Parenting is not so much a learning curve as a drive through a big, unfamiliar city, full of intersections and U-turns.
And speaking of U-turns: we made a major one two mornings ago.
I have always very firmly believed that kids should not sleep in their parents' bed. No, no, never. I thought, for some vague but no doubt highly convincing reason, that this practise was a Bad Thing that would lead to... er, I don't know what exactly. Dependence, mixing of roles, divorce, that kind of thing.
Well, that's all fine, but then one fine day, it's 6 am, you've notched up a grand total of four hours sleep for various reasons (none of them very glamorous or nudge-nudge-wink-winky, I hasten to add...), and frankly, you'd pretty much sell your own mother (sorry Mum) for an extra hour in bed.
So, when such a day arrives, you forget your firmly held belief and coax - nay, beg - your grumpy, snuffly BB to snuggle up under the covers between you and your FH.
You don't have to be a genius, or Miriam Stoppard, to work out that it's probably not a good thing for a kid to get a taste for sleeping in the parental bed.
But you do it anyway. With the sinking feeling of failure in your weary bones.
But PS, as it turned out, his 10 minutes in bed with Maman & Papa do not seem to have brought about the apocalypse I feared. He didn't even seem to enjoy it very much. And clamboured out to freedom as soon as possible.
In fact, I got the distinct impression he only put up with it for the first ten minutes so as not to hurt our feelings.
I wonder how many of my other "firmly held child-rearing beliefs" are waiting to be overturned?
And more importantly, will we find our way out of this tangled city before we run out of petrol???
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