The other day Like two months ago I asked you, the reader, to provide questions or topics for me to blog on. This one’s been sitting around in my drafts folder just begging to be finished.

Emily Marion asked: So you’re expecting your third kiddo, what are you going to do differently? What have you learned from Josh and Riley that you want to implement into #3’s life? What is something you wish you would have known about being a parent, before you became a parent?

Good questions! Here goes.

  1. The thing I will try to do differently is spend more time with my wife. With Josh and Riley, I focused most of my attention on them. The most important thing I can do for all of my kids is to show them that I love and respect their mother.
  2. I have learned numerous things from Josh and Riley. a) Kids are tougher than they look. You can bonk their head on the door jamb when they’re asleep and they’ll live through it.(Kids are basically made of rubber for the first 4 years.) b) Also, I learned with boys that you have the new diaper ready before you remove the old diaper. Apparently air is the catalyst for urine discharge. c) Kids pick up EVERYTHING. Especially bad habits. And bad words. And they will repeat them in the most inopportune moments.
  3. I wish I had known love isn’t a function of quantity. Let me explain: I loved Josh 100% when he was born. While Ginny was pregnant with Riley, I feared I couldn’t love Riley as much, or that I would have to love Josh less in order to love Riley. This plagued me many a night until Riley was born. Once Riley showed up, I was relieved to know I could love her 100% and still love Josh 100%. It sounds stupid, but my brain works in very strange ways. Loving Riley fully didn’t affect my ability to love Josh fully, or Ginny for that matter. Actually, it increased my capacity to love each of them even more. Kind of Multiplication by Addition.

Thanks, Emily, for that great question!