To Tell the Truth Tuesday

Ten little-known parenting tidbits about yours truly:

1. I give my kids non-watered down juice (but they prefer water anyway).
2. Every now and then I feed them McDonald's for supper.
3. We practiced "sleep training" with Matt when he was 10 months old - out of sheer exhaustion on my part because I was 5 weeks pregnant and getting up every 2 hours.
   
4. I suffered from pretty severe post-partum depression, and I'm still on Zoloft. It was the best thing I ever did for myself and my kids when I went to the doctor and told them how I was feeling.
5. I never really liked breast feeding. I kept waiting for those feelings of bonding and attachment, and to be honest, I got those feelings more from simply cuddling and singing and rocking my babies.
6. Sometimes I fear that I am too hard on my kids... but I really want them to be well-behaved, polite to their elders and kind to their friends. I really stress those characteristics in my parenting and do not accept any less from them.
7. Matt fell down the stairs when he was about ten months old. I didn't realize he could crawl that fast! I thought my heart was being ripped out of my chest, I was so scared. He was fine though - escaped with nothing more than a bruise on his forehead.
8. I fed Matthew jarred food, but made Jillian's baby food from scratch.
   
9. Just the thought of my kids in daycare gives me anxiety. I don't think I could trust just anyone to take care of them, so Mark (especially) and I make a lot of sacrifices so that I can stay home.
10. I was never one who believed that as a mother my job is to entertain my kids. So from an early age I encouraged them both to entertain themselves and now they enjoy playing quietly with their toys while I do other things around the house. I really think that "kids these days" don't know how to make their own fun and expect distractions every second of the day.
    

And there you go... Now, I want to clarify that just because this is how I choose to parent, doesn't mean that my way is the right way. As you can see from the above list, I've definitely made some mistakes (and put many, many dollar bills into the hypothetical "therapy jar"), so I'm not up on my high-horse by any means.