Alright now! So,
here I am - a mother of three little boys.
(This was before I had my fourth.)
I never did go back to work.
(Yet, I have done nothing but work since they arrived.) Instead, I enlisted. I enlisted in the ranks of the
sleep-deprived; the worn, ragged souls serving at the front lines of the
battle. God bless them! I was neck deep in Motherhood. And the battle raged on, as it does in many
homes around the world, between mother and child. Who would dominate? Who would rule? Sometimes the battle is too close to
tell.
There have been many lessons over the years as my kids
have gotten older. Oh, yes, they have
taught me well! And if I had to share
with a new mom what I have learned, I would start with Lesson #1: If you want to maintain your sanity, let go
of your expectations for yourself. When
you enlist as a mom, there are many things you can’t expect to have anymore:
sleep, time, energy, brain cells, freedom, shaved legs, etc. Those are the obvious ones. But there are less obvious ones. And for me, I’ve learned that I need to let
go of crazy expectations - like being able to go to the bathroom in peace. Oh, yes!
Those days are gone!
The other day, I decided to take twenty seconds to run -
literally run - to the bathroom while the kids played out in the front of the
house. (I’m not kidding. Literally, twenty seconds. Twice the length typically allowed for
moms.) Now, I never leave them out front
unsupervised. But I had been with them
for about an hour-and-a-half, and everything was going smoothly. Twenty seconds, though. I could manage that!
Within five seconds of my being in the bathroom, wouldn’t
you know it, I heard screaming from outside. D. fell and hurt his knee.
Worst part was that I knew that it would happen, too. As I ran to the bathroom, jumping over toys
along the way, I mumbled to myself something about how someone will get hurt .
. . just watch and see. (I think it is
worse when you predict something is going to happen and then it actually
does. It just makes you mad.)
It wasn’t a bad hurt, just a scraped knee. But it never ceases to amaze me how things
can go wonky the minute I do something for myself. And most moms I know will agree. I think it’s to keep a mom from getting too
comfortable and falling asleep on the job.
You know the saying: “Expect the Unexpected.”
I cause more problems for myself by expecting that
something will go the way that I think it should. If I expect the baby to sleep for thirty
minutes so I can do dishes, I get angry when he wakes up after ten. If I expect to be able to sit down and rest
my eyes while the kids play outside, I get really frustrated that they pop
their heads in every three minutes to complain about something.
I’ve learned (and my husband continues to advise me) to
lower my expectations so that I won’t get so bothered when it doesn’t go as I
had hoped. That’s a hard thing to do,
though, especially when you don’t feel that you are asking for that much to
begin with. Who can fault you for just
wanting to eat one meal without something getting spilled? Or for wanting to get dressed in private and
maintain a sense of dignity? Something I
desire, but never seem to get to do.
The other day, I told myself (out loud), “Yippee, I get
to go upstairs and change my clothes by myself.
No kids hanging around and jumping on the bed because they are all
downstairs playing!” (I think I really did
say yippee, too.) And call me
crazy, but I like to get dressed in private.
It was going to take me seconds to pull off my shirt and put another one
on. So I didn’t bother to lock the door
when I shut it. As soon as I took my
shirt off, though, H. saunters in and says, “I really wish I could have
some yogurt and blueberries!” How do
they do that?
And then another time, I decided to take a shower. The kids were busy watching TV or playing
games. And on the way up the stairs, I
told my husband, “I get to go take a shower by myself. No kids barging in because they are all
busy.” (The house we rent is really old
and the bathroom door won’t stay shut unless we wedge a towel in it.) And so, of course, as I am standing there in
the bathroom - naked - waiting for the water to warm up, the door flies open
and D. jumps out and yells, “BOO! I
bet you didn’t see me coming up the stairs!”
YA THINK!?!
Why does it always seem to be when I’m in the bathroom or
naked? I think I should just stop
saying things out loud. I have to wonder
if there are bored demons floating around just waiting for people to say “Oh,
look! I get to . . .” So then they know how they can stir up a
little mischief.
If you’re like me, you’ll find yourself saying something
like this from time to time: “Is it too much to ask to just be left alone for
two minutes so I can change my clothes or close my eyes and rest? I mean, I cooked dinner and you got
dessert. And all I ask is for one minute without someone coming in
here and looking for me?”
