Spring weather in Texas is notoriously volatile: it’s not unusual to have a morning of thunderstorms, hail, and even tornado warnings followed by an afternoon of sunny, cloudless skies. My moods this spring have been nearly as dynamic as our weather patterns, but without a convenient app to let me know what to expect. After a challenging year of pregnancy and postpartum adjustments, I finally feel like I’m getting my footing as a mom to four, and many days are truly blissful. Unfortunately, my old pals of anxiety and depression recognize this stability as an invitation to stop by for a visit. The good days have outweighed the bad ones, and I’m choosing joy EVERY day regardless of the color popping up on my (metaphorical) mood ring. I also continue to seek lessons in the midst of each day’s highs and lows. Here are a few from this season.
1. Sully has a green thumb.
This spring, Sullivan took a particular interest in our backyard garden beds. He’s loved spending solo time with Luke during planting and harvesting, and he started taking it upon himself to harvest strawberries first thing every morning. For some reason, Sully is the kid I’ve always worried about the most—not for any problematic reason (he’s always been healthy and bright and a delight to be around), but because it’s easy for him to get lost in the shuffle as my middle boy and twin to our only girl. He’s also our quietest, most laid-back kiddo. . . which is wonderful, but also means that he gets less attention than the others. So it’s been great to see Sully latch on to something that is just his. I hope to nurture this little passion of his. And to extrapolate the lesson a bit: I hope it will serve as a reminder to study my kids (especially my twins) as individuals and not just a collective group, recognizing their unique needs and strengths and equipping them to embrace their individuality however it presents itself.
2. I can do hard things.
I’m not sure when or how it happened, but at some point in adulthood I began buying into the limiting belief that I am weak and incapable of handling anything difficult. It’s an untruth that keeps me from challenging myself, so I like to push back on that narrative whenever I can. Natural childbirth has been one helpful counter to the “I’m weak” narrative, as has parenting four kids (including twins). This month’s brief foray into tending chickens (which I wrote about here) has now been added to the list of “hard thing I’ve done” that I can refer back to when I start to doubt my own capacity. No, it wasn’t nearly as difficult as most farm labor, and yes, Charleston was responsible for quite a bit of it. But we were presented with some challenges that required problem solving on my part. I also managed some physical labor that was beyond what I thought I could handle, including hauling fifty-pound buckets of water across the yard while wearing a baby. I’m thankful for the strong body that enabled me to carry out these tasks, and I will be storing these memories away for the next time I need evidence to back up a personal pep talk.
3. My kids LOVE their playground. . . and they’re also okay without it.
Our backyard playground began rusting a couple of years ago, and finally got to the point of needing to be repaired or replaced. We decided to go the repair route which has led to a long, unfortunate saga that I won’t bore you with here. Sadly this has meant that our playground was out of commission for almost a month, and my kids’ sadness at temporarily losing their favorite source of entertainment solidified my gratitude for the playground that has seen so much love in the past five years. But a funny thing happened when the playground was down: my kids still wanted to be outside just as often. I watched (shocked) as they roamed the yard for hours with nothing but balls and giant walking sticks for entertainment, and they’ve had so much fun. I realized how I had underestimated their creativity and overestimated their need for fancy play things. We will all be happy to have our playground back, but the playground-free weeks provided a beautiful lesson in resourcefulness, imagination, and letting go of the need for play to look a certain way.
4. Sometimes the hardest parenting moments become the best opportunities.
In April I had an important conversation with Charleston that was one of the hardest, most heartbreaking moments in all my years as a mom. It was something I had prepared for and prayed about, but nothing could lesson the sting of the words I needed to share. Despite the pain of that conversation, it was also one of the most bonding experiences of our mother/son relationship. It was a moment I don’t think either of us will ever forget, and we are closer for it. It wasn’t until much later that I noticed the similarities of that conversation to the sleep challenges we’ve had with Nico. His inability to sleep anywhere but on me was a point of frustration a few months ago, until I accepted this stage and began to work with his needs instead of against them. I have embraced the opportunity to nap with him in the afternoons, and I have learned that late-night writing with him on my lap is some of my most productive blogging time. I’m certain I will face many parenting challenges that do not offer these blessings in disguise, but knowing the potential for hard moments to bring about great blessings has me less fearful of future challenges that will inevitably arise as I continue on my mothering journey.
