Stumbling Toward Enlightenment

I've been thinking a lot lately about what kind of parent I am, and what kind of parent I'm trying to be. I second guess myself a lot, but mostly I feel like I'm on track as far as how my parents raised me and how much of that I want to pass on to my kids. For example: I had a conversation recently with parents that I'm merely acquainted with, and that live in a verrrry different community that I do. We're talking $5,000 a year they pay for preschool--a two-day-a-week preschool. I shit you not. And before I could bite my tongue, I laughed and said that my son's preschool is 100 bucks a month. The other parents just raised their eyebrows and didn't say much after that, and if they think I'm hopelessly middle class, well, I hope I am. Because what I'm hoping to pass on to my kids is a different measure of success. I don't want my kid to feel pressured to read by the age of four--I want him to develop a love of reading, period. I really don't th...

That's what I should change my handle to, really. I see the moms out there, jogging their strollers at 9 in the morning all energized, on their way home from the playground. And I hear that lots of moms go to the park daily (WTF?!?), and attend preschool readiness classes with their kids, and make sure to enroll junior in all sorts of activies early so they're not stuck on the waiting list. Good for them. Seriously--I wish I could be more like that. I, on the other hand, rarely leave the house before 10. I realize that is practically lunchtime for most people with little kids, and that it probably accounts for us having a hard time scheduling play dates, but I'm just too dang lazy. Perhaps I'm remiss in my mom duties--maybe I should be leaving the children's museum at noon instead of arriving at noon. And I should probably be putting the kids in bed at sunset like all the other kids in the neighborhood, but these guys are up until 9 and I just can't get my ac...