Parenthood. Who? Me? You? Who knows?

I want to be a good parent. Hell, what am I saying, I want to be a GREAT parent. Some days I'm sure that I've got this thing called parenthood all figured out. I do something that leads to a 'good' behavior in my kids and I get to pat myself on the back and then some days I think I must have this all wrong. I don't know what I'm doing and I don't have ANYTHING figured out. I try not to confuse myself with alot of info coming in from a book or a tv show because I figure if it was that easy then we'd all be 'perfect' material instead of the screw-ups we are (speaking of myself mostly of course), right? I try to go with my instincts..it's like a blind man feeling along in the dark..that's what parenthood is like. It doesn't feel like a billion, zillion ppl before you have done it...it feels like your climbing Mt.Everest for the VERY first time. I mean we get advice (more than we can handle sometimes) and some of it is usable and some of it we have to leave to the wayside and do what works for US and our kids.

The days (some days) when I think I have this figured out then I think HONESTY. Honesty is the key, right. Age appropriate information...consistency, saying NO (some ppl find this difficult?!), trust, open lines of communication...
But the days I feel like I'm a stumbling blind man I think..it's luck. Sheer dumb luck when our kids come out ok. God, maybe. Luck. DNA. Destiny. Fate. Whatever you wanna call it. Who knows? I know I don't have all the answers and I don't know anyone that does ...no matter if they CLAIM to or not.
Sometimes I think its a fleeting moment. You have a fleeting moment to make an impression, to do your job and if that moment passes...if you don't take the chance when it's there then you've lost. You may have lost in the most important moment of your life.

No pressure here, of course... ;)

Later (2 hours later) it occured to me that with your first child you think you have it figured out, right? You have your second and you think, I've totally got this and then you try something that you remember working with the first and your second throws it back in your face and your like WAIT. I know this is not a totally NEW person....with different thoughts, feelings, abilities...(and you start desperately searching for the manual that came with this ONE ..what did I do with that? Surely it was included in those papers I got at the hospital...). And it's like starting over again and again and again. And THEN you have to figure out how to be a fair parent (or appear fair) while parenting each child like THAT child needs it. That's why NO book in the world is gonna have all the answers because the answer is always different unless we want to start having cookie cutter kids which would be EASY to parent but definitely NO fun. ;)