I hid behind the curtain , covering the receiver end on my cell phone. I had called my husband for moral support not to run away, but he never answered.
Putting the phone now beside my left leg , I was careful to not utter any sounds of life. No breathing , no moving. She must not know I was there. She’s three and I’m scared of her today.
Her wrath had been too much to bare for my soul. My once clean kept hair is now matted on top of my head, and I have toddler lines. Not laugh lines, no. Those faded years ago with coconut oil and a bit of breast milk.
The toddler lines stay forever until you die. No amount of crunchy crap erases the deep ridges I now have because of disciplining my toddlers.
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When I gave birth to our first child , we were elated! 6 lbs 8 oz of pure sweetness. Every family member and anyone I had breathed around came to celebrate his birth. Out of all the remarks and well wishes that were exclaimed, I never heard any of these:
” Oh I hope you have extra patience for when he starts climbing out of his crib at 10 months. He’s SO PRECIOUS THOUGH!”
” Congratulations , wow! He’s a handsome little guy. I hope you have some patience stored up for the potty training years. “
No one prepared me for the amount of patience I lacked to parent without medication.
Now that I am on medication, I still lack the patience I need to parent three strong willed kids. There I admitted it. I am a very impatient person, or at least I have gotten that way over the years.
Sometimes the idea of running away sounds nice. At the end of the day when I’ve had to spank and or put our toddler in time out for the twenty hundredth time. I want to make it all stop when she defies me over and over and I have to fight tooth and nail to win.
I want to give up when bedtime comes and everyone acts like a bat out of hell, unaware that we do
THIS EVERY NIGHT.
I want to give up when my five year old is adamant to wear a tank top to school in 50 degree weather.
There are so many times I want to give up. Where I think that surely someone could do a better job than I could. Then I remember I don’t know anyone named Shirley, so I’m it. I’m the woman . The go to. The know all, fix all, cook all adult around here.
All that responsibility for someone’s else’s well being can be heavy , right? I mean gah, their life is in your hands, no pressure or anything.
Do you think that JESUS feels that pressure to parent us the right way? Do you think he walks on egg shells when he tries a different parenting a strategy with us? Stays up all night wondering how we will turn out and if he has taught his sons to lift up the toilet seats?
The splash of urine isn’t on his brain. I want to think like him. I want to parent like him.
It all comes down to the fact that parenting is hard as hell. It’s the hardest job we will ever have. We have to surrender or fears and our doubts , and allow his spirit to parent with us. Through us.
We’ve already done one unselfish thing. We’ve given our children life , even though it wasn’t the ” right season” , or the ” right time” . Guess what ….
Parenting is mostly about being selfless.
It’s about staying at basketball Practice when you have a spiriting headache from your toddler screaming for one more cheese stick.
There’s joy too. And in this moment my joy is my children asleep. If I’m being completely honest with you guys, I’ve dreamed about glorious bedtime since 7:17 am when our youngest spilled an entire box of cereal on the floor and proceeded to ” give the cereal milk”.
Listen people, if I can do this parenting thing and not run away… So can you.
The hard seasons do not define who you are as a mother, they just mold you into something stronger.