Thoughts on the Other Night

Just so I don't leave everyone hanging on the Nathan crying thing, we have not had a repeat as of yet.  Tuesday night he started crying at 9:00, but I just waited to see if he would settle himself down and he did in about 5 minutes.  Then last night we didn't hear a peep from him.  Hopefully tonight goes as smoothly, but thank you God that we have not had a repeat so far!

Now that the horrible night is behind me, I can think about the situation with the logic that flew from my brain Monday night.  As my grandmother mentioned to me tonight on the phone, just because something happens once doesn't mean that a new habit has formed.  And this applies both to habits that Nathan (may or may not be) starting as well as habits that I might or might not introduce.  Should I have gone in and rocked or patted my baby until he fell asleep the other night?  Maybe.  I didn't do it mostly because I WAS worried that I would create a new bad habit and in one night I would undo all the work that has gone into having him fall asleep on his own.  Is that what would have happened?  Probably not.

I feel so silly when I think about how naive I was about parenting before we had Nathan.  Everyone says parenting is hard, but I thought "how hard can it really be, what in the world are they talking about?"  I'm beginning to learn what "everyone" is talking about.  I know now that parenting is full of big and small decisions that you have to make everyday when you're possibly tired or stressed or annoyed, and you just have to hope and pray that you make good decisions most of the time.  And I'm certain I have so much more to learn!