different strokes for different folks.

there are so many different ways to raise a child.  i would guess that everyone's way is the way they best know how.  parents either learn or pick up from their own parents (both positively or negatively), and then they move forward.  they model their behaviors after the parents they admire (even if they are not their own.)  some parents feel that rules are meant to be followed at all cost.  some feel that the child rules. some (i would guess many, if not most) lay somewhere in between.  


these thoughts are all streaming from my nearly burnt out mind, but i couldn't stop thinking about tonight in my house.  the baby is sick, or something.  she screamed for most of the afternoon, evening, and several times after she fell asleep.  My almost four-year-old was "bored" since we were focusing mostly on the baby and dinner and laundry, etc.  when i came out from my third attempt at putting the baby to sleep (also after changing her sheets because she threw up everywhere from crying so much...),  i was irritated and tired.  i wanted to sit down and relax- with NO kids around.  but M wanted to play (mind you, it was now almost 9:30.)  it took every single fiber of my being to not just snip something to the effect of, "it is time to go to sleep."  instead, i sat down at a "desk" and joined the classroom, where she was "teaching" us all about crab's legs. we ate them "dumped" in butter.  she also told us "why did the skeleton cross the road" jokes.  it mostly featured a skeleton who had to cross the road because his haunted house was in the middle of the street and he had to jump over it, but then he had to hit the light button to come back to it... yadda yadda yadda.   each joke could easily have lasted five to six minutes, and was quickly followed by another, even more elaborate adventure of this skeleton crossing the road.  my husband and i were laughing genuinely.  it was great!


i am recounting these moments, somehow trying to tie in to the raising children controversy.  my husband and i don't do things the typical way.  we don't necessarily have set bedtimes, or hard-fast rules.  but what we do have is an extremely creative, wonderful thinker, who knows that her parents love her unconditionally.  is there really anything more important than that?  ever?