A to Z Challenge: Elias

I was going to use “empathy” for my word for today. But Elias, my ten-year-old firstborn son, has taught me so much, I would be remiss to leave him out.

Being a mother has changed me in ways I didn’t expect. It’s brought out all sorts of fears and anxieties, but it also helped me rediscover my creative, fun-loving side. I do things for Elias that I would not do for anyone else, even myself. He’s curious, enthusiastic, kind, smart, generous and forgiving. I could go on all day, but I will spare you too much of the proud mom talk.

He makes me want to be a better parent, a better person. He teaches me more about forgiveness and kindness than I could ever hope to teach him. One day when he was in first grade, I was walking him to his classroom. If you have a boy, you know that when they see wide open spaces, this screams to them RUN! So instead of walking nicely beside me all the way to his class (and what boy does that anyway?), he ran ahead of me. When I finally caught up to him, I took him aside and lit into him with a lecture about walking with me, not running down the hall, yada yada yada. He said not a word the whole time, just stood there and looked at me. When I was done, he stood there for a second, looked right at me, and gave me a big hug before going off to class. Talk about feeling like a schmuck.

Now that he’s ten, he does get mad at us more often, but it never lasts long. In five minutes, he’s back to normal, asking ten million random questions a minute.

Kids have so much to teach us if we’ll pay attention. They cry freely, they laugh often, they see life as a great adventure. They’re just themselves. Somewhere along the way, we as adults often lose these qualities. What a shame. But how blessed we are to have children to remind us what life is supposed to be about.

A to Z Challenge: Deliberate

Life in general and parenting specifically can be hard. There’s a lot of negativity out there – both inside my own head and outside. I’ve picked up a lot of bad habits along the way. If I just float along on autopilot, I tend to revert to those habits. I yell, I blame, I become controlling.

I’ve found that I have to be deliberate, intentional about changing what I think about if I want to handle things differently. One of the ways I’ve found helpful recently is starting the morning with encouraging thoughts. I’ve got them on a sheet of paper and I add to it as I find thoughts that inspire me. Some of them are Bible verses: “Love is patient, love is kind.” Some are reminders that what I’m doing as a parent is more important than I know. One’s a note to name things I’m thankful for. Then there are declarations that I WILL find the humor in my day or I WILL have a good attitude. Often I even speak my list out loud.

I try to do it every day because negative thoughts and old patterns tend to creep up on me and get me bogged down. I obviously still fail quite often, but the practice of starting the day deliberately setting my mind keeps me focused on the positive and helps me to remember that each new day is a fresh opportunity for growth. 

A to Z April Blog Challenge: Control

So this is the third day of the A to Z April Blog Challenge. Let me just say, it rocks. Of course I have neglected other things like housework and BIW to do it, but I am loving it. I just happened to find it on Sunday via another writing site (BIW). So I had to jump “write” in (I crack myself up). I suppose my theme is lessons I am learning/have learned. So, on to day 3: C is for Control.

I can be such a control freak. Especially when it comes to my kids. I think a lot of parents are the same. We must be gluttons for punishment because if you have kids, you know that trying to control them is pretty much a fruitless endeavor. There are so many things I can’t make my child do. I can’t make him sleep, behave, get good grades, or care about keeping a clean room. And I just frustrate myself and him when I try. We can set them up for success; we can guide them and teach them. But when we try to control the outcomes of every single scenario they might encounter, we usually fail and end up wearing ourselves out and creating conflict with our child.

This whole letting-go-of-control idea can be applied to so many other areas as well. The truth is there’s really so much we cannot control. That sounds like bad news, but it really isn’t. It takes a lot of pressure off when we realize we don’t have to go around trying to make everything and everyone be exactly the way we think they should be. It’s also very freeing.

It can be hard though. Because ultimately it requires faith – faith that we can handle an outcome we don’t necessarily want. Faith that it will be okay even if it doesn’t go the way we planned. And faith isn’t always easy for me. Hmm. Maybe I have my topic for “F” already.

A to Z April Challenge: Blame

“It’s all his fault!” Kids love to blame others when things go wrong. I wonder where they get it. I know a few adults who like to blame too. Sometimes I’m even one of them.

