Parenting is a series of a million decisions of varying sizes every day, and trying to make peace with those decisions when you’re torn between two imperfect options, and trying not to second guess yourself when the decision leads to unfortunate results.

For example, let cranky baby sleep in the car so he’s less cranky or wake him up so he’s more likely to go to bed sooner rather than later? Few things about parenting are as simple as you might have expected before you have children.

The most important thing our doula, who was otherwise generally useless, said to us while I was in labor with Zoe was, “think of a the things you swear you will never do as a parent or what you’ll always do as a parent, and prepare to break all your own rules.”

Truth.