The Learning Curve

It has been said that hindsight is always 20/20. As a first time parent I am definitely learning as I go and when I take a moment to reflect, I think of many ways that I can and will do things differently in the future.

We received lots (and lots and lots) of washcloths and bibs as gifts while I was pregnant. I remember sorting through baby shower gifts and looking at a pile of about six packages of washcloths thinking, "Am I really going to need this many?" I realize that I had two babies to scrub and wipe clean, but 30+ washcloths seemed a bit excessive to me. I gave a few packages to my sister who was expecting a baby two months later and I gave some to my mother-in-law to keep at her house. I also donated a few packages to a baby raffle basket to help raise funds for the local community.

What I didn't realize was that I wasn't going to need all of those washcloths at once, however, I would need them all eventually. When Tanner and Abigail began eating solid foods I used Johnson & Johnson Hand and Face Wipes to clean them after every meal. Those little packages of wipes were expensive and I didn't like the idea of making our carbon footprint even larger, since we were already using disposable diapers, so I decided to use washcloths instead. Three meals a day, six plus months later and those washcloths are stained and smelly. I have one that you can actually see my handprint on! I wash them often but the smell of old milk and rotten food remains. The other day I grabbed a "clean" washcloth from the stack, dampened it under the faucet, rung it out and sniffed it...YUCK! I couldn't imagine having that nasty smelling washcloth wiped across my face. I threw it out along with a few others and I bought a few new packages of washcloths at Walmart that afternoon.

Looking back now instead of giving away my surplus of washcloths I should have saved several packages to replace the ones that are now too disgusting to use. The same could be said for the multitude of bibs that we received. Instead of opening and using every single one that we were given, I should have tucked a few away to replace the stained ones or the ones who's Velcro no longer sticks properly.

I am sure that this lesson applies to more than just bibs and washcloths and I probably won't discover what those items are until after the fact. I hope that after reading this post others will be able to learn from my mistakes. Parenting truly is a learning curve or in my case a learning wave.