My Little Tree Hugger

The other day while we were driving in the car, I looked in my rear view mirror and saw Genevieve with her head tipped to the side snoozing away, capturing a nap. This is not a rare occurrence in our lives. Often we are running from one thing to the next and there are times when she just has to nap when the opportunity presents itself. This got me thinking about the roles of Nature vs Nurture in our lives.

This is not how I imagined I'd be as a mother. Before Genevieve was born, in my life as a nanny, I was all about structure, sleep training, schedules, classes, playdates, and preparedness. I always had all the necessary supplies: wipes, diapers, snacks, drinks, emergency medicine... We were home on time for nap every day and if the child woke up "too early" I would let them hang in their crib or talk over the monitor and say, "Not time to wake up yet, go back to sleep." Partly because I believed the child needed this rest (and occasionally true) and also because as a nanny this is your "lunch break," your time to recharge, time to throw dishes in the dishwasher or fold the laundry, this time is SACRED.  So it was only natural that I thought I'd follow suite as a mother...

Well, circumstances have led us along a different path of parenting. As a mom who works and brings her child along, Genevieve doesn't always have the privilege of having a set schedule. She's often in the car running errands or heading from one job to the next with me. She helps me clean houses and makes friends with all the kids I babysit; her only requirement: I must play "songs" while we are in the car. (It is so cute listening to her sing along to her favorite cd by Miss Julie or her favorite song on the radio, "Cool Kids.") Because of the realities of the way we live our lives now, sometimes we are home for nap and sometimes we only have time for a quick nap in the car on the go. Genevieve has become the friendliest, most adaptable child!

So while I was glancing at my sleeping babe I just got to thinking about an article I read on introverted vs extroverted. I'd label Genevieve as an extrovert; me, her mama is somewhere down the middle, and her papa is an introvert. Just based on our lives, I think we've "trained" her - nurtured her - into becoming the little blossoming extrovert that she is. Maybe in another lifetime, with another schedule, or a different family system, she would be an introvert... It was just a random thought I had.

Through my babysitting & nanny experiences, and now motherhood, I've seen how we act as parents, how we nurture our children, impacts them. They adapt to our family systems, to our schedules. They learn our habits, traits, strengths, and weaknesses and then they transform into little adults who we hope become slightly better versions of ourselves. I'm not pro-nature or pro-nuture in any extreme of one against the other, these are just some of my rambling thoughts of my nurturing experiences as a mama.

Some days I feel like I'm winning at this game - I'm raising the most awesome, smartest, most tenacious child in the UNIVERSE! Other times I stress - should she have more structure, how do my actions and choices impact her negatively, am I doing okay here? I'm sure others of you have similar struggles! Lately I've been working on being kinder to myself and looking in that rear view mirror and saying, "good job Fawn! look at that happy, friendly, flexible babe, you did something right!"