So often, I find myself thinking that my daughter is so much easier than my son. In some ways it's true; Goldie is a bit more easygoing than her brother, a bit less prone to frustration. But as time goes on, I'm starting to realize more and more that the primary reason why my son sometimes seems "more difficult" than his sister is that every single parenting question or problem or situation that arises with him marks our first time taking a crack at it.

When Indy was a baby he cried endlessly, and it was only once these episodes were many months in the past that I realized that he had been colicky. Had my daughter cried like that I would have known what I was looking at immediately. Potty training was endless and exhausting because we tried to start training our son before he was ready; this time around we know not to push, and already the process is far less stressful for all involved.

I went into parenting very certain of how I'd react to things like temper tantrums: I would not tolerate them. If they happened I would ignore them, and in that way my children would learn that screaming and crying achieves nothing.