker is long gone and I couldn’t be happier about it. Back in the day, I was a skilled marksman with that thing. My kids are now skilled in the art of nose blowing and I have no idea where it is now (and I don’t ever want to find it).
Baby Milestones I Won’t Miss – Wall Sockets – I can now plug a household appliance in without having to take out the tricky plastic devices (and bust a nail painfully in the process). My are on their own now if they decide to get curious about forks and light sockets.
Baby Milestones I Won’t Miss – Baby Gates – My earliest post-partum physical exercise consisted of stepping over baby gates. (I could never find a free hand to open it:)) The only bright spot to the baby gate was I once witnessed my husband take a tumble and wipeout in the hallway America’s-Funniest-Home-Video-style trying to step over it.
Baby Milestones I Won’t Miss – Car Seats – The absence of baby seats in the car has shortened our family trips by 10 minutes each way. Don’t laugh. It adds up.
OAKLAND COUNTY MOMS BLOG ENTRIES
What are some baby milestones you are glad are in the rearview mirror?