And speaking of irrational expectations! I’ve also had to let go of the ridiculous
notion that I’ll ever get to eat a snack in private again . . . ever! At least, not till I’m old and gray and have
to find my teeth before I can chew. Ok,
I am already gray . . . uh-hmm . . . silver. But at least I still have my teeth. (Oh, and according to Proverbs 16:31, “Gray
hair is a crown of splendor; it is attained by a righteous life.” I’m not bragging or anything; I’m just
sayin’.)
Now, don’t get me wrong, I love being with my children
and providing for them. But, truthfully,
sometimes I just want nothing more than to eat a treat by myself without
little, gaping, baby-bird mouths on anxious bobble-heads clamoring for a
bite.
There is just something about a clandestine bowl of ice
cream or a brownie that draws kids in from another room for no particular
reason, where they have been happily playing for thirty minutes. The minute the coveted food hits your lips,
they sense it. And they wander in merely
to check on you because (as my husband paraphrases a line from Star Wars)
“They sense a disturbance in the force.”
(He also says that they can sense fear, and so they can tell when I’m
afraid that they’re going to ruin my snack or my peaceful moment.)
The minute you are unseen for a few seconds, their little
brains send up a red flag: Uh,
oh! Mom is about to enjoy something that
she is hiding from us. I have spent
many moments ducking behind a cereal box on the kitchen table, jamming
otherwise-enjoyable bites of food into my face, and smiling as though there was
no chocolate of any kind in my mouth when my children popped into the kitchen
“just because.” I have even tried to
hide grapefruit (if you can believe it) and have been caught, and then had to
share because their incessant begging or big doe-eyes and tears would ruin my
nice, quiet moment anyway.
This happens with other things, too. Just try picking up a book and looking
content. It really doesn’t matter what
it is. Getting on the phone, doing
bills, resting your eyes. As long as you
are doing something for yourself or your attention is removed momentarily from
the children, they will gather the troops and retaliate.
That is why I give in sometimes. Not so much because I am a pushover (Um, ok .
. . Yes, I am!), but because I value the quiet and peace so much that I
grudgingly let go of my expectations. I
give in so that they won’t start whining and crying. That way, it will, at the very least, still
be relatively quiet. One of us has to
give in, and kids have far more stamina than parents.
And I can’t take the noise. The loud, incessant noise. I want to literally crawl out of my skin when
there are too many noises at once: the radio, my husband talking, the kids fighting,
and one child climbing up my leg, calling, “Mom . . . Mom . . . Mom!” (How funny, then, that God would give me
three boys. Girls seem so much more
dainty and quiet. I’ve seen their little
tea parties and heard their tiny, little conversations.) And so, I give in . . . or give up . . . or
whatever.
Plus, I’m learning to save my energy for the battles that
matter most. Case in point, about
snacking in private: Just after typing
this, I was in the kitchen while the boys were wrestling with Daddy in the
living room. The very second that I
scooped a bit of chocolate pudding into a bowl, H. came walking in
completely unexpected, looking for a drink of water. There was no time to hide it. Thankfully, he had already had a treat, so I
could deny him without guilt.
And a few days later (the day after a birthday party for
one of the boys), I woke up, the sun was shining, and the kids were quiet and
restful. And I decided to get myself a
nice, quiet breakfast and enjoy the peaceful morning. There was one piece of homemade chocolate
cake with chocolate frosting left. One
piece! And I was going to have it with
my coffee and savor every bite. Oh, what
a great way to start the day! (We really
don’t eat that many sweets, which is probably why I try to savor them so
much.)
Ahhh! I really
needed this moment for myself. It had
been a busy weekend. But, of course, as
I began to take the first few bites, my two-year-old walks in “just to check on
me.” He had been completely zombied out
on a movie in the other room, but he sensed chocolate-energy coming from the
kitchen. Or maybe he has a really keen
sense of smell. I tried to shield it
with my hands, hoping he wouldn’t notice it.
But even a toddler knows what that means, and the begging began.
