Parental Flexibility

So I've seen a lot of interesting parenting analogies out there (e.g., getting a baby dressed is like trying to clothe an angry octopus. There is some truth in that!). So this isn't really anything new but as I was reflecting during midnight texts with a friend--it feels like babies/kids consistently wait until his/her parent is starting to feel confident and then s/he changes the rules. This reminded me of the Wisconsin card sorting task. Without providing too much detail (in the interest of psychometric test security), the WCST is a neuropsychological test that measures "flexibility in thinking" by changing the rules throughout the task.

This. 

This is parenting. 

Your child will do something crazy like sleep through the night at an early age (i.e., never forget that STTN just means 5 hours...some hypomanic pediatrician rule passed down, not mine). Just when you begin to emerge from the haze of sleep deprivation and feel almost rested...

Bam! Set shift. 

Adjust to a new schedule of reinforcement. 

Now we wake up every hour to feed. Or we wake up in the middle of the night to practice a new skill--like smiling. Or crawling. Or walking. Or because we missed you. Or because it's Tuesday. 

When you tell the pediatrician your child is not really a climber, no matter what your child's school has told you about her being fearful of steps, rest assured--you will turn around the very next day and she will have climbed on the fireplace. Oops, no one told you the rules change throughout the game?

It absolutely gets easier. Just don't rest on your laurels for one second because kids are unpredictable. That child who turned her nose up at broccoli will get mad one night when she runs out of it at dinner...

They keep you on your toes. 

I hear this is magnified if you have more than one child (when did all these rules change; this seems like a whole new game??). We do well to keep up with the current ever-shifting reinforcement schedule as it is so we won't be finding that out for a long time (if ever!).