I (Joel) have the privilege of being home alone with Mikayla for four afternoons/evenings each week. It is incredible. Here are some thoughts that have been tumbling around my head during our times together.
-When giving your baby a bottle, make sure the top cap is on tightly, and that the cap isn't mis-threaded. You'll learn the hard way. Not that I know anything about it.
-I'm slightly nervous for when Mikayla enters the stage when we have to step up the discipline and instruction. We do basic "no" and other training now, but I know it will only get harder. As if it wasn't hard enough, I'm finding that it's next to impossible to say "no" or withhold from her. If it's this hard now, how am I supposed to say no even once in the next 18 years?
-What child doesn't like grapes or cheese? Mikayla devours avacados, plain yogurt (ew), and other seemingly strange foods, but refuses to touch these kid staples. Skins on, skins off; colby jack, mozzarella, or cheddar: it doesn't matter. I really hope she didn't inherit my picky childhood eating habits (I'm really sorry, Mom, I'm sure your stroganoff was delicious). At least Mikayla seems to like one type of Cheese.
-I now have even greater respect and admiration for stay at home moms. Their job is tough! And I'm only doing it four half-days a week, with one delightful little girl. Whenever Elizabeth gets to stay home full time, she has her work cut out for her. She isn't leaving a job to sit at home and eat bon-bons, she's leaving a tough job for a tougher calling. And with worse hours.
-Mikayla just might grow up to believe in ghosts. Her dinner time coincides with the neighbors' dinner preparation, and she loves hearing the cupboard doors slamming shut through the partition.She always looks around so expectantly, hoping to see the source of the sounds, but they remain disembodied.
-Before Mikayla came along, crying or babbling kids never bothered me one bit in church. But now that Mikayla is at the screeching/babbling stage, I am paranoid that even a tiny peep from her is as disruptive as a streaker at a baseball game. I have to keep reminding myself that Out of the mouths of infants...
-A child's laugh is the greatest, most beautiful sound in world. It can render the darkest of days and the foulest of moods inconsequential and utterly self-centered.
-People frequently talk about how having children gives you a new perspective on a lot of things, not the least of which is our adoption as sons and daughters of God. It's true. Related to my second observation above, this has affected our prayer: "If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!" (Matt. 7:11)
Buck up on the discipline. The greatest gift you can give a child are solid boundaries. Kids thrive when they are free to live within consistent lines. They are not small adults, they have no reasoning capacity. Your life with them will be immeasurably better at 16 if you discipline well when they are toddlers. As my Grandfather said, "If you discipline them well they should have few memories of being spanked because they learned to obey authority when they were very young." I enjoy my daughters more every year.
ReplyDeleteI agree, Bruce! I tell my clients that children are like a gas...they expand to fill the space you give them. (That usually gets gets a few laughs.) Boundaries and discipline are a comfort to them, they want to know where the lines are. The hardest part for us is making sure we are consistent with each other, since we spend so much time with her alone with our opposite schedules during the week. We check in from time to time, "Do you let her do this? I'm ok with her touching that...." etc. to make sure we aren't confusing her. And to think, it only gets more complicated... :).
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