Parenting

I don't really have much of a goal in this post but I am more or less just trying to write my thoughts down. This last month or so has been very awesome on one hand, but extremely difficult on the other. It's been a very difficult month of parenting (I guess I now know why they call it the terrible twos), and also just a difficult month for me emotionally. I won't elaborate on all of it, but more or less just say what I think God is trying to teach me, and what I am trying to change about myself.

Parenting is hard work. Before I had Levi I was the best parent in the world. I know I've heard that before, but its very true. Especially coming from working in a daycare for 6 years, I had it all figured out. I knew exactly how I would handle each situation differently than this parent or that parent. I could pin-point the mistakes I saw everyday and told myself "I will do that differently." Well, here I am with a child the same age as those children, and I have no idea what I'm doing. This is not a job, this is my life. I don't come in at 8 and leave at 5:30 anymore. I am on the clock always, and required to give 100% all the time. A lot of days its very easy to try to take the easy way out so as to avoid actually having to deal with things, or even worse, take on too much of the burden and let it affect me and feel defeated when things don't work out the way I had planned. I do the latter a lot, and it effects my parenting.

I think God has been trying to teach me that I am not in control as much as I think I am. I am responsible for, but not in control of the little life He has entrusted to me. I need to be more focused on loving Christ first, and then showing Christ's love to my little guy. He is only 2, so I need to expect that he will act like a 2 year old. The problem starts and ends with me, and I need to put the time into nurturing his life, and figuring him out. I need to study him, figure out his quirks, love him unconditionally through them, and encourage him to want to do right. I do not want to react, but be proactive. I want to expect that he will mess up, and know how I should handle it when it happens. I don't think I will always know exactly how to handle every situation, but the main thing I want to focus on is that even during the times of frustration, that he feels loved.

It is very hard to be a parent, and not see how your relationship with your child is like that of God's relationship with us. We are disobedient, have bad attitudes, complain, whine and exhibit probably every other "immature" trait that you would see in a 2 year old, only on a different scale. I don't think God sees it differently like we do. We see our complaining as "venting" and think how we just "need to get it out." God sees it as (in your most annoying whining voice) "But whyyyy can't I have a ponyyyyy????" God is very patient with me, and I need to be a reflection of how patient God is with me to my two year old, who doesn't have the capability to think things through yet, whereas I do. I am worse than he is, because I fully understand consequences, yet I  still do what I want a lot of times.

I learn way more from parenting than I'm sure I will ever be able to teach Levi. I don't think you fully can grasp these things unless you are a parent. I thank God every day for blessing me with the opportunity to be Levi's mommy, and I need to focus my prayers on being the mommy that God wants me to be for Levi specifically. Every child is different, and parenting should be tweaked to match that certain child's needs.

Now for potty training! Whose with me? :)