stacking up

When I was pregnant, I signed up for all sorts of emails that would get sent to me each week telling me what was happening with the baby - how big he was, what he was doing in there...helpful stuff like that. What I didn't know was that the emails would continue after the baby was born and slowly but surely start to drive me absolutely, freaking crazy.

"Your house should be babyproofed tighter than Fort Knox!" (Er...not quite but we're getting there.) "Your baby should say 15 words!" (Hmmm...nope.) "Your baby should be drawing with crayons!" (Uh...absolutely not. I actually bought him some crayons after I got that email and he immediately ripped them out of my hands and simultaneously started eating them and snapping them in half like a wild animal.)

Last week's email was about stacking toys. "Your baby should be able to stack rings and blocks!" Oh, okay sure, that one shouldn't be too hard. Ha! We sat down with his stacking toy but no matter how I tried to show him, he would not put the rings on the stick. He threw the rings, he banged the stick, he banged the rings against the stick and then threw them when they wouldn't go on. He just didn't get it. He must not be ready for such a complicated toy, right?

Ummm...yeah. You know where this is going, don't you? The next day I told Matt about our failed ring stacking experiment and he suggested we try again. We all sat down together and I watched as Matt taught Matteo how to properly stack the rings himself in, literally, two minutes.

Ding ding! Lightbulb moment for mama. It wasn't that Matteo didn't get how to stack rings, it was that I didn't get how to teach him the right way. I had totally done something as a parent that I swore I would never do - I got so caught up in 'milestones' that I stressed over something stupid and let something totally fun - teaching him how to do something new - be frustrating and, ultimately, unsuccessful.

Matt and I were talking this weekend about what have been the most surprising parts of parenthood so far, and this is a new one for my list. It's not the big events that teach you the best lessons, it's the little things. Another lesson I learned? It's a great thing to have a teacher for a husband, not just for teaching children, but for having the patience to also teach stressed out mamas who have read one too many 'helpful' parenting emails.