Parenting Lesson #1

When I was pregnant I frequently tried to visualize the little baby growing inside of me. I assumed he would have blue eyes, since both Steven and I have eyes of the blue/green genre, and I assumed he would have blonde hair, since both Steven and I were blonde as babies. I also pictured a little button nose, and while I knew that there would be some crying once he left the womb, I didn't think there would be all that much. I also just assumed he would breastfeed.

Now that he's closing in on his 4 week birthday, it's become apparent that all of the tube feeding and lactation-consultant-visiting is not going to make him into a baby who nurses. And it's occurred to me that perhaps this is my first lesson in parenting, writ large on my boobs: he's going to be who he's going to be. That is, even though I wanted a blond-haired, button-nosed nursing baby, I got a brown-haired, fat-nosed bottle-feeding one. From day one Milo is his own person, no matter what I may want him to be. An while the fight right now may be over boobies, in the future it will be about other things, like what clothes he will wear or what words might come out of his mouth or the fact that he wants to be an accountant and I want him to spend a year trekking in Mongolia.

Steven and I joke that Milo can be whatever he wants to be except a writer or an actor. We laugh about how acceptable professions include rocket scientist, neurosurgeon and chemical botanist. Because we know that ultimately when it comes to choosing what kind of person he will be, we won't really have that much say in the matter. And so far, we know that he's never going to be a breastfeeder. I just didn't realize he was going to start being his own person so soon.