What to expect when you're not expecting it.

I remember reading this book "What to expect when your expecting" and then "What to expect the 1st year" and I referenced it to every tiny thing Jillian would do. She was a later bloomer in most things kids do holding her head up, sitting up, crawling, and then walking. She was never "Late" just always at the end of the spectrum and it made me a NERVOUS wreck because of that book.

When I was pregnant with Mallory I read it and not to the extent that I did with Jillian. I had a lot of issues with Mallory's pregnancy I started contractions at 30 weeks and started to dilate so they stopped my labor told me to take it easy yadeyayaya. I really felt as if something was wrong, I told them after many ER trips that something was wrong with her. They didn't do an ultrasound even though I begged them to and I'm not sure now I would have wanted them to because what they would have found is not something you would have wanted. Not that we wanted it 2 months after her birth but we had 2 months where we had Mallory without cancer. The What to expect books touch on this subject but the paragraph is about this big

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your kid won't have cancer, cancer is children is rare

(that's pretty much what I gathered from this section)

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Fast forward to a fabulous arrival of a 7lb 10oz bleach blonde beauty with a huge stomach which at the time was ADORABLE because Jillian was twig baby, long and lanky! I finally got my fat baby so I just loved her tummy! I had a gallbladder attack that ended up in an ambulance ride, IV antibiotics and then they removed it when she was 2 weeks (This is probably the cause for my body being DUMB during pregnancy). She was great at nursing but I thought my supply had tanked from the surgery and recovering so my doctor gave me a prescription for a pill that helps with that, Nope I just walked around with full boobs. Around a month old I'd pump 4 ounces she'd eat 1 maybe. So I brought her back in, try this reflux med, try colic drops, formula, try this that and the other thing. NOTHING would help her, we finally made it to her 2 month checkup and her pediatrician was pushing on her stomach and walked out of the room and came back in again and did it again and he said that he thought she had an enlarged spleen or kidneys and we'd be set up for an ultrasound at our children's hospital to have it looked at.

We set the appointment for the next day at 7:30 because we wanted to get to the bottom of this. As my husband and I are lying in bed we googled "enlarged spleen or kidney" and it said CANCER. At that moment we shut the phone off and laid down. Done, NEVER GOOGLING EVER AGAIN.

That paragraph in that book couldn't help the roller coaster that started the next day, I didn't use it at all and honestly have no idea where it and it's little book friends went and I am happy they are gone. I am a better mom with not comparing my children to these books and how my child should be. My kids have been ALL different, there is no manual to help you with colic, there is no information about double adrenal neuroblastoma in your infant and what to expect when that happens.  There is no manual for Kate that I will be looking into. I trust that I can handle anything that comes our way and I really want to enjoy it without skipping to the next step too soon.

I am winging my parenting and I like it, I like it a lot.
When we spend so much time worrying about what we should do we miss out on so much.
Love today. Love your kids for who they are. You cannot LOVE too much.

Mathew 6:34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.