A colleague came back from maternity leave. When I told her I didn’t have kids yet but hopefully will, she said: “Don’t read any books.” Having written down one seemingly helpful title about sleep training years ago already, I listened up.
“You can never prepare. We thought we had everything figured out, and then, the day we came back from the hospital, we realized we couldn’t change her diapers in the place we had picked for it. So the living room table it was!”
There’s a difference between no prep and some prep, of course. If you’re gonna have a baby, buying diapers is a pretty safe bet. But trying to be the best diapers for your child? That’ll have to wait until he or she is here.
With big things ahead, we might plan too much and live too little. But even big things happen one day at a time—and the real work is taking life’s beatings as they occur. Usually, some prep is just enough. Do a little less than you’d feel comfortable with, and you might, ironically, feel a little more comfortable once the true discomfort begins.
