Join the party?

So here's where my mind is: I don't want to be obligated to write on my blog, but I do enjoy the community of my real life friends blogging and have some thoughts about parenting (who could have guessed that!) so I'm going to semi-join up for the natural parenting blog party! Here's post 1. There may be more through the rest of the month. It'll just be as my mood strikes.

1. How many children do you have, and how old are they? I'm lucky enough that I have two kids that I can hold and touch, ages 3 and 1. I also have at least two others that I'm looking forward to meeting when I die who would be ages 4 and close to 2.
2. Do you have a partner, or are you a single parent? Well that's a loaded question! I'm very blessed to have a partner and also be married to him.
3. What are your “hot button” parenting issues? I'm not all the way sure that I have them. Talk to me and I'll know. Oh, wait. I'm going bonkers that my nearly 10 month old nephew doesn't have a name. It just feels disrespectful to him at this point. I'm not a fan of kids being disrespected.
4. Have you made any parenting choices that you didn’t think you would make before you were a parent, i.e. cloth diapering a child when you had previously thought it was disgusting? Um... yes! We cloth diaper when I never thought I would. We co-sleep and didn't plan on that. I also have a nursing 3 year old and really didn't plan on that. Didn't plan on nursing a 3 year old and a 1 year old either, but here we are! There's absolutely other stuff too. I've always said I would never be a teacher, but we're on the road to homeschooling.
5. Is there one book or person in particular that’s heavily influenced your parenting choices? Yes, Sparky, my first born, changed up much of what I thought about parenting. Spunky, my youngest, also changed things up all over the place since she's very different from Sparky.
6. If you had to describe each of your children using only one word, what word would you use? Oh, I get to cheat a little bit! Sparky is effervescent. Spunky is joy.
7. Is there one parenting decision that you regret more than others and wish you could change? I'm not sure that there is actually. I've made some mistakes probably but have learned from them and am a better parent because of my mistakes. I'd rather make the mistakes while they're so young that they don't remember than screw it up all over the place when they're more prone to hold it against me. And I don't believe that the early experiences don't affect kids. They do.
8. Is there an area of your parenting you wish you were better at? Mindreading.
9. Now for the fun questions – is there one particular food or type of food that you could eat every day? Popcorn. Hands down.
10. Vanilla ice cream or chocolate? Vanilla with caramel sauce please.
11. What’s your guilty pleasure? See above. :)
12. If you could be part of any television show, which show would it be? Maybe Amazing Race, but maybe not. They often have to eat meat stuffs which I don't do. But it would be fun and interesting to travel and see what's going on with the world.