I am certain all mothers would agree: being a mother can be exhausting! It's no wonder I'm still trying to loose the last pounds from Ethan's pregnancy. If eight hours of sleep a night helps one loose weight, I haven't had that in at least a year! Some days I feel like I never sit down. And I often ponder how a floor I just vacuumed five minutes ago can look like it hasn't been vacuumed in a week.
There are sooooo many things no one tells you about motherhood. Soooo many things no one posts on the millions of blogs mothers write about how wise they are in the ways of healthy eating, potty training, homeschooling and raising young Christians. You know the ones. The ones that make you wish your husband was a millionaire so you could afford organic food (and someone to cook it). Or how they potty trained their 13-month old in three easy days with never an accident ever again. Or how about teaching your 2-year-old to read in a mere month? Not to mention the ones that declare their oh-so-godly 3-year-old witnessed to the drug addict on the street yesterday who then made a profession of faith, dropped the drug habit and became a missionary to China in a matter of a week. Yeah, I've read them too.
For those of you perfect mothers who may stumble across my humble blog: Maybe your life as a mother is like that...but you don't have to make the rest of us feel bad.
For, yes, we try to eat healthy. But some days that is ridiculously impossible because every vegetable I serve Ethan ends up on the floor while he devours the roll with butter. And, honestly, a lot of times I don't have the energy to do more than scold for the food on the floor. Let him eat the bread. At least, then, he's not starving.
And potty training? Well, thirteen months into this ordeal I was safely saying that Emry (who won't be three until April) is 95% potty-trained. What I mean by that is she wears a diaper only to bed and usually at nap time just to be safe (even though she typically wakes up dry) and we venture out for hours in panties. Until she met self-flushing potties at the mall two weeks ago. As if hand dryers weren't terrifying enough. She is mortally afraid of these obnoxious self flushing things that totally waste water by flushing ten times during the 30-seconds you use them and refuses on pain of throwing a tantrum (which is very unlike her) to go anywhere near them. And now she thinks that all public bathrooms contain them. Sometimes hygiene is carried a bit too far...
Homeschooling? Well, I've not a lot to say on that subject. After all, Emry isn't yet three. She's working on the sounds of her letters, but there are a lot of letters to cover. However, since we read the same books over and over again, she reads them back verbatim and follows the words. We also realized recently that it wasn't the color of the ink on the prayer cards she was memorizing so she picked out the same ones every time: she actually knows what the words look like. I'm 100% sure, though, that we won't be reading by April when she turns three. And as for Ethan...well, I have a feeling I'll be lucky if he sits still long enough to learn his alphabet.
And am I raising little Christians? To be honest, I don't know that. I pray that, certainly, but I know from my own experience that one never knows how truly evil a heart is. "Desperately wicked" (as Ezekiel says) is hard for us to truly plunge...or, maybe, we simply don't want to. Does it cheer my heart when Ethan hums Jesus Loves Me with me? Of course! Does it give me joy when Emry tells me the Bible story from Sunday school? Yes! I am wary - maybe even scared - of the knowledge my children can obtain from Bible stories, songs, verses memorized, church, basic conversation. For is it just knowledge? Will they one day cling to that and claim they're saved while living like a Hollywood movie star? I know the hurt and pain of believing one thing...only to discover the opposite and grieve. But I continue on. Not as I ought, certainly. We could always talk about Jesus more than we do Biscuit, but I pray I can do better. And I pray they will be saved - not by me, or a church, or anything we often cling to. Only God can save them. And, I hope and pray, raise them to be a better man and woman than their parents.
So, yes, today I am tired. Emry isn't feeling 100% and she shows it in her attitude. Ethan, perhaps in protest of being weaned, wakes up at three every morning just because he can. The usual piles up: laundry, cleaning, meals. There's Ethan's first birthday, taxes to be filed, little projects all over my desk. And we won't mention all the work being a "hit-and-miss" office manager throws my way. But last night as I woke up for the tenth time with one of the kids admittedly a bit frustrated (especially at my sound asleep husband next to me), I took a deep breath and realized I would get as exhausted as necessary to see Emry feel better, Ethan sleeps entirely through the night, the house is clean and our bills paid. Because of my internal Scottish stubbornness? Probably. But also because I love my family. And even if I'm not the perfect blogging mother, I'll do a lot for love.
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