Never Say Never

A few years ago when my first child was still an infant, I was visiting a friend with two kids. Her son was a few months older than my daughter and I saw my friend pat his diaper to see if he needed a change yet. Then she said, "There's a little pee in there, but I'm going to wait until there's more."

Oh, I was in such self-righteous, mortified shock. Waiting to change a wet diaper?? And then later I was such a snob. I remember telling my playgroup of first-time moms about it, and everyone gasped and said they would never do that.

I SO do that now though. I feel like it's such a waste when I change a light diaper, and am so proud and thrifty feeling when a diaper is totally saturated.

There are so many things that I thought I'd never do. I'm embarrassed sometimes about how snooty I was about them too. Things like:

- store-bought jars of baby food instead of home-made
- Co-sleeping
- Saying, "No" too much instead of using positive words
- I leave my 3-year-old unattended in the tub with the door open so I can hear her for her once/week bath (I always said I'd do daily baths). I make her sing so I can hear that she's okay.
- Sometimes when my husband is working late I call ahead for a pizza and then when I run in to pick it up I leave the kids in the car. (I fret mightily about this one, but the walls are windows and I can see the car the whole time and it's under 2 minutes that I'm gone.)
- I let my baby play with pens from whatever institution I'm at - the bank, the gym office, the grocery store, the hospital. Disgusting, I KNOW! And I didn't think I would ever do that, but I do.

Of course there's the binky dropping, and while I'm not at the stage of washing it off every time, I do still at least eyeball it for visible contamination. I'll never be one of those moms that just tells the kid to pick it up and put it back in.

Or will I?

At this point, I never know just what "terrible" thing I'll do next. I haven't done the child "leash" yet, for example, but instead of viewing them with horror now, I find myself admiring how practical they are.

What have you done as a parent that you swore you'd never do?