This is your mother. I wanted to clarify in case you mistook me for a crazy, grocery-cart-pushin’ gypsy– which, admittedly, is wildly tempting right now – but it’s not. It’s just me.
The little shreds of me that are still clinging desperately to what sanity is left, that is.
I considered myself a roaring success when the thought of listing you on craigslist last night left as quickly as it came.
So tell me, where on God’s green earth did you learn to stand with your hip cocked out like that with an eyebrow buried in your hairline? And since when do you “hrrumph” like that? And really, did you think you’d get away with that one? Again?
Go ahead…slam your door. And then raise your eyebrow at me one more time, missy. I dare you.
And you…little doe-eyed boy. Stop replicating every unpleasant thing your sister throws my way with maddening precision, and no, you may not ram your rusty truck into my baby toe. For the 29th time today.
Have you forgotten just how much bigger than you I am? I could squash you in a nanosecond, kid.
{Step away from the maternal figure}
Ugh.
Sigh.
Sniff. Sniff.
Yesterday was a tough day. One of those super-poopy-mom days. Only it was a super-poopy-mom-to-two-super-poopy-kids day week.
So, let’s just get a couple of things straight, shall we?
You’re fantastically awesome, without a doubt. But your attitudes? They stink.
Your foot stomping, whining, bickering, and the many other horrible noises, smells, touches and vibes you’ve dealt me over the past few days have made slamming my head into the wall sound like a viable alternative. Refreshing, actually.
Why so unpleasant, lovely loin-fruit?
Has the moon been full?
Because my crap-tank sure is.
{pause for sympathetic head nodding}
If I may get all emo and introspective on you for a moment {or five}, what I’d love to know is how it is that you two manage, with such unwavering ease, to bring out such unpleasantness in me?
Is “unpleasantness” even a word? Please ask your teacher on Monday.
What is it about parenting that draws the “ugly” to the surface.
The “daily-ness” of it all? The never-ending need for consistency in training and correction? The persistent challenging and questioning? The relentless tendency towards defiance, and the human-nature inspired struggle for ultimate power?
Or is it simply life with little people who are still learning how to be respectful, considerate, kind, generous, gentle, secure, self-controlled human beings.
Sometimes I forget that I’m the one, alongside your daddy, who needs to mold you and sculpt you into that person.
I don’t have to.
I get to.
I forget the honor and privilege that it is to help shape a life. Or two. Yours, to be exact.
And I too often get frustrated that these little lives didn’t come with all their pretty little parts already assembled.
Assembly is required.
And batteries are not included, dang it.
So thankful for the manual your maker sent us.
How tightly I cling to His grace – for me, and for you – on these trying days of push and pull, give and take, train and retrain.
My words aren’t the killer. My verbal filter actually works, surprisingly enough. It’s the tone. The body language. The clear disappointment communicated through a furrowed brow and a slow shake of the head.
And it’s the heart distance that develops when I mull over your inability to just be…sinless.
How is it that I expect such a high standard of behavior and performance from you, and yet fail to deliver it myself. Do I really have to wonder where your childish retorts and early morning growls of inconvenience come from?
Children are simply a mirror. One that’s awfully hard to gaze into at times.
When I point my finger at your error, it – too often – points right back at the accuser.
I know by now that your best is not brought out when I communicate my disappointment in you. You don’t blossom into greatness when you can sense you’re not delighted in. I get it. I get that you aren’t able to separate my disapproval of your actions from my disapproval of your precious little lives – unless I clearly communicate it and show grace and mercy throughout.
I so often drop the ball, my loves.
I cry to your daddy about your persistent pushing of the boundaries, and what emerges in snot and tears is pure disappointment in my inability to parent you with lavish grace and unconditional love.
Thank you for grace-filled arms thrown around a weary neck, and little lips to kiss away big tears.
Please don’t ever stop.
Because being a mom is tough. It’s not being your mom that’s tough, per se, it’s the navigating of unchartered waters with another living creature that boasts a strong will, emotions and preferences, who knows with incredible accuracy how to push your buttons, that makes for a weary warrior.
All this at only 73 pounds combined, you guys have skillz!
Motherhood: it’s dangerously, exhaustingly, nerve-wreckingly hard. Occasionally, it’s downright poopy. And honestly, part of what makes it so hard is feeling like you’ll be labeled a “bad mom” if you admit just how hard it is. After all, other moms out there are blissfully in love with parenting their little angels, 24 hours a day, 7 days week.
Blech.
Don’t get me wrong: I adore you with every thing in me, I thank God every day for the gift of your lives in mine, and, quite frankly, think you’re the coolest kids alive…but parenting – the right way – isn’t for sissies.
Motherhood can be an incredibly lonely road if not walked alongside other real, heart-naked, vulnerable mommas who can laugh with you about poop-smears on white shirts and cry with you over crappy days of toddler defiance in grocery store aisles.
But if there’s one thing I know amidst the difficulty, it’s this: I desperately want the end result, and the journey is well worth the temporary discomfort.
It is slowly {but quite surely} stripping me of the selfishness that runs rampant in me, the persistent hidden agenda that rears it’s ugly head on a daily basis, and the perfectionist streak that threatens to judge and criticize rather than accept and celebrate. It is refining me in ways I never knew I needed to be refined.
Seriously. Who knew my eyes could bug out of my head so far, or that my face could contort – all while emitting such vicious snarling noises – to such an extent. Your daddy sure didn’t. It’s sort of scary, actually. Because I was pretty nice back then.
The ugliness that emerges from me at times is so heart-wrenchingly ugly that I’m embarrassed to make eye contact with your little peepers again. And yet, sassy and smart-mouthed as you can be, you’re so incredibly resilient and forgiving. It’s almost like your capacity to bounce back and love again, with such reckless abandon, is limitless.
Like the One in whose image you were created.
Fancy that.
So sweet, misbehavin’ chil’ens…know your momma loves you.
Enough to not let you get away with your shenanigans.
Enough to never stop growing and learning how to lead you toward Life and Love.
Enough to say I’m sorry when I screw up – which, as you know, I’m relatively accomplished at.
And enough to press on and press in, even when it hurts. Even when it’s uncomfortable. Even when it stinks.
Because everyone knows…it’s the time spent in the poop, that brings about the biggest blooms.
Love always,
Your {recovering-unpleasant} mum
