remaining calm

The thing about parenting is that it consistently throws you into situations for which you are wholly unprepared but about which you now must act quickly and decisively for the well being of someone you love more than life itself.  And when you are staying home, the only job you have is to take care of these little ones.  So when something goes wrong, it isn't hard to blame yourself and feel like a failure.

For example, over the past week Jonathan has developed a stutter and started saying "dammit" with alarming frequency.  And Zoë has demonstrated that she is completely unwilling to drink from a bottle.  I am not a speech therapist or a psychologist and we never had a problem introducing Jonathan to the bottle.  I suspect that the stutter and the swearing are both related to the stress of the life changes that have recently befallen our little man- and that the best course of action is to remind him that swearing is rude, but to generally ignore them, pile on the TLC, and that this phase will naturally run its course.  But there is a little voice in my head telling me that stutters can be lifelong, debilitating conditions and that my improper handling of it now could ruin Jonathan's life.  I don't know what to do about the bottle issue, except to remain calm, warm, and loving, and to keep practicing and trying new bottles.  But the little voice in my head keeps telling me that if I don't get this figured out, Zoë will starve to death when I go back to work.

I think the trick is to hold the potential seriousness of situations in mind while remaining calm and taking everything with a grain of salt.  Yes, things need to be dealt with in a thoughtful manner with an eye to the future.  But everything is a phase.  And most things sort themselves out with time and patience.  Or at least that is what I keep telling myself.