If I could time travel

Every year on each of my children's birthdays I look through the baby book or scrapbook.  Or pile of pictures that are going to become a scrapbook.  Or pictures that someday I am going to actually print so I can pile them up and someday scrapbook them.  And I am struck by how tiny they are.  How much they have grown.

However, this year I was struck by a different thought while looking at pictures of my now ten year-old.  I looked from his face, probably for the first time, to the face of the one holding him.  The ten year-ago version of me.  I noticed how young I looked.  I turned back more pages.  Yep.  Even younger.  More pages, same story.  The whole way back to the first picture of a new, glowing, excited, exhausted mommy.  And this time, instead of writing my sweet baby a letter for their birthday, I wished to reach out to her.

If I could, I would go back and tell her so much.  I would tell her to relax.  To enjoy.  Oh, I know she knows that.  I know that she made the most of everyday.  She played.  Laughed.  Grasped each moment as best and as tightly as she could.  But there was always more.  Fear.  Disappointment in herself.  A struggle to know she was making the right choices.  And there are so many, many choices.   Everyday.  Every child.   Every minute.  Sometimes she will feel like she is drowning in a sea of uncertainty.

Mostly, though, I would tell her that she is going to survive, because I know that she will not always feel like it or believe it.

There will be bumps and bruises.  I know that she is going to drop her brand new baby at just a few days old from the couch in her exhaustion.  She judges herself because she doesn't know how many mothers do that.

She will have to hold down a baby for testing.  And a toddler.  And a preschooler.  And she will cry longer than they will.  And she will remember it forever, even when they forget.

There will come a day that she is tired of being pregnant.  And there will come a day that she wishes that she still was.  And feeling either feeling is fine.  And normal.  And so are the tears.  And one day, they will stop falling as hard. But they will still fall.

She is going to pace for hours overnight.  She is going to pray in quite a few hospital rooms.  She is going to meet more doctors than she can remember.  She is going to stand in a hospital hallway while her heart is rolled away for surgery.  More than once.  And it will bring her to her knees.  Literally.  But she will breathe again.

She is going to hold more than one grubby hand while there are x-rays, stitches, staples, concussions, broken bones and close calls.  And while it makes her queasy, she will not be sick.

There will be psychologists.  Neurologists.  Diagnoses. Autism.  ADHD.  But she will always know that she has the best children in the world.

Her husband will work away.  At times far away.  But he will be her rock.  And she will need him so very much.  And he will be there.  And she may need to tell him why they fall, but he will dry her tears.

She will try to hold herself together through depression.  And she will struggle to use her hand after a stroke.  And she will get very angry when she misspeaks or stutters.  But she will talk again.  And she will use that hand again.

She will homeschool.  And it will be fun.  And exciting.  And scary.  And hard.  And she will want to quit, but she won't.  And it will be rewarding again.  And even fun again.  She is making the correct choice, but she won't always feel like it.

In that moment, in that snap shot of her young life, she is full of innocence.  She does not know what the future holds.  She does not know what is in store.  And that is a good thing.  Because it is overwhelming.  At times it is unbearable.  But it will make her strong.  Stronger than she has ever been.  Sometimes she won't even know it, but it is happening, everyday.  Even this one.

Top Ten Reasons...

that I am the biggest meanie weenie ever.  According to the children in my house.

10.  I will not let Micah walk to Grandma's house.  He is almost two.  It is several blocks away.  She is not home.  I am a jerk.

9.  I do not agree that a long sleeve shirt would make a person feel cooler than a short sleeve shirt.  In the summer.  I know nothing about fashion.  I may be ruining a young life as we speak.

8.  I will not let my children carry around a dying baby bird and try to feed it crunched up worms mixed with spit.  They already started collecting the spit.  And the worms.  And the dying baby bird.

7.  Breakfast is not cookies.  Or ice cream.  Or cake.  And we have no cookies.  Or cake.

6.  I will not let Micah eat a play dough pizza.  Or play dough cookies. Or play dough cake. Or even play dough lumpy thing.