My moment was slipping away . . . fast! But I was determined! So I did what any reasonable mother would
do. I smiled at him, shared a few tiny
bites with him. And then I said, “Hey,
what’s that over there?” The second he
turned his head, I shoved the whole piece of cake into my mouth. When he looked back at me, I mumbled, “All
gone!” through a mouthful of chocolate.
I didn’t get to savor it with my coffee as I choked on it, trying to
chew it all at once. But no way was I gonna share it all!
Maybe you’ve had to give up on the dream that you’ll read
a book under a tree on a nice sunny day.
Instead, you’ve learned that your job now is to dress the kids in their
swimsuits, turn on the sprinkler, get them a towel, get them a drink of water,
turn off the sprinkler, and get them some dry clothes when they decide - after
three minutes - that the sprinkler is too cold and they don’t really want to
play in it, after all.
Or maybe you wanted to cook that humblest (and cheapest)
of meals – spaghetti - in what little time you had. But in that time, the kids spilled a glass of
juice, they needed to be separated because they were fighting like ravenous
wolves, the baby needed to be nursed, the phone rang (stinkin’ telemarketers),
and you dropped the dry spaghetti out the wrong end of the box all over the
floor. Ever happen to you? Or is it just me?
Or maybe you’ve had a day like this . . .
This day wasn’t particularly rough or anything. It was the day after Thanksgiving and we were
still cleaning up after company. We had
decided to do our grocery shopping and ended up going to two stores and, of
course, spending more than we should have.
Even though we bought nothing frivolous, except for a carton of
egg-nog.
I got home, put away the groceries and quickly threw in a
frozen pizza that we bought for dinner.
(The kids’ favorite meal! I
usually make ours from scratch. Not
their favorite! But it was getting late
and we were hungry.) And then we all
kinda loafed around a bit. My husband
played video games and the boys were watching TV or playing with their toys,
while I tried to sit and read.
Mark my words, it is the law of nature that the minute a
mom sits down and looks comfortable or dares to close her eyes, the children
must begin an endless litany of requests.
“Mom, look at this.” “Mom, wipe
my butt.” “Mom, look what I built . . .
can I have a snack . . . he won’t give it back . . . I can’t get up from the
side of the couch where I fell head-first trying to hang off the edge, even
though I’m not supposed to hang off the arm of the couch.”
The funny thing is, though, they never ask Dad. (Can you tell who the softie is in my
house?) If Mom and Dad are in the same
room, I’m the one who ends up answering the little requests. It’s like being on-call all the time for
little things. And that can be more
exhausting than cooking the meal and doing the dishes afterward. Being called to do something little every minute
when you are trying to take a mere moment to rest is exasperating. And this was one of those nights.
Between cooking the Thanksgiving dinner the day before
(for his family), putting groceries away, changing diapers, wiping
noses, looking up every few moments to look at the newest, cool thing that the
kids wanted to show me, and then finally getting up to do the rest of the
holiday dishes, I was eager to just sit and read. Uninterrupted. (Ha-ha-ha-ha. That’s a good joke! Wait, let me wipe my tears!)
Anyway, I just finished the Thanksgiving dishes and
flopped down in our hand-me-down reclining chair when R. came over and asked
for yogurt and blueberries. Now, he did
not eat a lot for dinner, but just munched on some veggies. (Veggies over pizza!?! Unnatural, but true!) We were going to bed soon, so I figured that
he should have this last healthy snack before bed or he would really be
hungry. He’s only two, after all . . .
and extremely persistent, so I wouldn’t win this one peacefully anyway. May as well just get it for him.
“Honnneeeyyyy?” I whined to my hubby, who was lying on
the floor where he had been for hours now, playing video games while I was
putting away groceries and doing dishes.
“You wouldn’t want to give R. some yogurt and blueberries, would
you?” (Men, when your wives ask you
something like this, it’s really NOT a question!) He looked up with that Are-you-kidding-me?
look. And I could hear him
thinking, Look how comfortable I am
here on the floor.
“Just tell him ‘no’,” he said.
I give up!!!! I’ll
do it myself!!!! Especially since it
wouldn’t be Dad that R. would pester until he gets what he wants. It would be me!
Boy, did that one get to me! I slammed a few things around the kitchen
(hoping Jason would hear) while muttering under my breath about how I wish I
could take up video games and veg in the other room for hours. And I gave R. his snack which he happily
began inhaling.
