I am a different kind of mom

I've thought about this subject a lot the last seven months. I'm a very different mom than I was when I had Tyler and Nathan, but that doesn't necessarily mean I am better. Just different. I do truly believe I was the best mom I could be and did the best job I knew how raising them. I think thats all you really can ask of any parent - considering what you know, who you are, and what resources you have. I was such a young mom! I knew nothing about being a parent (although I had many years of babysitting all kinds of kids under my belt), I had no friends that were parents, I had very little educational resources to turn to. I was a very traditional parent, and tried hard to 'follow the rules'. Following the rules meant I was a good parent. What my doctor said was gospel, any advice my mom gave me was truth, and the things I read in the few books I had was the way things should be. I couldn't imagine disagreeing with a doctor or thinking there was more than one way to raise a baby.

Again, I am not saying I am better now than I was then. I mean, look at my older boys! They are awesome. They grew up healthy, learned the things they needed to learn at the right times, and for the most part I think they had a happy childhood and a good life. I almost have a hard time taking much credit in their growing up and would deny I had much to do with it if I hadn't been there myself to witness it.

I am so different now. The world is so different as well. I am a parent of a baby again. A whole different parent it seems. There are so many ways to raise a child these days (and I assume there was also back then, I just didn't know it). I have access to more information on babies and child rearing than I ever could have imagined in my young adulthood. I only have to do some searching on the internet to find out everything I need to know on any subject I want. I can't imagine what it would have taken to find out all the different methods of feeding, sleeping, and raising a child back in the early 90's. I also could not fathom looking at other's opinions and wisdom as advice back then, instead of word. I have a whole different perspective on it all now. I sometimes think the 'me' then would be appalled at the 'me' now.

But here I am, the 'me' now. Raising another boy in this world. Ultimately, I am still worried about the same things I was worried about then. Will he be happy? Will he have a good life? Will I be able to give him everything he needs, and some of the things he wants? In that respect, I am still the same 18 year old mom I was. Still hoping I will be the best me that I know how to be.

Crawling

Porter has been working on his crawl for a while now. We figured he would be a traditional crawler when he would get up in the crawl position and then get on his tippy toes, sticking his butt high in the air. It took him longer than I thought it would for him to start moving though; he would get up in the crawl position and just rock back and forth like he was starting his engine, but then finally the other day he figured out how to move his hands. He also just learned how to go from the crawling position back to sitting. Sorry this video is so lame. Every time I try to film him on my Flip he seems to know he is on camera and stops whatever it is that I'm trying to film. So instead I was able to get him on my phone which obviously does not have very good quality.