1st Vs. 7th

I have been thinking for a few months now how much different AJ rules were when he was 2 then Miley. AJ was a only child and the center of my universe (as he should have been). Each one of his actions was carefully evaluated as to how I should react to be that "perfect" parent. Miley shares attention with 7 other kids and two businesses. However, I think I enjoy parenting her more. Not because she is cuter, easier, more fun, etc. I am not sure she is more that than any of my other kids, but I have relaxed on the parenting front and been able to enjoy her for her. I don't carefully analyze and calculate my parenting actions as I once did. Today I realized maybe I need to analyze more.

Miley got into the pantry (less than an hour after breakfast) and made her own concoction of pretzel M & M's with a couple of spoonfuls of peanut butter. She had a spoon and a bib and was ready to dig in when I found her. If it were my first child, I would have taken away the food, given a 2 minute timeout, followed by a lecture of asking before getting into the pantry. Cut to today, when I asked what she was doing and then told her if she was going to eat it she needed to sit at the kitchen table. How life changes?

I have always said that the hard part of being a mom is everything you do either gets undone in less than a day (i.e.cleaning the kitchen) or takes 20 years to find out if you did it right or not. Hopefully, 20 years from now I will be glad that Miley had PB/Pretzel M & M's for breakfast today.