Nat and I were remarking that we’re pretty calm parents (we realized this after hanging out with some parents who particularly weren’t). And I thought about why this is so. It’s mainly because we’re calm people, but also because I refuse to get worked up about cleanliness and order. We try to make Sam put things back where they belong. He’s okay about it. Not great, not terrible. He’d be better if we really harped on him about it, but we don’t. I mean, I don’t want to constantly nag. It won’t make me happy. It won’t make him happy.

For some reason, this made me feel superior. But then I remembered that although I won’t scream at my kid about putting away his trucks sloppily, I will let them scream in the middle of the night when they’re a baby in order to learn to fall back asleep on their own without a second thought.

We all pick our battles, I guess.