Why did I bother to read the books??

Ok, so no pictures this time, this is my own personal rant about my life right now. Now, don't get me wrong- I love our son, he is a beautiful and precious gift and we are so lucky that he is here and healthy. My problem is with the many, many books that I read about raising our child during my pregnancy. While reading these books I often pictured my angel baby gently falling asleep in his crib while Nathan and I stared at his beautiful happy face. I imagined that I would know exactly what to do in every situation that arose because I had not only read the books- oh no, I had read them, memorized them, and then annotated them (I was suddenly back in high school english class with my highlighter and post-it notes). So when my child arrived I felt like I was fully prepared to be the world's best mom. The first weeks, as my child slept 90% of the time and awoke only to eat, I felt like I was doing great- my books had served me well. And then Lincoln turned three weeks old and my books suddenly turned against me. I tried for several weeks to stick with what my beloved books were saying (after all, they had never failed me before). It took two weeks, several nights of screaming (Lincoln, not me), and many tearful meltdowns (Me, not Lincoln) before I had a sudden epiphany- OUR CHILD DOES NOT FOLLOW THE BOOK!! Now this has been a very hard lesson for me to learn but Nathan has been very kind to gently remind me that Lincoln is not a textbook baby. This is the first time that my beloved books have ever failed me, it was disappointing to say the least but I am slowly learning to be a go with the flow mom (although Nathan will tell you that I am not great at it- yet!) So, stayed tuned for my many attempts at being a more laid back mom- we'll see if Lincoln and I will survive each other!