Priorities

One of the hardest things in life for me is figuring out which good things to do at which times.

Like tonight. 

Should I watch The Biggest Loser Finale? Or American Idol?

Make dinner? Or go on a walk?

Dishes? Or Laundry?

Nap? Or read about parenting and giving birth?

Ideally I wouldn't be so drained, tired, and overwhelmed and I could choose all of those things in one night. Ideally I’d feel like waking up before noon. Ideally we'd be independently wealthy and throwing money out of our helicopter on our way to kayak (in our own kayak...) in Alaska and it wouldn't be irresponsible or unreasonable. Ideally I’d weigh 105 pounds and never eat chocolate. But sometimes you sleep till noon, have a Cadbury mini egg for breakfast, show up at work in Utah in a regular old car without giving anybody as much as a dime, and weigh more than you want. That’s called being a grownup.

So, tonight I have some choices to make, but that’s nothing compared to the other choices I have. Especially when it comes to parenting.

I have a theory that mom’s only have a certain amount of energy. Rather than labeling with a number (which would be wrong anyway) we’ll just use percentages. I have 100% of my energy. How I spend it is up to me. 

Right now the split seems to be 50% sleeping 40% eating 5% puking and 5% blogging about the sleeping, eating, and puking.

When the baby is born, I’m betting it switches to 50% diapers, 40% cuddling, oohing and ahhing, 5% eating, and 5% sleeping.

But eventually I’ll have to get up, take a shower, and act like a mom. That’s when the choices really get hard. There are so many really great practices, theories, and things to teach your kids. And a lot of them are best if you start right away. So, how am I supposed to know what’s most important?

I hope we do the babywise (or something similar) thing so our child WE can sleep through the night.

I’m really interested in Elimination Communication, because I’d love to not be changing diapers my whole life.

I’d like to spend plenty of time signing and reading with my child.

I hope I’ll be better about meal planning and cleaning on a regular basis.

I should be offering choices a la Parenting With Love & Logic.

Teaching my kid to eat good food, make good choices, and of course read, write, and rithmetic are important.

I want to have plenty of time for playing and bonding.

Learning to interact with other kids and sharing is a must (although I don’t have a clue how to teach a child that).

What about the actual birth? Natural or drugs? hypno? water? bradley? In those precious first few moments of Baby Egbert's life, how do I make sure that Baby is getting everything Baby needs?

And that's just the beginning of the list of things I know about, and there are 10 million more that I have no idea about.

The problem is every one of these things take a lot of time, dedication, and making sure that you take some action every time something happens. i.e. putting the child in the crib when sleeping. Child on the toilet when taking care of business, etc.

The bottom line is, I only have 100% of my energy, and 100% of my time each day. So, how do I pick which of all these good things are most important and how do I pick what really doesn’t matter that much to me? 

What did you pick and why? What do you wish you'd picked? What am I completely forgetting about? How much time/energy do which things really take? How much time/energy do I really have?