As a preface, I am currently reading Eckhart Tolle's book, "A New Earth", which was recommended to me by my Iranian chiropractor. It is intended to be a sort of spiritual awakening guide, but I have been enjoying it as a review of my psychology and philosophy classes. It talks a great deal about the "ego" and who we are as people living in this society. Tolle speaks about the inner voice that we all have, which I learned as "self talk" in Psych 101 in college. I probably came to recognize my inner voice when I was around 9 or 10 years old and starting to imagine myself talking to certain friends at school, or perhaps that one cute boy. I would hold conversations in my head, practicing what I would say, as I know you all do as well. The inner voice is unavoidable, but it becomes interesting when we analyze it and recognize when we are thinking or saying things to ourselves that are humorous, off-the-wall, or revealing. Anyway, to get to my point, I have been thinking more about what my voice has been saying as of late, and just the other night, I had a small parent-related idea. It was 4 o'clock in the morning, and I was thrilled because Anna had just slept for 7 1/2 hours straight! She is getting better and better at night, and I was just so happy to think that night-time feedings will probably be eliminated very soon now. I think while I was feeding her, I was imagining telling my mother about how cool that was when all of a sudden, Anna vomited her milk all over me. It was a good two or three ounces down my shirt, but I wasn't discouraged and my mood actually wasn't effected at all. I've gotten pretty used to unexpected explosions from my daughter, so I jokingly said with a melodramatic voice inside my head, "How could you do this to me???" and I think I laughed audibly along with it. At that point I realized that I could really ask the very same question regarding how long she had slept that night. If a parent takes it personally when a child does bad, then they certainly need to take it personally when they perform well or do good things. I have found that already I'm falling into a pattern of parenthood where my child does well because she is an amazing baby, but when she struggles with something, it is my fault. "I should have burped you better", or "You ate too much and that was my fault". I'm sure that I'm overanalyzing all of this, but I am just so interested to see what type of parent I will be, that I'm watching for habits and irrational behavior. Childrens' behavior is most likely a combination of the "nature vs. nurture" idea; in Anna's example, I know it is. She is both a very relaxed baby and I worked hard at creating good sleep habits from early on. She is also going through a spit up phase and I should have burped her earlier. I don't think any parent can completely take credit or completely blame themselves for anything their children do. This idea that popped into my head during Anna's feeding has nothing to do with my parents, or any specific parents that I know (nice little disclaimer, eh?). I only know terrific parents, and I'm just throwing around the thoughts that leaped into my head that night. Now, for the real reason that most of you check this blog, here is a cute picture of Anna... 