We blame our spouses for marital problems. We blame our unruly kids for our short tempers. We blame our bad lot in life on our bad childhood or controlling parents. “If only I’d had a happy childhood, I wouldn’t be so dysfunctional.” We see it all the time in politics. Both sides blame each other, and nothing gets done.

And it may very well be true. We may have had a controlling parent or lousy childhood. We may have kids who don’t listen to us or an angry husband who is hard to get along with.

But the problem with blaming is that it propels us to victim status. If everything is always someone else’s fault, we don’t have to take any responsibility. And maybe that’s okay for awhile – we never have to actually do anything. Except maybe complain. But after awhile we realize we’re stuck, unable to move forward.

Focusing on solutions is much more productive. When your kid spills his juice, blaming him doesn’t get the mess cleaned up. Giving him a paper towel and showing him how to use it does. Being angry all the time at your spouse accomplishes nothing. Trying to find ways to improve your marriage accomplishes a lot.

When was the last time we made a situation better by blaming? I would venture to guess probably never. What if the next time we’re tempted to place blame, we try something different? What if we focus our attention on looking for a solution or an alternative we hadn’t thought of before? It might just save us a whole lot of angst, frustration and stress. And wouldn’t that be worth it?

A to Z April Challenge: Attitude

If there’s one major thing we can control in life, it’s our attitude. Lots of things happen to us – good and bad. Life can feel overwhelming and out of control.

 I used to think that having a good attitude meant you had to go around being all perky all the time, kind of like a cheerleader or something. Frankly, most of the time I don’t have that kind of energy. It’s not me. And I can’t muster up that much excitement when I’m having a bad day anyway. 

However, it’s not about being someone you are not. More often it’s about choosing not to be grumpy when something bad happens – like when your kid doesn’t listen for the fiftieth time that day, you lose your car keys or a friend lets you down. Or maybe it’s something bigger. Maybe we go around with a general lousy attitude because we weren’t born with a pretty face or money or a nice figure. 

 The truth is that everyone can find things to be unhappy about. We can really make ourselves miserable if we try hard enough. Or, like the April showers that bring May flowers (I almost used that for “A” today), we can let the rains of life allow us to grow and blossom into a better person than we would have been without them. It’s really up to us. 

Ah, the glamorous life of a stay-at-home mom...That's what I used to think. Well, not glamorous necessarily. But ideal. Fulfilling. The ultimate. Well, today was one of those days when I feel frumpy, useless, aimless and bored. I feel like I should be doing something, but I'm not sure what. It's not like there aren't a million little things around the house I could do, but they don't seem important. So I jump on the Internet. Then I just feel more icky and useless for wasting time. 

Why am I always looking for that "thing" that will fulfill me? First we think if we can just get married, we'll be fulfilled. If you're married, you know that is sooo far from reality. Or if we can just find the perfect career or job that suits us, we'll never suffer from boredom or aimlessness again. If we have children, surely that will fulfill us like nothing else. And I do love being a mom, and it is very fulfilling. But it doesn't make all your problems go away. Maybe the error is thinking that I'll find some magical place in life where I'll always feel fulfilled, productive and happy and never get bored again. And that's not how life works. It's complicated and messy. One day you may feel good about life and the next it just kind of sucks.

I think another piece of it is that I feel this need to accomplish something. There's nothing tangible to show for my day. Sometimes there's laundry done or a room cleaned. But let's face it, that's not always very fulfilling. Why do I feel like I have to prove myself, justify my existence? Even wanting to write a novel which has always been a dream of mine - doing that is a way of saying "Look, I wrote a novel while I was a stay-at-home-mom." I DID something.

Is it wrong to have ambition? Is it wrong to want to reach people and make a mark on the world? I don't think so. But maybe I need to stop assuming I need to make some big mark somehow. Maybe I need to choose to be content in my boring little world and make a mark on my baby and older son and husband by being fully present with them and to stop living like my life with them is not enough. 

And maybe I need to live by what I *know* to be true, not by how I feel. I know that raising humans is very important, no matter how mundane it feels some days.

And maybe we are all searching. Maybe this life will never really fully satisfy us and that's why we yearn for more. Maybe we should just accept that and stop trying so hard to change it. Maybe God wants us to search for Him because only He really knows what will satisfy us. I know I certainly don't have a clue.

Or maybe I just need a good night's sleep and it will all look better tomorrow.