Heart Check, Parenting Edition

Please bear with my ramblings....

Today Micah fell asleep for a whopping 5 minutes on the way home from church. He then refused to go back to sleep and take his normal hour to 1.5 hour nap. Instead he chose to cry the entire time. Great, just great. This hour and a half...yes, we made him stay in there for an hour and a half, brought about many emotions and thoughts.

He was quiet for a while, then talked for a few minutes, then began to cry. I was not prepared for what happened next...

Jason had been cleaning up the dishes from lunch, because he's awesome like that. Instead of being grateful for my husband's kindness and selflessness I suddenly became irrational and slightly insane! I was convinced that the noise that Jason had made stacking the dishes was what had caused Micah to go from going to sleep to refusing to sleep. While this may be true, it probably wasn't, but I was still angry.

Anger isn't something I usually struggle with, but when I DO get angry-well, watch out! I get flaming hot angry. I start throwing things, slamming doors or drawers, and worse of all, my thought life begins to take a nose dive right into Satan's arena. Oh, it was not pretty. While I didn't actually throw anything, I "gnashed my teeth and stomped my feet and chased him out the door"...as one of Micah's books says about the very cranky bear! Luckily, I have a gracious husband and a loving God. I knew better than to let this get too out of control, so when Jason suggested {wink, wink} that I lay down and try to take a nap I found myself realizing some very key points about myself and parenting in general...instead of napping.

There were many things I realized, but here were two key things:

1. The tone of our home is set by those who live in it.

Our home is generally a place of peace, a place filled with loving words and jabber of a toddler. There are times we get irritated with Micah's whining or short with each other, but generally speaking our home is not a place that would be considered volatile or violent. BUT lately I've been convicted by my tone when responding to others, and moreover, when talking about others. I've fallen into the habit of having conversations like "I would NEVER do that to my kids!" or "They've got to be CRAZY to let that happen" or "Can you believe THAT?" with my husband, yet in the presence of our children. We're all human, we all have these thoughts, but as those who bear the light of Christ we are called to something much higher...nevermind the fact that I need to remove the giant plank from eye before pointing out the speck in another person's. If I want my children to be more like Christ, and to show them Christ's love, then I need to emulate who He is and what He has called us to. The fruits of the spirit are NOT: gossip, or sarcasm, or anger, or nagging, or jealousy, or envy, BUT: LOVE, JOY, PEACE, PATIENCE {so hard with a toddler in the home}, KINDNESS, GENTLENESS, and SELF-CONTROL!

When Micah began crying it brought back so many old feelings. Feelings I haven't felt for over a year. You see, there was a time when Micah hated sleep...I mean loathed. He would cry and cry and cry...and sometimes sleep. This brought out major insecurities and feelings that I was a total failure as a mother.

The tone of our home is set by the way Jason and I re-act to every situation in life; the good ones, the bad ones, the loud ones, the stressful ones. Our children are watching, they're watching very carefully! If I want my home to be a place of peace and a place where my children feel safe then I need to make sure I am living that out.

2. Jason and I are on the same Team!

Why is this so hard to remember? And why is it that we take everything out on the ones who love us the most? Is it because we know they'll forgive us, or because they're an easy target? Well, that's a whole nother blog post, but regardless I am so guilty of taking my frustrations out on my husband. Jason agreed that Micah needed to sleep, he agreed that it was ridiculous that he gets messed up from falling asleep for five stinking minutes on the way home from church. He's on my side! But I had somehow, in my hormone filled, irrational hissy fit convinced myself that he didn't care, that he was disagreeing with me.

Not only did this make me realize how quickly I want to take my frustrations out on Jason, but it also reminded me of how much Satan hates marriage and intentional parenting. He'll do anything, using even a crying child to bring anger and harsh words into our home. I am not saying "Satan made me do it!" but rather that when he sees us going down that road he wastes no time setting up camp in our thought life. Convincing us of things that aren't true and/or conveniently reminding us of 'that one time, when Jason did that one thing' that has NOTHING to do with the matter at hand.

Jason and I are on the same team, so we'd better act like it! We need to parent together, and fight for our marriage together! Otherwise, we'll wake up someday and wonder what happened.

This is the only life we get, so we'd better make it count and we'd better be bold about it! Oh, and this parenting thing...its a WHOLE lot harder than I realized, and we're only getting started! Oy!