Fun Advice 19-21: Coffee, Criticism, and Curveballs

            #19  Always remember , “Coffee is your friend!”  And when all else goes wrong, “Chocolate never fails!”  Just make sure that you have enough for the kids, too, unless you eat it in a soundproof, airtight room.

            However, I would like to add a caution.  If you are not a coffee drinker, then don’t start.  Coffee may be a friend, but sometimes that friend is like a giant, belligerent gorilla that you willingly strap yourself to with a heavy, fifteen-foot-long chain.  Sure, you can go about business as usual, but only within sight of this demanding beast.  You will go from a happy, relaxed sunshine-greeter to a sullen, foggy-eyed grunter doing the zombie-walk to pay homage to your ape friend first thing in the morning, before he gets angry and begins ruthlessly whipping that chain around.  Then you’ll be sorry!  So I really can’t, in good conscience, recommend this to non-coffee drinkers.  Fair Warning!            

Serious Advice 1-2: Respond to Them

            The last list of advice was a humorous one . . . humorous, but true.  However, on a more serious note, there is another list of rules that I try to live by.  These are beliefs that I have formed, though not executed perfectly, from things that I’ve read and by watching how people (including myself) interact with their kids.  They are ones that you probably will see in some parenting books.  They may not fit for you, but they do for me.  (These do not include specifics or advice on discipline.  There are numerous good books out there about that.  These are just some general principles.  And many of them also speak to how we should relate to all people, not just our children!) 

Fun Advice 16-18: Spots and Messes

            #16  If there is one thing that I know for certain, it’s that, with children, there will be spots.  Get comfortable with spots on your clothes.  When you have young children, you can expect spots of all kinds, from coffee to spaghetti sauce to spit-up to snot.  (Body fluids don’t scare you as much after having children!) 

            And how is it that when I’m mixing batter and one drop flies out of a bowl, it lands square on my shirt in a spot that I don’t really want people staring at?  Despite the fact that it had about 270 other degrees it could have gone?  That, or it will hit me right in the eye, going around the glasses that I’m wearing.  That always amazes me!  I am not kidding, the other night during dinner, R. was sitting three feet away from me.  Three feet!  When he said something, a large piece of food shot out of his mouth, flew around my glasses, and hit me right in the inside corner of my eye, where it proceeded to bother me for an hour.  How in the world? 

Fun Advice 14-15: Having Fun and Sacrificing Ourselves

            #14  Don’t take everything so seriously.  Sometimes we have opportunities to have a little fun with our children.  And that’s okay.  It’s beneficial, even.  Proverbs 15:13:  “A happy heart makes the face cheerful . . .” 

Fun Advice 6-10: Memory, Cereal, Socks, and Mud

            #6  Get in the habit of writing things down.  Before I had kids, I could remember all the phone numbers, and what was happening when and with whom.  Now, if I’m simply asked what day it is, I stare blankly with a confused look on my face.  Day?  What is ‘day’?  Honestly, the wheels are spinning, but nothing is coming to the surface.  Same thing when someone asks me how old I am.  (I have to ask my husband, or figure out how old he is and subtract a year, or recall what year I was born and count up.  Isn’t that pathetic?)  I used to hear that you lose your memory when you have kids.  But I think that you still have the same amount of memory, it just gets spread a lot thinner.  So it’s basically useless.  Write it down! 

            #7  Cereal is an acceptable dinner occasionally.  No guilt allowed! 

Fun Advice 11-13: Fighting, Saying No, and Staying One Step Ahead

            #11  If the balance of power is rather equal and they are not bleeding, then let them handle it.  Don’t step in and fight all their battles for them.  (But don’t allow name calling and other kinds a disrespectful talk.  That’s just not right!  You wouldn’t believe how many disrespectful, naughty children there are on the playgrounds.  Seriously, if parents don’t correct children’s misbehavior, they won’t learn.) 

            In fact, it is a very wise thing to pick your battles carefully.  This is a lesson that only a broken, tired, humbled mother can understand.  If I didn’t pick my battles, I would find myself fighting all day long over the littlest things, especially when my third is so willing to fight me on everything. 

Fun Advice 3-5: Hair Cuts and Conversations

            #3  Never - and I repeat, never - pick up a pair of scissors and impulsively start hacking away at your hair while you are home alone with a little one.  I don’t know, but there’s something about having a baby that makes you want to cut your hair.  Call it the “Steel Magnolias syndrome”.  Well, one day when D. was a baby, I looked in the mirror and realized that I hated my hair and wanted it cut shorter.  I’m one of those that won’t think or care about something for so long, but then as soon as I decide that I don’t like it and want a change, I have to do it NOW!  And that’s what happened with my hair. 

Fun Advice 1-2: Exhaustion

            In all honesty, though, things aren’t as crazy at our house and my children aren’t as wild as I make them out to be.  (Okay, R. really is that wild . . . like a wild stallion.  I can see him growing up to be a bull-fighter, using only his bare hands to throw the bulls around.  He is freakishly strong!  And so willing to fight!  I think a bull is the only animal that could give him a challenge.  My neighbor, Ray, was watching the boys play in our backyard once.  He comes from a family of many, many boys, and he was laughing about R..  “I love watching him play,” he said.  “He is just a little bulldog.”  See!  I’m not the only one that notices it!) 

            But they really are great kids, if I do say so myself.  And they are quite well-behaved (in front of other people, at least).  And they are all really sweet.  I am so thankful that they haven’t yet reached the age where they are embarrassed to hug me or say, “I love you.”  I’m going to enjoy that for as long as I have it.  They are the most endearing little things ever.          

            You know, now that I’m thinking about it, I want to write a list of all the advice I can think of that you won’t learn in a parenting book, such as the four lessons at the beginning of this series.  These are just the kinds of lessons that we learn as we go, the lessons that humble us.  The more kids you have, the more you’ll understand. 

Mom Advice #2-4: The Here-And-Now, Humility

            Letting go of expectations (Lesson #1) relates to Lesson #2:  Look no further into the future than the here-and-now, because it never goes the way you expect it will, either.  That’s actually quite Biblical.  Matthew 6:34:  “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.  Each day has enough trouble of its own.”  

            If I wake up and the sun is shining and I feel rested, I make all sorts of plans in my head about what I’m going to accomplish that day.  I’m going to open the windows, let all the fresh air in, clean the whole kitchen, make some breakfast cake, organize our clothes, and take the kids for a long walk.  And then, when all I get done is breakfast, lunch, dinner, and helping the kids with their school-work, I feel like I failed for the day.  

Mom Advice #1: Expectations

            Alright now!  So, here I am - a mother of three young boys.  (Update: When I first wrote this I had three; now I have four.  Oh, and this series is from my other blog, chapter 7 and 8 in the Child of Mine posts.)  I never did go back to work as the counselor that I went to school to become.  (Yet, I have done nothing but work since they arrived.)  Instead, I enlisted.  I enlisted in the ranks of the sleep-deprived; the worn, ragged souls serving at the front lines of the battle.  God bless them!  I am neck deep in Motherhood.   And the battle rages on, as it does in many homes around the world, between mother and child.  Who will dominate?  Who will rule?  Sometimes the battle is too close to tell.