There are days I could get a medal for my parenting skills.  Then there are days when the bottom falls out.  And I thank goodness there’s not a hidden camera in my home.

Whether it’s a good parenting day or a bad parenting day, I’m in a constant state of trying to figure out what will work and what won’t.  As I make these discoveries, I write them in my unwritten handbook.  It’s the biggest, Great Big Book of Everything you have ever seen.  

Well, of course you’ve seen it.  You have one too.  We all do. Chapters upon chapters of endless details about our children.  Starting from when they were very tiny, up to the present.  

My Great Big Book of Everything started over 9 years ago, when I had Big Guy.  Chapters were short and sweet.  I’d note the simple stuff.  What Big Guy ate.  How he liked to sleep.  What made him laugh.  These notes became my cheat sheets.  So I could smile with confidence when Big Guy sobbed in public and say, “Oh no, he’s not tired; he’s just like that” to the moms of the quiet babies.  

When Little Guy arrived, my chapters became longer.  More complex.  I scribbled away facts, ideas and milestones at a rapid pace.  How to gear up for afternoons at the park.  Naptimes, mealtimes and bedtime routine instructions.  Their first words and first friends.  

My handbook was an encyclopedia in my head of any and everything I learned about the boys.  Although the book was intended for me, it came in handy when passing them off to an occasional babysitter.  To grandparents swooping in to watch the babies while we took a weekend away.  Even Really Big Guy in the early days, when I had to disappear for an afternoon.  Although I’m not really sure he used it.

Looking back, I don’t think anyone used my book.  I think they all nodded politely, smiled and sent me on my way, being sure that the door didn’t hit me on the way out.  They’d be just fine.  And they didn’t need my Great Big Book of Everything to figure out how to take care of the kids.

Now that many years have past, I can recognize the absurdity of the early chapters in my Great Big Book. Did I really have to note that Big Guy loved a certain CD while driving in the car?  Would he have survived if he’d been left to cry in his crib as I quickly stole a seven minute shower?  Did he have to sit in the bouncy seat in the bathroom?  Did we always need to read the same four books before bed? Every single night?

Sadly, I have come to understand that my Great Big Book of Everything - the one that I cherish so dearly -  is more of a Great Big Book of Nothing.  For as one phase ends and another begins, what seemed so vital is now so unimportant. And the truth be told, no one wants to read my book but me.  It’s a book only a mother could love.

Although I know this to be true, I continue to write.  So much that my Great Big Book takes up an enormous amount of space in my head.  For it’s nearly impossible to delete a chapter once it’s been written.  Every story, every milestone and every instruction that I have ever recorded is buried deep under the present.  But with the right trigger, they can float to the top and be re-read over and over.

Only upon re-reading these chapters do I realize how far I’ve come. How far we’ve come as a family.  Maybe that’s the purpose of my Great Big Book of Nothing.  

All this mad writing, as trivial as it may be, serves to reinforce that parenting never gets any easier. Our struggles just change.  What’s important shifts.  But all the while, our very own custom book reminds us that we’ve been down a road like this before. And it’s quite typical to constantly challenge ourselves to figure out the answers.  The tricks.  The secrets of our children.  It’s all part of navigating the mother territory.

So I’ll consider my Great Big Book of Nothing a gift to myself.  It’s my confidence booster.  My reassurance.  And I’ll resist the urge to share my story with you.  You’re too busy writing your own.  

Illyse appears on Thursdays on TriangleMom2Mom.