Things I want to do, or not

This is part of the monthly PAIL theme post. Check this out for more details. 

I have always wanted to be a mom, and my husband and I have always known we wanted to be parents together. We've known each other for 6 years, have been married for nearly 4, and threw out the bcps a little over 3 years ago. This has given us a lot of time to think about what type of parents we would like to be.

I don't imagine that we would ever follow a prescribed system for parenting. I imagine that we will go with the flow a bit and will research various theories as circumstances arise, maybe catch a few episodes of Super Nanny along the way. Mostly, we've collected a long list of random things we know we don't want to do.

1. No DVD in the SUV. Well, this is easy so far, since we don't actually own an SUV, and I may end up eating my words some day, but we really want to limit television watching while Violetta is very small. Hubby would like to have no TV until she is at least two. We will see how this goes, as we are TV people. But, my hope is that long road trips can be fun family time, where we sing, and play games and tell stories, and our child doesn't expect to be entertained for hours by moving pictures. 
2. Asking Yes/No questions. A friend of ours would always ask his son "Is this a circle? Is this a square?" This leaves only two words for the child to answer. Yes or no. I would much rather see the question posed as "What shape is this?" to encourage better language development. 
3. Avoid a long, drawn out bedtime routine. Some of our friends disappear for literally hours when they put the kids to bed. It starts with bath time, then the kid gets to pick out several stories and demand which parent will read them. My SIL has had great success detaching my niece's baths from bed time. She says Lady C is ramped up as opposed to calmed by the water. She is able to put her down in 15 - 20 minutes, and return to the adults for the rest of the evening. I'm not sure how we figure this out, but it is something I aim for. 
4. Avoid anal retentive nap routines. My cousin once told her her mother (and mine) who had just driven to Boston from Albany for three hours to visit for Easter, that they needed to go to CVS and kill a half an hour because her boys were still sleeping and she wouldn't let them in the house. Need I say more? (My cousin is also the person who disappears for 3 hours when it bedtime arrives). 
5. Do not let kids dictate parental responsibilities. We are friends with one couple who will trade off who drives the car on the demand of their child. Let me tell you, if Mommy is tired, then Mommy's not driving. Deal. 
6. Don't be the only person who can put my baby to bed. I know so many mom's who fall into this trap and are so tied to the home because of it. I know part of it has to do with breastfeeding, and it might be really hard to avoid, but it's on the list.  
7. Let my baby sit on an elevated surface in a bumbo chair. It says these are only to be used on the floor, and it makes me really nervous to see when parents put their baby up on a counter in their seat. 
8. Don't be afraid of baby sitters. The aforementioned cousin asked me to babysit for her son when he was 1.5 years old so they could go out for her husband's 40th birthday. She was 6 months pregnant with her second. This was the first time he had a baby sitter. Her mother had been to visit countless times, and never once had been allowed to stay with her son so she and her husband could have some alone time. 

I also have list of things that I would like to do if all works out well. 

1. Breastfeed for 6 months to a year.
2. Use sign language to encourage early communication and language development. I don't hear of people doing this as often these days, but I have always been fascinated by the idea. It makes so much sense to me that babies can communicate before their mouths are developed enough to form the words. 
3. Encourage brave eating habits. Again, following the lead of my SIL, Lady C seems to be a very unchoosy eater, and was actually eating a lot of real foods by 6 months. SIL's theory is that evolutionarily speaking, before infants were mobile, they implicitly trust food given to them because it comes from their care giver. Once they start to crawl, they are more skeptical of what they eat, because it might be dangerous to ingest. So, the idea is to introduce a lot of tastes and textures before they are mobile. 
4. In combination with above, make a lot of my own baby food, specifically, mush up whatever we are eating that night with an immersible blender (which I've now decided I must have) and call it dinner. 
5. Be laid back and easy going, attempt to implement a routine, but not freak out if flexibility is required, and try not to turn into Claire Dunphy (though I fear this may be inevitable, reference the haunted house Halloween episode tantrum). I think children clearly benefit from a routine, but flexibility is a great skill to learn as well. 

So, there you have it...a list of things I don't want to do, and a list of things I hope I can pull off. I'm sure both are longer, but with my pregnancy brain, I'm having trouble with memory these day! I'll be sure to let you know how it goes.