When
he finished, I told him to go in the other room. Then I decided to make myself the same snack
and enjoy it in peace in the kitchen by myself, since reading was out of the
question. Sometimes, if you just stay
out of the room where the kids are, they don’t seem to ask for things as
much.
As I returned the blueberries to the freezer and picked
up my spoon, in walked H.. “What did
R. just have for a snack?”
I couldn’t fight it.
I was too tired and discouraged to answer. I walked over by him, dropped my snack on the
table in front of him, and walked out.
And he happily began devouring my snack in peace in the kitchen by
himself, while I went back to the couch and glared at the back of my husband’s
head, who was now laying on the floor with his eyes closed in restful slumber.
Like I said, let go of the expectations that you have for
yourself and just go with it sometimes.
Do the work that needs to get done as it comes up, one step at a time,
knowing that it’s where God has you now.
And it will be a little emotionally easier to handle. (I said “a little!”)
And this relates to Lesson #2:
Look no further into the future than the here-and-now, because it never
goes the way you expect it will, either.
That’s actually quite Biblical. Matthew 6:34: “Therefore do not
worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”
If I wake up and the sun is shining and I feel rested, I
make all sorts of plans in my head about what I’m going to accomplish that
day. I’m going to open the windows,
let all the fresh air in, clean the whole kitchen, make some breakfast cake,
organize our clothes, and take the kids for a long walk. And then, when all I get done is
breakfast, lunch, dinner, and helping the kids with their school-work, I feel
like I failed for the day.
Life with children never really goes as you plan in your
head. This is the motto that I try to go
into each day with: Just do my job and
let God do His! Take the day as it comes
and do the moment’s job to the best of my ability and with as much gracefulness
and gentleness as possible, even if I don’t really feel like it. And I should only expect that things will
come up that I didn’t expect and that I’ll have to adjust my plans. It will make things go smoother. (Once again, at least emotionally. And a little.) I need to remind myself of this sometimes.
I can either get upset that I’m not getting my peaceful
break or my grand plans accomplished, or I can deal with the interruptions and
the daily, menial tasks with gracefulness and a servant’s heart, doing what’s
required of me at the moment with a godly attitude. Just do my current job as well as I can and
let Later worry about itself!
For
me, it also helps to shift my focus. Lesson #3: Instead of looking at all the things that I
can’t expect to do anymore, I try to find the little, unexpected gifts that are
hidden in each day. This takes effort
sometimes, an alertness and desire to find the blessings in each day. Maybe it’s that wonderful first smell of
coffee when you wake up. Or the sound of
your kids laughing together. Or the
flower that your two-year-old picked from your neighbor’s carefully-tended
garden and presented to you with his great big eyes full of love. (My sweet, sweet R.! And I just have to brag: the other day, he
looked up at me, smiled and put his arm around me and said, “You my sweet
girl!” What a doll!)
I had one of those blessed moments the other day. It has been a long, long winter here. But I discovered a little gift
in the midst of this endless string of difficult, frozen days stuck
indoors. And I needed to email Jen to
tell her about it. I was afraid that if
I didn’t tell someone about it, it would fade away, and then it would be like
it never happened.
Jen,
I just had to tell you about a moment I had this morning. If I don’t tell it,
I’ll forget it. And it was a good moment . . . maybe 120 seconds. This morning,
I woke up before all the kids got up. I
slept rather well and felt rested. And it was quiet! The only sound I could hear was a bird or two
and a few distant cars. Nothing else.
And there was a crisp, coolness in the air.
I
know it’s like 10 degrees outside. But
as I laid there with my eyes closed, I could easily imagine that it was early
spring. And that the air outside was
lukewarm cool and moist, and filled with the smell of freshness and mud and
life. And I just soaked it in. It was so refreshing and invigorating.
I
didn’t want to open my eyes and see the cold, frozen earth. I didn’t want to see all the chores that
needed to get done and the piles of stuff to put away. So I laid there for about 2 minutes and imagined
that I was camping in the springtime and that there was nothing to do but enjoy
the moment. It was a good 120
seconds. And then I got up and did a
load of laundry. Ah, back to the daily
grind.
