The Bottle

This is a continuation of my thoughts from yesterday's post, here.

I thought I knew about being a mom. I have two older girls who are turning out quite well, if you ask my opinion. I spent years on the leadership of MOPS, and people have even come to me for advice on parenting once in a while.

So why do I feel like I don't know anything anymore?

Though bio parenting and adoptive parenting may look similar on the outside, now that I'm here I'm finding that there are very important, though subtle from the outside, differences.

For example, this morning Allison was having a "freak out" session. I tried playing with her, I tried holding her, I tried walking with her, I tried feeding her, and nothing worked. So I pulled out the secret weapon -- the bottle. I am trying to be consistent, and trying to get her on a schedule, and trying to build some routine, but a bottle is just what she needed/wanted and she calmed down in my arms immediately. Then we played, then she went down for a nap a few minutes ago (canceling my lunch date with my love, but I'm sure he'll give me a rain check for another day).

Even though I processed through my thoughts yesterday about 14 months vs. 3 weeks, I still had the "old" me fighting to stay strong and not give in to her fit. That she is over a year old and shouldn't be getting mid-day, just for the heck of it bottles. Goodness knows that M & E wouldn't have gotten a bottle if they acted like that at 14 months.

But the rules are different, and I have to change everything I know.