It would be nice if raising kids came with a long-term guarantee. For instance: After all the hard work and years of doing laundry, enforcing discipline, creating opportunities and trying your best to be a good role model, your kids will turn out remotely normal and they will shake your hand, say thanks, and love you unconditionally.
30 January 2013
15 January 2013
The Shining Moments
Dear Tom,
Oh, parenthood! It is so easy to get overwhelmed when you kids are squabbling and asking for stuff. Not always politely, I might add.
Let me go backwards a bit, though. This week, you have had some TRULY shining moments:
-Boldly inquiring as to whether Grandma M might like to purchase a copy of your first book report for second grade. (She did...for $1. Go businessman!)
-Sensitively drawing a picture for sick Grandpa M of you and him fishing side by side.
-Singing like an angel beside Mom at church after sitting quietly and reading...without interrupting me once...for a very long parent meeting at church.
Let me remember these moments, Tom. Let us both celebrate the love and ingenuity in your heart. Too many times in families, the hard parts drag us down. I want to remember that you fill my heart with joy and affection and pride.
Love,
Mom
Oh, parenthood! It is so easy to get overwhelmed when you kids are squabbling and asking for stuff. Not always politely, I might add.
Let me go backwards a bit, though. This week, you have had some TRULY shining moments:
-Boldly inquiring as to whether Grandma M might like to purchase a copy of your first book report for second grade. (She did...for $1. Go businessman!)
-Sensitively drawing a picture for sick Grandpa M of you and him fishing side by side.
-Singing like an angel beside Mom at church after sitting quietly and reading...without interrupting me once...for a very long parent meeting at church.
Let me remember these moments, Tom. Let us both celebrate the love and ingenuity in your heart. Too many times in families, the hard parts drag us down. I want to remember that you fill my heart with joy and affection and pride.
Love,
Mom
11 January 2013
Parenting Boys
I've given up, in some ways, on the idea of a perfect family. As any real parent might tell you, one of the more difficult things about being a mom or dad is accepting that you can not control what your children do.
Even typing that out is difficult.
One thing I have struggled with tremendously as a mom is witnessing aggressive behavior traits in my children.
Aggression in children is normal behavior. Children feel angry when their toys are snatched up by one another. They feel jealous when a sibling receives more attention. They feel hurt when they are left out of an experience. Sometimes these strong emotions cause them to want to retaliate in sometimes violent ways---tantrums, hitting, powerful words, throwing items.
I don't want my children to use these methods of retaliation. I want them to own their feelings, to seek solace independently or from me. Sometimes, having three children so close in age (now 7, 5, and 4) seems to create this impossible situation whereby I must be a patrol guard as well as a full-time baby care-giver to Frank.
How can I do it all? Am I even strong enough to be this mom?
I want to do everything I can to protect my children and to prepare them to be amazing, selfless adults in the future. I want to give this parenting thing my full shot of effort.
Sometimes there are intense moments when John and I wonder, Are we giving enough? Are we getting this right?
The finished product is so many years off yet.
One thing that has been on my mind for quite some time now is parenting boys specifically. I feel ill-prepared to handle the special qualities of energy and emotion-bottling my sons are (so far) prone to exhibit. I can already see Tom bottling feelings up and hiding from me. How do I change this trajectory and encourage him to share himself with me?
Even typing that out is difficult.
One thing I have struggled with tremendously as a mom is witnessing aggressive behavior traits in my children.
Aggression in children is normal behavior. Children feel angry when their toys are snatched up by one another. They feel jealous when a sibling receives more attention. They feel hurt when they are left out of an experience. Sometimes these strong emotions cause them to want to retaliate in sometimes violent ways---tantrums, hitting, powerful words, throwing items.
I don't want my children to use these methods of retaliation. I want them to own their feelings, to seek solace independently or from me. Sometimes, having three children so close in age (now 7, 5, and 4) seems to create this impossible situation whereby I must be a patrol guard as well as a full-time baby care-giver to Frank.
How can I do it all? Am I even strong enough to be this mom?
I want to do everything I can to protect my children and to prepare them to be amazing, selfless adults in the future. I want to give this parenting thing my full shot of effort.
Sometimes there are intense moments when John and I wonder, Are we giving enough? Are we getting this right?
The finished product is so many years off yet.
One thing that has been on my mind for quite some time now is parenting boys specifically. I feel ill-prepared to handle the special qualities of energy and emotion-bottling my sons are (so far) prone to exhibit. I can already see Tom bottling feelings up and hiding from me. How do I change this trajectory and encourage him to share himself with me?
<3
Dear Frank,
It is just too much, really. Every day that passes, I love you more. I love you so much that you drool all over me, and I laugh and let it sink into my shirt and neck and face. I love you so much that you burp, and it smells like intoxicating perfume. Is this even possible? Is it even possible to be so enamored with my son?
This is it. Before you, I honestly never understood the moms who didn't want to leave their babies at home for an extended break. I grew overwhelmed with diapers and sleepless night and runny noses. And somehow, Frank, you have cast a magical spell of maternal wooziness upon me. Your giggle and dimply smile are everything I need to believe my day is perfect.
Oh, how I love you, my almost-crawling baby. 7 months.
Your,
Mama
It is just too much, really. Every day that passes, I love you more. I love you so much that you drool all over me, and I laugh and let it sink into my shirt and neck and face. I love you so much that you burp, and it smells like intoxicating perfume. Is this even possible? Is it even possible to be so enamored with my son?
This is it. Before you, I honestly never understood the moms who didn't want to leave their babies at home for an extended break. I grew overwhelmed with diapers and sleepless night and runny noses. And somehow, Frank, you have cast a magical spell of maternal wooziness upon me. Your giggle and dimply smile are everything I need to believe my day is perfect.
