parenting surprises
I expected cuteness and cuddles and crayons. I expected to learn more about discipline and diapering and Dr Seuss. But parenthood has also brought a few unexpected things. I am surprised at a few things:
* How handy I have become with a phillips screwdriver. Oh yes. Most every kid toy or appliance with batteries requires a phillips screwdriver to open the battery panel. Our screwdriver now lives on TOP of the tool box rather than inside it... it shaves a couple of seconds off the task every time to have it just there.
* On a similar theme, but worthy of its own point: I am surprised at how skilled I have become with flat-packs. Flat-pack furniture. Flat-pack bicycles. Flat-pack sand tables. Flat-pack toys. All requiring assembly to fold into something much more space-consuming to put in my house. Assembly sometimes requires the aforementioned phillips screwdriver, but most often requires my other new tool-of-choice, the allen key).
* how strong one's arms can be without ever going near a gym. I have long joked about how I had strong legs, but no upper body strength. Jeremy and I joke about my "dinosaur arms"... like the T-Rex: all power in the legs but really mealy little hand-extensions for arms. Not any more, folks. Not any more.
* how long it takes to get out the door. In my pre-kid days, I could make it out of the door showered, breakfasted, and prepared for the day in a little over half an hour in a rush. These days it takes me 30 minutes just to get the troops to do their morning ablutions. And there's not a scrap of breakfast on the table yet.
* that I would lose all objectivity. I have completely lost my ability to discern whether kids are cute, smart, whiny, marvelous, terrible, or whatever. My kids are the cutest, smartest, whiniest, most marvelous, most terrible, most whatever kids of all. Oh, and the funniest. I had no idea I would laugh so often, or so long, or at such little things.
But above all things, I continue to be amazed at this one thing:
* that being a parent would teach me so much about being a child of God. I knew before that God loved us and did amazing things for us and disciplined us... but what I didn't know until I had my children was that God must DELIGHT in us.
If I love to watch my kids discover their world, to laugh, to play nicely with each other, to learn new skills, to look at me with love...
if I enjoy their enjoyment, hurt when they hurt, am sad when they are sad, CARE about the things they care about...
if it fills me with joy when they say 'I love you', or obey me, or do something special just for me, or brag about me to their friends, or look at me with those adoring-you're-the-only-one-for-me eyes...
if I watch them tenderly while they sleep, protect them as much as I am able, use my best judgment to say yes and no to allow the maximum good and growth in their lives... if I do these things...
then how much more does God not love and DELIGHT in me as his child? Surely his heart must swell with parental love and joy too when I listen and obey, when I play nicely with my friends, when I enjoy something new that he has given me. Surely it must.
How wonderful to learn to be his child all over again.
* How handy I have become with a phillips screwdriver. Oh yes. Most every kid toy or appliance with batteries requires a phillips screwdriver to open the battery panel. Our screwdriver now lives on TOP of the tool box rather than inside it... it shaves a couple of seconds off the task every time to have it just there.
* On a similar theme, but worthy of its own point: I am surprised at how skilled I have become with flat-packs. Flat-pack furniture. Flat-pack bicycles. Flat-pack sand tables. Flat-pack toys. All requiring assembly to fold into something much more space-consuming to put in my house. Assembly sometimes requires the aforementioned phillips screwdriver, but most often requires my other new tool-of-choice, the allen key).
* how strong one's arms can be without ever going near a gym. I have long joked about how I had strong legs, but no upper body strength. Jeremy and I joke about my "dinosaur arms"... like the T-Rex: all power in the legs but really mealy little hand-extensions for arms. Not any more, folks. Not any more.
* how long it takes to get out the door. In my pre-kid days, I could make it out of the door showered, breakfasted, and prepared for the day in a little over half an hour in a rush. These days it takes me 30 minutes just to get the troops to do their morning ablutions. And there's not a scrap of breakfast on the table yet.
* that I would lose all objectivity. I have completely lost my ability to discern whether kids are cute, smart, whiny, marvelous, terrible, or whatever. My kids are the cutest, smartest, whiniest, most marvelous, most terrible, most whatever kids of all. Oh, and the funniest. I had no idea I would laugh so often, or so long, or at such little things.
But above all things, I continue to be amazed at this one thing:
* that being a parent would teach me so much about being a child of God. I knew before that God loved us and did amazing things for us and disciplined us... but what I didn't know until I had my children was that God must DELIGHT in us.
If I love to watch my kids discover their world, to laugh, to play nicely with each other, to learn new skills, to look at me with love...
if I enjoy their enjoyment, hurt when they hurt, am sad when they are sad, CARE about the things they care about...
if it fills me with joy when they say 'I love you', or obey me, or do something special just for me, or brag about me to their friends, or look at me with those adoring-you're-the-only-one-for-me eyes...
if I watch them tenderly while they sleep, protect them as much as I am able, use my best judgment to say yes and no to allow the maximum good and growth in their lives... if I do these things...
then how much more does God not love and DELIGHT in me as his child? Surely his heart must swell with parental love and joy too when I listen and obey, when I play nicely with my friends, when I enjoy something new that he has given me. Surely it must.
How wonderful to learn to be his child all over again.
posted by Bronwyn at 1:42 pm
2 Comments:
Love it. All.
I think that's the single most important reason I didn't lose my faith when Zoe died. Watching Nellie, and then having Nathan, has constantly reminded me that God still loves me and delights in me as much as I love and delight in my kids. And although I don't understand why, given his vast love, he allowed her to die, at least I know that he was as hurt by my pain as I was in pain (if that makes sense), and therefore he was still worth following.
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