I have a tendency to brag about the great things that my kids are doing. My kids are great, well rounded, happy kids... so it's very easy to highlight their strengths. But I've been learning to highlight and focus on the little things lately. The ones that embarras me, but later make me laugh.
For example, yesterday I picked the kids up from school alone. This is very unusual for us, normally Grandma or Daddy is with me. Most days that Grandma picks us all up, she takes us to Sonic for a drink. Lorelei always gets a creamy ice cream type of drink (it's SOOOO healthy, huh?). Yesterday she decided that (despite Grandma not being there) it was definitely time for a drink. She threw a fit in the lobby of the day care. There I was, holding Juliette, keeping calm, and growing increasingly more embarrased as she sat against a wall wailing hysterically. Tears are pouring down her cheeks and she's pleading for her "icy" drink. I'm doing my best not to either laugh or lose it, I really couldn't make up my mind which I wanted to do more. She keeps yelling that she "doesn't know how" to get off of the floor. For the record... this is her new thing and my LEAST favorite of her sayings. Eventually I get her to scoot a little toward the door. She insists on informing me that she's not scooting, she's wiping her butt on the floor. This sent me over the edge and I couldn't stop laughing, neither could the assistant director who had been watching the whole thing. Finally I got her convinced that, while she wasn't getting her "icy" drink, I was not going to let her go without liquid. She accepted that she needed to wait until we got home, walked to the car, and got in with no more tears.
Sometimes it is just about out lasting the kids.
My first stick it out moment with Juliette came this morning. She was starving when she woke up. I cracked open one of her favorites, squash! Then she refused to eat it. I gave her a few spoonfuls, and she wanted no more to do with it. So, I let her down on the floor and continued with my morning. She cried for a good 5 minutes. At this point, Anthony picked her up and held her as I tried to feed her some more. She took the first 5 or so spoonfuls with excitement. After that we were back to crying. I gave up. I put away the squash and set her to play on the floor while I finished the morning routine. After a few minutes of screaming, Anthony came to the rescue. He picked her up and sat with her. No crying... no crying... no cry-- AAAAAHHH!!!!!!
She is changed, kind of fed, had just woken up from her night... no reason to be crying. And then a mother's most dreaded words came flying from my mouth. I felt like if I could have caught them and shoved them back in, then maybe they wouldn't have been true. "Maybe she's teething?" Dang it... did I really say that? Am I really going to have to worry about the crying, drooling, and fist chewing that we are about to experience? Anthony agreed and we handed her her teething keys... and there was silence. From there on out she was fine for the rest of the morning. She chewed her keys and giggled at Lorelei until we left for the day.
While I probably won't remember these moments in the the years to come, these are the moments that make mommy-hood so worth it. I have grown a little from each experience like this with my kids. I have learned the range of my own patience and the capacity that I have to understand why a 4 year-old can't keep from spilling her milk all over the carpet. I'll continue to have moments like this until they are grown and out of the house. They may not always be pretty, but they shape my kids and they shape me.
And it's with a small sigh that I say... at least it's only another 20 years or so...
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