5.  I make the kids read, play, go outside, and get creative before turning on any electronics.  Even in the summer. Even on rainy days. Even when they just charged an iPod.

4.  I do not want a pet snake.  I will not allow my children to have a pet snake.  As a matter of fact, I have placed a hold on any new pets until we have quite a few less pets than we do now.  Be that by rehoming, death, or escape. And even then, probably no snake.  I just don't want to have to feed it like I do with all the other pets my kids (and husband) have.

3.  No one is allowed to have soda for breakfast.  I have no soda in the house.  We have juice.  Water. Milk. Tea. Kool aid.  Hot chocolate.  Those are all gross.  I must not have taste buds.  At all.

2.  I toss broken toys.  All of them.  Even if Dad can do magic, preform surgery, or has enough super glue.  They will break again.  Kids will cry again.  Like a band aid, the quicker the better, just toss it and get it over with.  Especially when it is in five or more pieces, is missing a wheel, and only has one handlebar. And used to be a finger bicycle.

1.  I will not let the size five and six kids wear size two costumes to go jump on the trampoline. Even if it is the only ninja costumes they can find.  No, black pants and black shirts will not work the same.  Even though they would cover more skin because they fit.

And that is all just from today.  Before lunch.  I should have a much larger list by bedtime.

Advice

A few days ago I noticed something on Facebook.  At least three of my friends posted something about their children that was either humorous or as a way of “venting”.  None of those posts were things that should make the children feel bad, or reflect on the parents in any way.  It was just a fact of life of parenting.  I may not even need to mention that each post was about a son.  And something that said son did that was amazing.  Not a good kind of amazing. 

The thing that I noticed was that on each post someone felt the need to either provide parenting advice or tell the poster why the behavior was wrong.  And that is common on the internet.  We assume that anyone and everyone is just waiting for us to spout out our advice as if it were the answer that they have been waiting for so long to hear.  We assume that if we did not post our thoughts about reducing caffeine, or sugar, or red dye this poor child is destined to suffer.  Or feel the need to give advice on how to discipline an unruly child.  That we have never met.  In a situation we have only heard two sentences about. 

I am not saying that any of these are necessarily bad suggestions. Or that I have never done this.  Because I am sure that I totally must have.  And I am glad that the internet was not all that old when I knew everything.  You know, before having children.  Because I would have looked like a jerk back then on some of the posts that people exactly like me make today. 

 I just think that dispensing this kind of advice over the internet shows that we do not understand the intent of the person sometimes.  There are places online I go to find out more about parenting.  There are places I go to ask advice on specific situations.  I have people in real life to talk to, and several online friends from around the world that can help me out when I need it.

Other times I am not looking for advice.  These times I am just looking for a parent-to-parent connection.  And maybe some hope.  Or a parent that has lived through raising children and will throw back their head and life when I say things that my children have done.  So I feel less alone.  Less insane. 

Sometimes, Internet, all I want are comfort words.  No actual answers.  I want to hear things like:

“Yes, cat whiskers grow back.”

“No, that missing eyebrow is hardly noticeable.”

“No one has ever died from eating a glow stick.”

“Poison control knows my child too.”

“Yes, I have laughed at my child throwing a fit.  No regrets.”

“My child has also done that.  And lived.”

And that, Internet, is why I post on Facebook about the time my son ate three Adrenaline Rush packets which caused him to bounce around our house like a ping pong ball and then crash for hours.  Not to hear that I am negligent by hiding them on the top shelf of the pantry behind other boxes without ever thinking he could climb up there and get them while I was in the bathroom.  Or how harmful it is for my child to jump onto a trampoline from the garage roof.  Or how I should have assumed that he would stick dice, or an Orbee, or a napkin, or a piece of cheese, or Kool Aid powder up his nose.   Because I know all that.  And Have learned to never go to the bathroom.  Now.  I just want to know that I am not alone.  And that he will survive to adulthood.  And that I will too.  And that sometimes, it is completely alright to laugh at your child.