It’s the little things.
Notice and remember the blessings in each day. It’s just a fact that your feelings follow
your thoughts. If you focus on what you
didn’t do, can’t do, didn’t get, and don’t have, you’ll get depressed and
frustrated. But if you look for and
focus on the blessings that God has poured out on you, big and small, you’ll
find that your attitude is more thankful and peaceful. And you’ll feel like, I can do this, even
if it’s difficult. Because God is with
me and there are so many good things to be thankful for. James
1: 17: “Every good and perfect gift is from
above. . .”
Anyhow, enough of my nostalgic reminiscing. Let go of your expectations, do the job that
needs to get done, and learn to enjoy the little things. Oh, and one other big lesson. Lesson #4:
Learn some humility. As a parent,
I have learned (and continue to learn) that there is no place for pride (unless
you want to take a giant fall).
When I had my first child, parenthood seemed easy and
clear-cut. It was something I could
handle with ease because I was so well-read and educated. I remember thinking that my children
were going to be innately smarter. After
all, I had attended graduate school and read all the parenting books. They would talk early, walk early, and toilet
train early.
Oh, yes, God has ways of keeping us humble! Not only did my children not do these
things early, one of them was still barely understandable at four years
old. Only his older brother could
understand him. Jason and I would often
have to say, “D., come here and tell us what H. is trying to say!” And he would get it right nearly every time,
while we couldn’t understand a word of it.
And my first two waited until they were over three to graduate to big
boy pants. We have to see what happens
with my third son. But I’m not holding
my breath this time. And I’m certainly
not feeling smug anymore. If only humble
pie tasted like chocolate!
And the rules of the game keep changing with every new
phase a child enters. Just as you figure
out the best way to discipline at one age and begin to look like you have it
all under control, they grow up a little and require a different tactic. I can’t very well scoop up a six-year-old and
remove him from a store the way I could a temper-tantrum-throwing
eighteen-month-old. And to keep it
interesting, what works for one child doesn’t necessarily work for the
next. It keeps us on our toes. And maybe it’s God’s way of keeping us humble
and on our knees, too.
With
my first child, disciplining wasn’t much of a challenge. I was prepared. I had read all the books and had all the time
in the world to watch him carefully and to swoop in to correct him, if need
be. And since he was such an easy child,
he didn’t seem to challenge the rules too much.
He was pretty content to be the subordinate and let me be in
charge. I can only remember a few times
when he really surprised me.
Once, when he was about eighteen months old, I was
getting ready in the bathroom and had a clear view to the living room where he
was playing. He had been trying to get
Daddy’s Transformers which were up on a shelf, and I yelled to him to leave the
toys alone. D. very sweetly walked
over to the bathroom door, smiled, and shut the door on me.
That’s odd, I thought. I opened the door a bit to peek on him, and
there he was, using a long roll of wrapping paper to try to knock the toys off
the shelf. How industrious! It was like watching a monkey stack boxes to
get to the bananas. I had really
underestimated him. Not only was he
smart enough to find a way to do what he wanted, but he was sneaky enough to
try and hide it from me. (Oh, how many
times I try to do that same thing with God.
It’s as if I forget that He is peeking down from Heaven and watching it
all.)
While
that one was amusing, there were a few times when he did really try to fight
the rules. And, as you would expect, it
always seemed to happen in front of other people. Another way God keeps us humble.
We were out to eat at the mall once when he was about two
or three years old. I had told him, “No
more fries until you eat some chicken.”
Well, he didn’t want the chicken and he started to fight me on it. As any good parent, I put my foot down and
insisted that he eat some chicken. Well,
like any good toddler, he resisted and refused to eat the chicken. We were locked in a battle of the wills. And I was determined to win this one. (I still had the energy for that back
then.) I knew that his respect for my
parental authority was at stake.
I scooped him up, took him out into the hallway in the
mall, and set him down on the floor. I
said, “When you are ready to eat your chicken, we can go back to the
table.” He pitched a fit like I had
never seen him do before. He screamed
and kicked and thrashed around all over the floor. (Yes, my gentle, calm D. had a wild side,
after all.) And I just sat there next to
him and blithely smiled at the gawkers who walked by and probably thought that
I was a heartless, cruel mother.