5. AI has made me an internet cynic.
With the rise of ChatGBT and other AI models, I’ve grown skeptical of everything I see or read online. For the record, I have never used any form of artificial intelligence in my own writing, and I cannot imagine a scenario in which I would. But I hate that I can’t ever truly know whether the content I am consuming was created by a real person, and this not-knowing has taken a lot of the shine off of the content I am interacting with. I’m not sure what to do with this realization; AI isn’t going anywhere, but it also isn’t practical or possible for me to go completely analog to avoid it. I have no answers yet, though I’m certain I will write more about this in the future, as it has been on my mind a lot lately and I know I am not alone.
6. Buy the bigger bookshelf.
We were in need of more book storage, and I had determined that we would buy a small bookcase for Charleston’s room to hold our excess books. When talking over the purchase with Luke, he suggest that we buy a much taller bookcase than the one I had picked out. I resisted at first: I didn’t think we needed that much extra storage space, and I worried it would be too large for Charleston’s room. Luke won me over, and doggonit if it isn’t one of my favorite purchases we’ve made in years! I love that I was able to put ALL of our middle-grade chapter books in one place, with room to spare. This was a valuable lesson in 1) trusting Luke’s judgment (it’s usually spot on) and 2) not settling for a stopgap solution when a long-term alternative is possible.
7. When they’re silly, don’t resist it—join in.
A few weeks ago, my children suddenly turned feral. I mean, not really, but if I didn’t know better, I would have assumed they were mainlining sugar if not something stronger. They were crazy and their over-the-top silliness was driving ME crazy. My first reaction was to crack down on the discipline and strictness, but it only made the situation worse. I finally gave in. I begrudgingly acknowledged (to myself) that their behavior wasn’t naughty, just sillier than I would have preferred. And I decided that instead of pushing back on their silliness, I would become silly myself. I had a lot more fun being “Silly Mom” than I’d had being “Strict Mom,” and I found they responded well to my changes. We had fun together, and once we’d gotten the silliness out of our systems, they were much more receptive to my requests to calm down. Will this always work? Of course not. But I’m filing away the experience as a possible solution for the next time the sillies have started to overstay their welcome and my no-nonsense eviction notice has gone unheeded.
8. I have the most thoughtful kids.
Luke and I still brush the twins’ teeth for them each night, but about six months ago we decided to make them responsible for their own brushing in the mornings. Not long afterwards I began to notice that the twins’ toothbrushes were buttered* each evening in preparation for their morning brushing. I had assumed Luke was doing this until one evening a month or so ago when Luke wasn’t home and somehow the toothbrushes already had toothpaste on them. I asked Charleston about it, and he confessed that he had been taking care of this task for us without even letting on that he was doing it! My kids may be silly sometimes, and they frequently drive me batty, but I never want their occasional misbehavior to blind me to what great kids they are. I was having a rough day a couple of weeks ago and they spontaneously worked together to make the sweetest “feel-better” card (pictured below). Their gesture was overwhelmingly kind, and their thoughtfulness is something I will be happy to relearn again and again.
* When I was growing up, our family used the phrase “butter your brush” to refer to putting toothpaste on a toothbrush. Only recently did I learn that this was a family expression, not a universal one.
It wasn’t until I had compiled this list that I realized almost every item relates to my kids. I suppose that’s the season I am in and (as I noted in a recent post) God does tend to use motherhood as my greatest teacher. Sometimes He’s teaching me about Himself through my kids, and sometimes He’s using them to teach me about THEM. All of it is valuable and formative, all noteworthy.
My lessons about my own kids may not be relevant to you as you read this, but I hope my reflection and observations will inspire you to walk through YOUR days with eyes wide open to whatever lessons there are to be learned. Whether it’s in the workplace, or home with your kids, or something totally different. Let’s be a community who celebrates learning, however and wherever it presents itself
Our family is currently traveling, so I will not have any blog posts coming out next week. But I will be back in two weeks with a recap of May’s highlights. See you then!