Ten Things Tuesday: Parenting (Published on Wednesday- sorry!)

SNOW DAY WEDNESDAY! I wrote this mostly yesterday. Let’s just pretend Tuesday got extended, ok?

I sincerely feels that having kids and being a parent is the most important thing in my life. Today, eldest daughter stayed home from school, having been laid low by a particularly nasty snot-factory virus. We enjoyed a lovely mom and me day, full of hot tea with honey, chicken soup and a fair amount of cuddling. We talked about things going on in the sixth-grade social dynamic - “Griffin bought Willow a 200 dollar ring for Valentine’s day!” and “How come some girls are so embarrassed to change in front of other people if they are just as developed as everyone else?” - and we held on to the other. It was delicious.

What I love about parenting:

1. I thought I knew what love was before I had kids. Since first holding Eldest nearly 12 years ago, I experience a far more visceral, raw love. A particularly apt quote (I cannot find the original source) puts it beautifully: “Having children is like allowing your heart to go walking outside your body”.

2. Developing and exercising a family sense of humor - listening to their laughter is the best thing ever. Puns, plays on words, silliness: it’s all good.

3. Busting with pride when one of them, in this case the nine year old, gropes, with emerging self awareness, toward trying to understand why she did or said something: “I think I reacted to my sister’s tone because I found myself getting angry and that took over my brain and I couldn’t listen anymore. “My heart wants to do one thing but my mind wants to do another and we are working it out”!

4. Smelling them. There was the tiny baby smell, is the just fresh from the bath smell, the earthy sweaty smell, the smell of their breath in the air when I check on them while they sleep…

5. Reading to/with them and sharing favorite stories and novels. Currently I am reading the 12th and last book by David and Leigh Eddings in the Belgariad/Mallorean. Next is Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Universe.

6. Sharing music. Their first concerts(s) were the Indigo Girls and they are huge fans. D’you think that it helps that I attended Indigo Girls concerts while I was pregnant each of them? We all love to sing together in the car.

7. Working patiently, calmly through issues and watching them use the communication tools we have equipped them with to work through their own issues with each other and with their friends.

8. Having them call us on our shit and knowing we have established parameters for them to do it honestly without fear of a slamdown.

9. Allowing and encouraging them to make their own choices so they trust and rely on themselves when they have to, setting up successful adulthoods.

10. Getting to guide and witness the evolution of the tremendous PEOPLE I have helped create.