Five minutes, six minutes, who-knows-how-many minutes
went by before he finally stopped and sat up and said he wanted his
chicken. (“Yes, YES! I win one for a change. Take that, toddlers of the world!”) So we went back to the table, where he
happily ate his chicken and then got his fries.
Hey, I guess I’m pretty good at this parenting thing, after all.
D. made it easy to feel like a parenting success. But I believe it’s because he let me be in
charge, most of the time. (Does that
mean he’s really the one in charge after all, albeit passively? Hmm?)
Then, as I said, feisty little H. came along. He wasn’t that much more difficult, but he
did like to test the limits a lot more than his brother. D.’s pretty quick to give up the fight,
whereas H. will make many different cunning attempts to get what he
wants. He has a stronger need to push
the limits and test parental authority.
At first, he will outright try to defy me. He’ll continue to do what I’ve asked him to
stop doing until he feels that I am REALLY serious. Then he’ll back off a little. And after a little break, he’ll try to go
back to doing it again. He’ll smile at
me as if to say, “See how cute I am. You
can’t possibly be mad at me.” And then
if that doesn’t work, he’ll start to ask permission again to do what he knows
he can’t do. So I’ll give him “the look”
and say, “Don’t you dare ask me if you can do that again!”
He’ll then switch in mid-sentence and say, “I wasn’t
going to ask. I just wanted to say . .
. ‘I love you, Mom.’” Yeah, he’s a sneaky, smart one. (But I’m onto you, kid!)
Or he words it like this, “I can’t play video games,
right!?!” Perfectly on the border
between a question and a statement. So
when I tell him “no,” he can say, “That’s what I just said. I wasn’t asking to do it! I just said I can’t play video games!” Those kinds of mental games can be
exhausting, requiring a bit more mental energy than I am always capable
of.
And as if it doesn’t keep it interesting enough having
two very different children, God gave us a third. Our wonderful, wonderful, challenging, busy,
busy R.. Now, just as I truly
believed that I was doing a great job parenting because my first two were so
well behaved, I also truly believe that God gave me my third to break me of my
parenting pride. To humble me even more
and to make me realize that I wasn’t some great prodigy of motherhood.
Whereas H. tries to bend the rules as much as he can,
without breaking them; R. pretty much believes that our rules should never
have been rules in the first place, so it’s our fault that they were there to
break. He’ll do something he’s not
supposed to do, and then when I scold him, he’ll give me that “What is wrong
with you? Can’t you see who I am!?!”
look.
[As I’m working right now on all the corrections for this
book, I am remembering a time once when he was nearly four years old. And we were staying at my mom’s house for a
week where she has horses. Well, I’m in
the kitchen washing dishes, and I look out the window to see R. two hundred feet away, walking toward the horses with a pitchfork. So I drop what I’m doing and I go running
full speed across the yard. And when I
get to him, all out of breath, I’m like, “R., what are you doing out here
with a pitchfork?”
He looks at me with a completely innocent,
What-are-you-talking-about look, and he’s like, “I’m feeding the horses.” He may as well have added on, “Duh!” That is typical R., with his “Who are you to question me?” attitude.]
He was a challenge from the beginning. And he broke me. He broke me bad! And now I can never look smugly at other
mothers. Because I’ve been there! (You know, there’s a thing called Every
Mother’s Special Blessing. Actually,
it’s Every Mother’s Curse, but I prefer the sound of “Special Blessing.” And that’s “May you have a child just like
you.” That’s the “special blessing” that
I am going to give at his wedding! Is
that wrong?)
In our house, he is fondly known as “Darth Tater” or “The DicTater,” (Tater is a nickname, from Tater Tot. All our kids seemed to have a food nickname at
some point.). He has a methodical way of
going about wreaking havoc. He is
as amusing as anything and can be incredibly sweet. But, boy, is he busy!
When I only had two children, I read about someone who
said how her child could get into mischief faster than the mom could keep
up. And I remember thinking, Oh,
yeah, sure I know what she means.
Children are just busy. But I
had no idea what she really meant until my third.
