Shaken and Stirred: Five Years of Parenting Imperfect

For the record, I do not consider myself a parenting expert, nor do I play one on TV. Frankly, I’m okay with that. If I’ve learned anything during the last three years of parenting, it’s that all of your book learning gets chucked out the window when you are deep in the trenches of convincing a small child to wash her hair without screaming like someone is pulling her limbs off and beating her with them. Drs Sears, Spock and T. Berry Brazelton are all conspicuously absent at 2 a.m, when your kid is barking like a baby seal and you’re debating a run to the ER. Experts have their place, certainly, but their advice is frequently more theoretical than real-world based.