The past few nights, Elizabeth has been a basketcase/angel. A basketcase in her crib, and angel if we get her up. What started it off was that she had croup Friday night, and so we kept her up for awhile after steaming/chilling her, just to make sure it had worked and that she could breathe. She had so much fun, she wants to start a nightly tradition.

Last night after she’d been screaming on and off for two hours, including making herself throw up a little and needing a bath, I took her out to the living room. I turned off all the lights except the Christmas tree lights, and I rocked her in the recliner. I could smell the baby shampoo we’d just used on her hair. I could see the beautiful Christmas ornaments and lights. Elizabeth was snuggled in, and she hasn’t done much snuggling in her life: she’s more of a queenly posture type. So I was drinking it in: wishing she wasn’t up, wishing we weren’t having a Sleep Struggle that was apparently going to need a Solution, but also enjoying the unusual experience of a cuddly toddler falling asleep on me.

But I was also wondering if this was going to take much longer, because it was 9:00 when I got her up, and at 9:30 I need to shower and get ready for bed, so the last 30 minutes of my free time were ticking away and I was still “at work.”

Obviously what I should learn from this experience is to be more “in the moment,” and to soak up these beautiful times whenever they happen: the lights, the shampoo, the snuggle. Instead what I learned (for about the millionth time) is that there is no way to do this parenting thing perfectly. It either isn’t possible to soak up all these beautiful times, or else it is but I’m failing. And if I wasn’t failing at this, I’d be failing at some other aspect–along with the other aspects I’m already failing at, because we all fail at some stuff.

I’ve never had a job where I worried so much about not being perfect at it. It seems to come with the territory: every mother I know worries that she should be doing this differently, or that differently, or this more, or that not at all. Probably the worrying is a good sign: it means we care about doing a good job, and it means we want to do what’s best for our children. That’s like saying it’s “good for your character,” though: big deal, I’d rather be perfect.