I walked into the kitchen once, when he was just over a
year old, to find him standing in the middle of the kitchen table. My other two really weren’t climbers, so I
wasn’t expecting that. I pulled him off
and set him on the floor, telling him not to climb the furniture. He was only gone a few moments when I heard
H. yell, “Mom, R. broke the computer desk.” I ran into the next room to see him sitting
on the pull-out shelf that holds the keyboard.
And, sure enough, it broke under his weight. If any of my kids could knock me off the
King-of-the-Hill position, it’s R..
He has more stamina and determination than my other two combined.
After I had my first son, D., Jason and I ran into one of his old
friends who had three children.
“Life doesn’t really get interesting until you have three
kids,” he said.
Boy, I tell ya, I was miffed! I thought, How dare he downplay my status
as a parent because I only have one child.
I still qualify for being a parent.
But I smiled and nodded my head, letting him feel like he was superior
to me. I felt like he was putting
himself in a different class of parents - a better class - because he “has
three kids.”
But after having three, I can now understand what he
means. He was not making a value
judgment about what kind of parent I was.
He was simply stating a fact. And
he was not bragging; he was sending out a distress signal. A warning.
Life gets much more interesting (read: busy, challenging, demanding)
when the kids outnumber the adults. At
least, it did for me.
Child Number One gets all the attention and time that you
have available. I could be there to
catch every infraction of the rules.
Therefore, he got disciplined much more by the book. (I still had time to read books back
then.)
Having two was still manageable because my eyes could be
on one while my hands were busy with the other.
It was only a bit harder because then there was the “Who’s really to
blame?” dilemma. But at least there were
only two possible culprits, as well as only one possible match-up for sibling
fights.
But it increases exponentially with three. Now, there are three different personalities,
three different directions they could run, and seven different fighting
combinations: child #1 against child #2, #2 against #3, #3 against #1, #1 and
#2 against #3, #1 and #3 against#2, #2 and #3 against #1, or all of them
against all the others at the same time.
(I know several families with seven or more children each. I can’t even begin to figure out the
possibilities for that!) If I am not in the
room to see who did what, when, and to whom first, then it can be quite a
headache trying to sort it all out, especially if they are all talking at
once. That makes disciplining harder and
my head want to explode.
With three, you are also that much busier with food and
cleaning. After our “crisis” (still
working on getting to that story), I have made it a point to cook as much as I
can from scratch. This means a lot of time
with meal preparation. That, in turn,
means that there is less mental and physical energy to be on top of every
infraction of the rules like I was for my first. So each child gets away with a little more
than the older ones. Sometimes, my kids
are just lucky to get a bath, let alone my undivided attention to sort out who
did what first.
I’ll admit it, I used to be one of those “I’ll-never-do-that-when-I-have-kids”
kind of people. But I can no longer feel
smug because I am now the kind of mom that I used to raise my eyebrows at. The kind that lets her toddler have a pizza cutter,
run around outside in a diaper, dig holes all over the yard with a hand shovel,
or wear a shirt three sizes too big with pants that are two sizes too small for
several days in a row. It’s all part of
the humbling journey of motherhood.
(My husband has tried to tell me that I don’t always have
to give in to R. and give him what he wants.
I say, “Oh, I know I don’t have to.
But, I’m not doing it for him.
I’m doing it for me.” Sometimes,
it’s the only way I can ever get anything else done! Is that really bad?)
In all honesty, though, things aren’t as crazy at our
house and my children aren’t as wild as I make them out to be. (Okay, R. really is that wild . . .
like a wild stallion. I can see him
growing up to be a bull-fighter, using only his bare hands to throw the bulls
around. He is freakishly strong! And so willing to fight! I think a bull is the only animal that could
give him a challenge. My neighbor, Ray,
was watching the boys play in our backyard once. He comes from a family of many, many boys,
and he was laughing about R.. “I love
watching him play,” he said. “He is just
a little bulldog.” See! I’m not the only one that notices it!)
But they really are great kids, if I do say so
myself. And they are quite well-behaved
(in front of other people, at least).
And they are all really sweet. I
am so thankful that they haven’t yet reached the age where they are embarrassed
to hug me or say, “I love you.” I’m
going to enjoy that for as long as I have it.
They are the most endearing little things ever.
