Friday, July 29, 2011

A Four Year Degree

My Tazmanian Princes turns FOUR on Sunday.  While I certainly do not have anything close to a degree on parenting, I like to think I am almost done with my undergrad requirements. OK, so maybe at the very least, I have completed my 101 coursework. The course titles are as follows:

  • What's that cry, and is it serious?
  • The Nuk: Pay now or Pay Later
  • The Doctors Office: Picking a good Doctor with an even better waiting room.
  • How to Ro-Sham-Bo your way out of a diaper change.
  • The Diaper Bag: What you need in it, and where it should be at all times. (I actually have to retake this class.)
  • Cartoons: Evil Laissez Faire Parenting Device or Brilliant Spanish Lessons?
  • Solidarity in Numbers: Finding fellow parents with the same aged terrorists.
  • The Kid Friendly Home is NOT a Clean Home
  • Early Childhood Discipline: When all else fails, bring candy. (Pre-requisite:The Diaper Bag)
  • The Finer Things in Life: Saying goodbye to anything you paid good money for and investing in dirty, sticky, wide eyed savages.

I've learned a lot about raising babies in my very short four year stint, but I think I've learned more about myself.  If anyone would like to take a few Parenting classes, while I am not technically "certified" and the classes themselves would most likely focus on some sort of baked good, I am more than willing to teach the following:
  • When Drugs are better than Hugs: Labor, Depression and Severe PMS
  • It's OK to Cry
  • Play dates are for Mommies.
  • Get a Job or Stay at Home? Either way, you gonna WORK.
  • Your new body: Learning to love your belly button.
  • Loosen Up!: Stopping to watch The Wild Things Grow

So this weekend, I will lift up my cupcake with sprinkles and princess ornaments to toast my first teacher.

To Rylee.
May I be as willing to learn from you as I am to teach.
And in turn, may you be filled with the same joy you has given to us.

 Rylee - 1 month

Rylee - 1 year

Rylee - 2 years old

Rylee - 3 years old


And 4 year old pictures to come next week!

3 comments:

  1. Oh, Nikki, I will totally take classes from you, particularly focusing on a baked good! Rylee is a gorgeous apple-headed ball of awesome, so you must be doing something right. The fact that you have survived four years of this gives me hope; these days I keep wondering if I'm going to survive the week/day/hour.

    Happy birthday, Rylee!

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  2. A+, my Nikki --I LOVE this (I hope you offer night classes; by night classes, of course, I mean between midnight and four am). I'll take them all --particularly the one about cartoons being brilliant Spanish lessons. I actually LOLed!I LOVE LOLing! I love LOLing with you, which is why I love being a Mama with you as much as I loved teaching drama-shed theater with you in that other century we were born in. Brava!

    And happiest of birthdays to your Duchess. xoxo, Marta

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  3. I am interested in the nuk-pay now or pay later class... currently we are going with the pay later route...I think I have a potential thumb sucker so I am trying to prevent that and give the nuk instead...cause I cannot take her thumb away later.

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