Climbing Our Mountain

Being a mom is one of those jobs where you only find out, decades after the fact, how you've done.  In the middle, you rely on the feedback of those closest to you, those whose parenting skills you admire, and even the occasional random stranger in the grocery store.  But at the end of the day, motherhood is plagued with guilt and worry.  Many a night has been spent, even before baby is born, worrying over what you did that day to affect the future of your child.  Seemingly innocent or joking comments from friends can cut like a knife, and well-intended and deeply felt compliments can fall on totally deaf ears because of the momentary mom-circumstances.

There's a youtube song a mom wrote who managed to condense all the things a typical mom says in a day down to 2 minutes and 50 seconds.  Some days, it makes me laugh and remember to have a sense of humor.  Some days, it makes me cry because, as a mom of preschoolers, I'm not even saying half of those things, and I'm already exhausted with the reminders I repeat every few minutes.  And each kid is different.  I don't have to remind Cooper to not chew his hair because, well, he doesn't have it, but before 7 am, Em has already driven me up the wall with that one behavior alone.

I was chatting with a friend at one of my favorite spots in all of Joburg.  In the course of the conversation, it came out that I'm too tired fighting the battles I'm already fighting to make Harper say "please."  Girlfriend is at that point where she's learning new words every day (today's word of the day is "fish sticks") but true to stubborn-Harper form, she refuses to say "please" or "thank you."  I was militant with the older two, but as I sat at dinner, finally succumbing to fight-the-good-fight (and wondering why I ever even attempted it), this song popped into my head.

Before kids, no one is able to explain accurately how relentless parenting is... you hear about the infant sleepless nights and the battles toilet training and the all-nighters with sick kids but these are dismissed as passing phases that won't last forever.  But no one tells you your vocabulary will be reduced to 200 words or less, or that you'll use those same 200 words thousands of times a day, even to other adults who have actual, functioning vocabularies.  No one can express how mind-numbing it will be to explain, yet again, why you can't throw a rock at your sister's head, why turning the sprinkler on in the living room isn't acceptable, that even if you can't see the germs you still must wash your hands, or how clothing is actually required by society, even if not by you.  At some point, the parenting and patience fails, and "because I said so!" explodes out of your mouth.  And at that point, you realize that this isn't a "passing phase."  You will be repeating and reminding, ceaselessly, every waking hour you spend with your children, not just for months, but years and decades to come.

Sitting there at the dinner table, realizing that I haven't even come close to the light at the end of the repetition tunnel, I was a bit more than a bit crushed.  I'm tired of reminding this one that he can't stick his hand in his cup and that one she can't use her fingers as a shovel.  My capacity for trench warfare, which I think is somewhere around two dozen fronts, is wearing thin.  Two dozen was more than enough with just one, but at two and a half, it's wearing thin.  What will this look like when there are four?  Will this go the way of the Germans who spread their defenses too thinly on the Eastern and Western Fronts?  Or Napoleon or the Romans who just thought they could conquer it all but their egos got bigger than their reserves?

I still have a good twenty years before the final reviews start coming in with concrete data on my parenting is presented.  I think if the reviews are miserable, I'll be too worn and tired to care, and if they're good, I'll be too worn and tired to celebrate.  I love when my chubby-faces try to squeeze through the banister to get one last good-night kiss from me.  I love their smiles and precious snotty faces as they run to give me love, but seriously... how can anyone stand in the face of this MOUNTAIN that is parenting?  How do you manage to not have it just become this crushing, colossal failure, day after day, that you endure, survive, and figure out how to manage one more step through the utter bleakness of it all? There's no helpful quarterly reports on areas of improvement, no 10-out-of-10 box to check in the top 20 most important aspects of parenting THAT specific child at THAT specific stage of life.

Em showing Harper the fascinating features of a bug in the garden.  These girls love their dirt!

Then, I look up.  I look up off the waffle-dotted floor, that still might have a few peas from dinner last night.  I look above floor level.  I look above their bruised and scraped knees.  I look above the bellies that seem to be insatiable for all things apples, pancakes, and yogurt.  I look above the shoulders that are slightly sunburned because I forgot to apply a fifth coat of sunscreen on my outdoor-loving but lobster-proned children and I see it.  I see their faces.  I hear them say kind, courteous things to the granny at the grocery store.  I see them sharing their new birthday toys.  I watch as they encourage each other (granted, usually to do something they themselves know they would get in trouble for, but encouraging a sibling in such endeavors is perfectly acceptable!).  I see their shining, bright, clever, dirt-streaked faces and I know I'm getting at least 50% right.  And more than half is the majority.  God never called me to perfection, just to strive for it, and anyone who has met my children know we're a family that's striving.  Even when we fail at one thing, we carry on and knowing that it's a "we" that is striving, working, redirecting and mobilizing makes it so, so, SO much easier to climb the mountain!