I am about to tell you something that flies in the face of everything you've ever been taught about childbirth. Brace yourself...the labor pains DO NOT end when the child is delivered! Oh, sure...the actual uterine (my apologies to my male readers) contractions stop in a timely fashion, but they really don't disappear. And here's another head spinner, they aren't exclusive to the Mother-kind! Oh, no...these labor pains are also felt by the Father-kind. (How many men have told their laboring wives, "Oh, honeybumpkins...I'd take this pain from you if I could!" HA...wish granted!) I firmly believe that they take up residence elsewhere and just lie dormant. And just where, you might be asking yourselves, do they go? They go to the heart. There's something that is so much more intense about these heart-labor pains than anything I ever experienced birthing the Ys. For me, the very hardest part is just sitting back and watching them use the training that we've poured (and sometimes pounded) into them.
Y1 is thirteen. Not at all a normal thing for Mama and Daddy to be going before him to make sure that there are no bumps in the road, no woolly-boogers (translation=monsters, frightening things)hiding behind the trees. Likewise, it's equally as abnormal for us to run behind him cleaning up his messes. Are we there to pick him up when he falls down....oh, yes. But there's a HUGE gulf between picking him up and picking him up, bathing him, dressing him in new clothes and finding fill dirt to dump into that gulf. He's always been a "good" child. But let's face it...he is the offspring of to perfectly flawed human beings...his "goodness" won't get him far. He gave his heart to Jesus when he was 8. That's one of those moments of which I hope time and old-age never rob me. The brilliant look in his eyes after he prayed "The Sinner's Prayer" with our pastor...the way he RAN down to the front of the church to tell our pastor...the emotion in his little spirit after church was over...he couldn't do anything but bury his face against me. It was real and I believe that any "goodness" that I see, that others see is the Jesus-Light. I have to believe that the lessons we've lived out in front of him will carry him through life, no matter how many times he falls.
He's at a critical age and critical stage in his life. My heart feels like it's in critical condition...and he's ONLY thirteen! He's learning the importance of forethought....looking at a situation...weighing the available choices...always looking for the right way...weighing the consequences. His impulse gets away with him and he chooses what looks like the easy way out and finds out that the easy way out is only easy for a very skinny minute. He's beginning to understand that there really is no such thing as the easy way out...that there are no free lunches...honesty (no matter how much it hurts)is paramount. He's learning that consequences are compounded when you don't deal with something head on and that just because you choose to ignore something unpleasant or painful, that doesn't mean it ceases to exist. It's not like when he was little and would play "Peek-a-Boo." He would cover his eyes and just giggle hysterically..."you can't see me!" He couldn't see me, so he surmised that I wasn't there...cute, precious, sweet...but so wrong. Wrong then, wrong now.
Have I worried you? Oh, please don't worry...he changed into Captain Bonehead for a few days this week...nothing serious, in light of the things that some children his age get into and if him being being a bonehead now and then is the worst we have to deal with, I will be MORE than pleased. Being a bonehead, though, comes with consequences and being the parents that we are, we're going to let those consequences roll. We have to...no matter how much he hurts, no matter how mad he gets, no matter how much we hurt for him...he's NEVER going to learn if we don't let him. He's never going to be responsible and accountable if we don't force the responsibility and accountability on him. There's too many of that kind in the world...the jails are full of them...the headlines, too. People with serious legal issues, irrefutable evidence stacked against them and yet, they still have the brass to claim their innocence! Fine..it wasn't you...so who am I to believe that is on the in-store security tape...you Doppelganger....your evil twin...a celebrity look-alike? Dollars to donuts (Great, now I want a donut!), these folks never had anyone hold them accountable as a child...no one ever enforced consequences...someone was always cleaning up the mess. Not me, Sister (and Brother)! Allowing either of the Ys to be that kind of person would be a failure on my part as their mother.
Y1 says that being thirteen hurts. Oh, I remember it well. It does hurt...physically (stupid growing pains), emotionally, socially. He doesn't believe me, and I don't suppose I believed my mother, when I tell him that it's even more painful watching him. Knowing that we've got the answer to a lot of what he's facing...but knowing that he has to learn so much of it by himself. Heart-labor.....it ought to come with epidural!
