Well, today's "thought" has been revolving around parenting, the most important job anyone could ever have. (If you question the importance of parenting, think back to the last time you saw or met a person, whether child or adult, who really irritated you with his/her ridiculous behavior or bad attitude.)
Okay, so now that we are on the same page, let me say that you are never prepared to parent your children. While some people have tons of experience with children before becoming parents, still others have never interacted with children prior to the birth of their first child. And yet, no one is ever really fully prepared for the full-time, hair-raising, no-sleeping, spewing, diapering, teething, weaning, biting, screeching, temper-tantrum-throwing, potty-training, runny-nose-wiping, back-talking, I'm-not-eating-that-and-you-can't-make-me-nutrition-coaching, sibling-mediating, money-draining, mess-making life that is a parent's every waking (and often sleeping) moment. (Really, this is the stuff of nightmares. Stephen King's got nothin' on a full-time mother of multiple children!)
Parenting is also the most rewarding job a person could ever be blessed with having. The problem is that God gives us these little people when they are wee-bairns and we fall in love with them while they are sweet and innocent.... Then they stop being sweet and innocent along the way, and you can't send them back! (insert sarcasm) And God, in all His infinite wisdom, has not updated our knowledge base to make us capable of successfully dealing with this attitude shift (not to mention that by the time this happens, we are also well into parenting and a bit deranged). So, we struggle along the way with a kind of trial-and-error parenting, and we get no real feedback about how well we are doing until our blessed offspring are nearly grown... at which point, I might add, it is just about too late to do anything substantial about it.
Well, this rant has absolutely no conclusion since I am still in the throes of parenting. I am just amazed lately by the people our children can become if we aren't absolutely cognizant of our parenting choices along this journey. It is almost daunting to look at your child and imagine them a decade later. We can only hope that we are making appropriate choices more than 50% of the time and praying 100% of the time.
May God Bless you... and your parents,
Angie
Did anyone watch the weather for Middle Tennessee today? No? Well, let me tell you about our field trip to the zoo! We arrived to discover that almost every other school group of pre-kindergarten through second grade children decided to go to the zoo today! Our first view of the zoo was of the PACKED parking lot, to the side of which we saw two things: more than a dozen big, yellow school buses; and so many groups of children gathering before the entrance that the entryway was concealed from view! After delving into the fray, we parked our minivan and headed up to find our group. (Let me interject here that my children and I had created matching shirts to help us stay together and identify each other should we become lost. This was more wise than even we knew when we decided to make them! Luckily, no other school group had quite our shade of sunshine yellow, so we were good to go!!) Okay, into the zoo we go! The kids are excited! The animals are awesome! And, the rain is begin
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