Yesterday I gave Lilly a suck of my Sweet Tarts cherry candy cane. She seemed to like it, but I do kind of wonder what kind of horrible habit I’ve started, and which teeth I’ve rotted.

Much like the one where I forgot to buckle her in her car seat and drove five miles to the hospital for her newborn screen. My mom went with us and as I was taking Lilly out of her car seat to get her ready, I wondered how she buckled her in under her jacket. Oops.

…or the time I was relaxing after patting her back for 45 minutes straight and all of a sudden she jumped up out of nowhere and her head went flailing everywhere and ended up hitting it on the arm of the rocking chair. It was cushioned, thank God. She didn’t cry, but I almost did.

Every experienced mother knows to put a clean diaper under a little girl before taking the dirty one off. Okay, even as an inexperienced mother, I knew that. Well, I get lazy sometimes and the other day I just ripped it off, cleaned her up, and as I was putting the clean diaper under her, she pooped no sooner than I move my hand. Lesson learned, God. Thank you.

I always said I wouldn’t let my kids watch too much television or be babysat by some cool toy, but right now, there’s no such thing. Especially when I can stick her in her swing and turn on anything I want to watch. She likes watching the colors, and if I have something I need to do, it keeps her busy for a few minutes while I finish up. I don’t know whether this is considered a bad mommy moment or a bad habit, but I feel like it’s not too damaging right now. I don’t like conditioning her to anything, so she is given many ways to kick her boredom. I just hope I’m not ruining her eyes.

So, along with putting her to sleep by rocking and singing to her every night (and that‘s the only way she knows how to go to sleep), giving her a pacifier for the car seat, having Heath hold a bottle while I change her diaper at night time to keep her quiet, and all of the above aforementioned situations, I know these first two and a half weeks have only begun the countless number of bad mommy moments and habits that are probably going to be comparable to Hell to break. I don’t think anyone really knows what their parenting style is going to be like - no matter how planned out they have it - until they have a little one and they do EVERYTHING including what they said they’d NEVER do to keep a baby busy and happy.