(Sorry for the lapse in posting, Tiffany...thanks for being patient :) )
Y1 is thirteen. Not at all a normal thing for Mama and Daddy to be going before him to make sure that there are no bumps in the road, no woolly-boogers (translation=monsters, frightening things)hiding behind the trees. Likewise, it's equally as abnormal for us to run behind him cleaning up his messes. Are we there to pick him up when he falls down....oh, yes. But there's a HUGE gulf between picking him up and picking him up, bathing him, dressing him in new clothes and finding fill dirt to dump into that gulf. He's always been a "good" child. But let's face it...he is the offspring of to perfectly flawed human beings...his "goodness" won't get him far. He gave his heart to Jesus when he was 8. That's one of those moments of which I hope time and old-age never rob me. The brilliant look in his eyes after he prayed "The Sinner's Prayer" with our pastor...the way he RAN down to the front of the church to tell our pastor...the emotion in his little spirit after church was over...he couldn't do anything but bury his face against me. It was real and I believe that any "goodness" that I see, that others see is the Jesus-Light. I have to believe that the lessons we've lived out in front of him will carry him through life, no matter how many times he falls.
He's at a critical age and critical stage in his life. My heart feels like it's in critical condition...and he's ONLY thirteen! He's learning the importance of forethought....looking at a situation...weighing the available choices...always looking for the right way...weighing the consequences. His impulse gets away with him and he chooses what looks like the easy way out and finds out that the easy way out is only easy for a very skinny minute. He's beginning to understand that there really is no such thing as the easy way out...that there are no free lunches...honesty (no matter how much it hurts)is paramount. He's learning that consequences are compounded when you don't deal with something head on and that just because you choose to ignore something unpleasant or painful, that doesn't mean it ceases to exist. It's not like when he was little and would play "Peek-a-Boo." He would cover his eyes and just giggle hysterically..."you can't see me!" He couldn't see me, so he surmised that I wasn't there...cute, precious, sweet...but so wrong. Wrong then, wrong now.
Have I worried you? Oh, please don't worry...he changed into Captain Bonehead for a few days this week...nothing serious, in light of the things that some children his age get into and if him being being a bonehead now and then is the worst we have to deal with, I will be MORE than pleased. Being a bonehead, though, comes with consequences and being the parents that we are, we're going to let those consequences roll. We have to...no matter how much he hurts, no matter how mad he gets, no matter how much we hurt for him...he's NEVER going to learn if we don't let him. He's never going to be responsible and accountable if we don't force the responsibility and accountability on him. There's too many of that kind in the world...the jails are full of them...the headlines, too. People with serious legal issues, irrefutable evidence stacked against them and yet, they still have the brass to claim their innocence! Fine..it wasn't you...so who am I to believe that is on the in-store security tape...you Doppelganger....your evil twin...a celebrity look-alike? Dollars to donuts (Great, now I want a donut!), these folks never had anyone hold them accountable as a child...no one ever enforced consequences...someone was always cleaning up the mess. Not me, Sister (and Brother)! Allowing either of the Ys to be that kind of person would be a failure on my part as their mother.
Y1 says that being thirteen hurts. Oh, I remember it well. It does hurt...physically (stupid growing pains), emotionally, socially. He doesn't believe me, and I don't suppose I believed my mother, when I tell him that it's even more painful watching him. Knowing that we've got the answer to a lot of what he's facing...but knowing that he has to learn so much of it by himself. Heart-labor.....it ought to come with epidural!
(Sorry for the lapse in posting, Tiffany...thanks for being patient :) )
Oh, so true. Labor pains, even for those we didn't "labor for" physically, are just as difficult, sometimes more so. And we're only approaching those tween years. Thanking God that His mercies are new everyday!
ReplyDeleteSpot on, my Angie-la-la...the pain comes with parenting...be the child biological, adpoted, fostered...no parent is immune:)
ReplyDelete...and remember when we'd say "I'm NEVER going to be like MY mom!".....soooooooo wrong!Just give it a few decades!
ReplyDelete