Oh, how I love you, my almost-crawling baby. 7 months.
Your,
Mama
08 January 2013
The Lesson I Don't Want to Forget to Teach You
Dear kids,
There are so many lessons I have left to teach you. Sometimes the thought of your future----and the things I want to teach you yet----can be overwhelming. With Frank waking up from a cold tonight, and Jim wandering the hallway with a nightmare, I woke up in the middle of the night. Somehow my worrying mother-mind travelled to who you would all marry in the future. What kind of people will you choose to open yourselves up to many years from now?
It is so silly to even consider such things now. Lucy, at age 5, you are laying on the floor of our bedroom in your ballet tights, leotard, and tutu. You had your first lesson just tonight. I had to promise you that you can put your tap shoes on right away in the morning just to convince you to go to bed.
Tommy, you are so young yet that you wrote your very first book report last week. How proud your Dad and I were to see you working so hard....taking such care in doing a good job at your school.
At any rate, I figured it was as good a time as any to tell you, as a group, that I do want you to carefully consider the kind of person you marry. I hope that when you meet someone, and fall in love, you remember that person should treat you with great respect and dignity every day. After all, you are our children and you are God's children. We all deserve to be treated with great dignity on this planet.
When I was growing up, I watched my sister date a few young men. I didn't have much dating experience as a teenager, but I suppose I learned a few things from her experiences....and from seeing how my parents tried to teach her about dating. I remember at one point that my Dad had a short list going of things that really matter a lot in finding a spouse. Some of them were pretty darn practical. I wish I remembered them all.
Here are a few:
1. Does he/she know the meaning of the word "work"?
2. Does he/she have any kids you don't know about?
3. Does he/she have any addictions?
4. Is he or she from a good, wholesome family?
Gosh, I might have to check back in with your Aunt Sarah and Uncle Chris to remember the rest of the list. I think my Dad's general hope was tha we would realize that when you marry someone, you marry all the baggage he or she carries from his or her whole life. You marry the emotions from an addiction she conquered at 16. Or you marry the family who raised him. You marry the boy who just can't hold down a job...or instead, you marry the boy who does whatever he can to find a job and work hard to keep it. Sometimes when you are a teenager or young adult falling in love, it is difficult to ignore your impulse and realize that the inner ethics of a person matter more than how he or she looks on the outside.
Of course, my Mom would have chimed in with a more spiritual component of whether or not the prospective spouse was Catholic. We weren't taught to only marry Catholics, but I think the overarching message was clear: marrying someone who values God and has faith in God should be a priority.
It's late tonight, so I just don't have time to expand upon these many ideas, ideas it took my parents a great many years to teach me. But I wanted to grab onto this idea, and tell you kids: Choose wisely. God has a plan for you and your future spouse, if that is your path. You deserve to be loved greatly, and in turn, you should love your spouse greatly, putting him or her before yourself again and again in life. As he or she will do for you.
All my love.
Your,
Mama
There are so many lessons I have left to teach you. Sometimes the thought of your future----and the things I want to teach you yet----can be overwhelming. With Frank waking up from a cold tonight, and Jim wandering the hallway with a nightmare, I woke up in the middle of the night. Somehow my worrying mother-mind travelled to who you would all marry in the future. What kind of people will you choose to open yourselves up to many years from now?
It is so silly to even consider such things now. Lucy, at age 5, you are laying on the floor of our bedroom in your ballet tights, leotard, and tutu. You had your first lesson just tonight. I had to promise you that you can put your tap shoes on right away in the morning just to convince you to go to bed.
Tommy, you are so young yet that you wrote your very first book report last week. How proud your Dad and I were to see you working so hard....taking such care in doing a good job at your school.
At any rate, I figured it was as good a time as any to tell you, as a group, that I do want you to carefully consider the kind of person you marry. I hope that when you meet someone, and fall in love, you remember that person should treat you with great respect and dignity every day. After all, you are our children and you are God's children. We all deserve to be treated with great dignity on this planet.
When I was growing up, I watched my sister date a few young men. I didn't have much dating experience as a teenager, but I suppose I learned a few things from her experiences....and from seeing how my parents tried to teach her about dating. I remember at one point that my Dad had a short list going of things that really matter a lot in finding a spouse. Some of them were pretty darn practical. I wish I remembered them all.
Here are a few:
1. Does he/she know the meaning of the word "work"?
2. Does he/she have any kids you don't know about?
3. Does he/she have any addictions?
4. Is he or she from a good, wholesome family?
Gosh, I might have to check back in with your Aunt Sarah and Uncle Chris to remember the rest of the list. I think my Dad's general hope was tha we would realize that when you marry someone, you marry all the baggage he or she carries from his or her whole life. You marry the emotions from an addiction she conquered at 16. Or you marry the family who raised him. You marry the boy who just can't hold down a job...or instead, you marry the boy who does whatever he can to find a job and work hard to keep it. Sometimes when you are a teenager or young adult falling in love, it is difficult to ignore your impulse and realize that the inner ethics of a person matter more than how he or she looks on the outside.
Of course, my Mom would have chimed in with a more spiritual component of whether or not the prospective spouse was Catholic. We weren't taught to only marry Catholics, but I think the overarching message was clear: marrying someone who values God and has faith in God should be a priority.
It's late tonight, so I just don't have time to expand upon these many ideas, ideas it took my parents a great many years to teach me. But I wanted to grab onto this idea, and tell you kids: Choose wisely. God has a plan for you and your future spouse, if that is your path. You deserve to be loved greatly, and in turn, you should love your spouse greatly, putting him or her before yourself again and again in life. As he or she will do for you.
All my love.
Your,
Mama
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