Fun Parent vs Mean Mommy

I consider myself a pretty fun parent...my life with my baby is full of laughter and singing and kisses and silly voices and dancing and snuggling and jumping up and down for no reason and all of it...but I didn't expect to also be such a disciplinarian. That caught me by surprise...I feel like I am always nagging at Saxon for something - to not hit, to say thank you, to not touch stuff, that he doesn't have to cry to get what he wants, to not put things in his mouth, to sit down before he goes down the steps, that he can't stand up in the tub...and then I watch Ashley and him smack things in the living room with bats and ride off to the neighbors on a skateboard and head butt each other and make spitting sounds till they are blue in the face and yelling for no reason and I think - well crap, Ashley gets to be the FUN parent - how'd that happen? Is Saxon going to look at me as the mean parent? It sounds dramatic and the kid is only one but I just didn't see this happening...I guess, HELLO, it's called parenting and it's a lot of work, I just didn't anticipate all the...nagging that seems to be involved. I already harp on my husband enough - replace the toilet paper, stop picking your feet, close the door all the way when you leave, turn the volume down, put the seat down, don't throw all the f**king pillows on my side of the bed...it just gets to seem like a lot sometimes. But then I see kids whose parents don't do ENOUGH disciplining and it's a complete mess...chaos and noise and fits and kids who are sweet but have no boundaries and run the household and that frankly are exhausting to be around for very long. It's all just so weird how you have no idea what kind of parent you are going to be...

It makes me wonder where we get our parenting styles from - is it from how you were raised? Intuition? Your personality? Having never done ANYTHING like this before in my life, it's an interesting thing to watch unfold and I am learning a lot about myself as a person through all this. Luckily I have an amazing group of friends and family that to me are the most wonderful mothers I could imagine and I get to watch what they do and learn what works for me and my family. And also I am just making s**t up as I go and hope I am not doing anything that lands my kid in weekly therapist visits...sigh.