Good times ahead?

Me: Don't eat leaves.
Jack:  Eh, they might taste good, you don' t know.

I'm often reminded that I'm a control freak.  Kemper reminds me, in that wonderful way he does, by ignoring my exhausting list of reminders or tips about Jack and the house and whatever I'm fixated on at the moment.  When I got pregnant, I worried, a lot.  I worried about what I ate, how much I ate, the weight I gained and what environmental factors I could and could not control and what exactly they would do to the fetus (or Jack around month 5).

And now that I have a 10 and half month old, my urges definitely ebb and flow.  When Jack first came home I was frustrated.  I tracked every nurse session, poopy diaper, pee diaper, waking time and sleeping time.  Some of it was out of necessity (the nursing and diapers), but mostly it was for the control.  I was told Jack should eat every 2-3 hours.  Ha.  Jack screamed for the first three weeks of his life because of this.  He.did.not.like.imposed.schedules.  He wanted to eat every hour, which meant I started to feed him at 1pm, finished at 1:45, and began again at 2pm.  This lasted forever...or maybe not forever, but it certainly felt like it.  Once I started to feed him whenever he liked for a few weeks, he chilled, and moved on to the better things in life like learning to like belly time and standing while held.

Control issues, as I have learned in my psychopathology class, are mainly linked to fear and insecurity.  I think that's pretty accurate.  I'm really trying to let go because controlling a ten month old is a joke.  As I'm sure controlling a toddler, a kid, a preteen, or a teenager will be.  So Jack is teaching me a lesson.  This is a lesson that I began to learn during my nine month therapy stint.  Through the ultimate behavior modification, parenting, I'm learning to try to let go.  I'm gritting my teeth and bearing it.  It's not always fun, and it's mostly frustrating.  Though I had the ultimate power (with my DNA helper) in creating Jack, I have very limited power in shaping the kind of person he'll be.  Most of that stuff he ironically got from me.  So next up is Jack the control freak...