Adventures in Parenting

May 13, 2006

As mothers day approaches I was thinking about being a mom and what that has meant in my life. It hasn’t been long really. Wyatt, the oldest, is 3 and a half. Little Reagan is 18 months old and is the most mischievous thing! It seems like he is always trying to get one over on his poor mom and when I catch him he wrinkles up his little nose like a pug dog and grins, showing me all his teeth….he’s not a child, he’s a canine! It melts my heart every time though and I’m sure his frequency in using it testifies to the fact that he knows mommy’s wrapped around his little finger. I wasn’t so lax with Wyatt. He was a frequent member of the Time Out club at Reagan’s age. Don’t get the wrong idea now, he wasn’t being tortured just taught who was in charge..and it worked, for a while and now well, not so much. Matter of fact, now I’m not sure anything works. I really think he totally believes that daddy is the parent and the rest of us are children. We have even been teaching him the “Heirarchy of the family” (ha!). God first, Daddy and Mommy (for right now, Derek will teach him the head of the household stuff later), and then Wyatt and Reagan. Note not Wyatt then Reagan, it’s Wyatt AND Reagan. No child parenting child, that’s not a great habit to get into anyway. Believe me the desire to parent the younger child doesn’t go away when the younger child is old enough to make decisions for themselves. Sorry, I’m chasing a rabbit here….back to topic.

So what has it meant to be a mother. It means more understanding of my mother and the way she does things and how very HARD it must have been to do it on your own. Oh how much more I appreciate her now that I know how difficult it is with two parents. It means never going to the bathroom again without wondering what is going on while you’re in there. Once I came out of the bathroom only to find Wyatt dumping baby powder on Reagan’s head. There was baby powder everywhere. At the time we had hard wood floors so sweeping it was unbelievable, dust flew everywhere. I had to open the windows so I wouldn’t choke to death! Meanwhile Reagan looks like a snowman and quite literally had a tiny mountain of powder on the end of his nose. He wasn’t crawling yet so he really couldn’t get away from Wyatt once it started. I couldn’t decide to laugh or cry…I chose both. Once the bedroom was cleaned up I set out to clean up the boys. What an unbelievable mess. I really wanted to hang Reagan upside down and shake all the excess off but I figured CPS would be hanging out on my porch if I did. So I combed his hair. I tell you what, it was horrible. The comb barely made it through his hair and it really didn’t help much. I gave up and bathed him. Finally, after about 3 hair washings he looked reasonably clean. Needless to say, I put the baby powder (that never gets used) away from creative hands and prayed that there wouldn’t be a problem with their little lungs. This is just one example of all the little messes that come from having kids. Sadly, while some pray heartily every day for the opportunity to live with these little messes those who have them pray for a day without them.

Even when I’m pulling my hair out and feel like I’ve spent all day screaming, “get out of that/there”, “What are you doing!”, “Stop Screaming!”, etc, I’m happy for the blessing these children are. Even when I’m combing baby powder out of their hair.


“Her Children arise and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her:
‘Many women do noble things but you surpass them all’” Proverbs 31:28-29

I don’t know what you reach for everyday. Do you have a goal? Is it to be an ok mother, or do you want to be a mother your children respect and love wholly. The verses in Proverbs are my goal. There are days, lots of them, that I fall woefully short. OK…not even close but I’m trying, and everyday I’m praying that God will make me new. Every day I start again. It’s not about the PTA or how other mothers see you and what kind of parent they think you are. It’s about what you hear in the quietness of your heart. Do they see Christ in you or do they see that everyone outside the house is what’s important inside the house. What kind of mother do you want to be?