Our Instruction Manual

Clearly children don’t come with an instructional manual. The hospital does a good job of offering classes on the basics of caring for your children ahead of time, teaches you how to nurse and change diapers once you’ve had the baby, and your doctor continues to give you advice as issues arise. How does anyone really know that they are making the right choices in properly parenting their children without some sort of user guide. If this happens, refer to page 26. Before Drew was born, I researched pregnancy, read up on products, interviewed doctors and planned for college. With Gabby there was less research, since I had been through it. I owned most of the products I needed. We already had a doctor. And we had a financial planner for her college account. I was essentially all set. I suspect as years go by, Drew will continue to pave the way for Gabby. Now as we embark on potty training, I’m back to the drawing board. I’m researching ways to make potty training the easiest, reading up on and purchasing products to aid in potty training, etc. So when the time comes that Gabby is ready for that, we can charge forward as seasoned veterans. And as we pass through each hurdle with Drew, we will be that much more prepared for passing that hurdle with Gabby. Of course there will be things that change or are unique to each child but everything we learn from parenting will start with Drew. So although we are the parents, I’m learning how to parent from him. He may not come with an instruction manual, and there are a lot of sources that help us make the best decisions for him (doctor, books, networking, etc), but essentially he is the one giving us the reinforcements on the decisions we make. He is our rough draft. So Gabby will reap the benefits of having parents that know a little more about what they are doing, thanks to her big brother.