Advice

I've never really liked getting advice. I've always been someone who just wants to figure things out for myself (even if it means making dumb mistakes like running into the sides of the garage instead of listening to my husband when he tries to teach me how to park in our garage properly or instead of letting someone show me how to use my very nice new camera, just guessing and taking incredibly blurry pictures and out of focus videos). Not only do I dislike getting advice from people but apparently I don't like getting advice from books or instruction manuals either. This can make life particularly difficult (and really explains why I was so hopeless in the kitchen for so many years) because any time I get something new I am always convinced that it is completely and utterly useless for the first couple months until I somehow figure out how to work it on my own. For some reason I always like to learn things the hard way. I'm not sure why this is but it sure makes life a whole lot more interesting (and frustrating) and makes for some pretty great stories. Because I can be so advice illiterate I end up doing things multiple times before I get it right and this wastes tons of time and sometimes a lot of money. (Like all the boots I keep buying. I just can't seem to get it right.)

The one thing I am open to getting advice about is parenting because I figure another life is not something you want to screw up, and if you do screw it up you really can't just buy new ingredients and try again, (babies are forever) so I want to get it as close to perfect as possible the first time around. I've found that people are VERY willing to give advice about parenting because when something works for them, they are so spilling over with joy that they just can't help but pass on their new found wisdom. The only problem with getting advice on parenting is that everyone says something different and very often the advice you receive will directly contradict other advice you have been given. This makes it all become very confusing. For example, I've talked to tons of people about how best to get Claire to stop making strange. Some people say not to push her and that she'll grow out of it by herself and others say to keep trying to hand her off to other people but take her back if she starts to cry so that she knows that if she needs me I'll be there, and still others say that it is important that I continue to let other people hold her and not to take her back when she begins to cry or else she will never learn to be comfortable without me. All of these ideas make sense to me on some level and I really don't know which advice is the best.

So now I find myself in a bit of a pickle. On one hand not listening to advice leads to making tons of mistakes (and a pretty dented up Santa Fe) and on the other hand getting tons of advice leads to not knowing which advice you should take? Anyone have any advice?