Now she is ten. Wow! I have absolutely no idea how time could have possibly passed that fast. Happy Birthday to my very favorite 10 year old!
Glory be. I can only imagine that the next ten years will go by even faster than the last decade. I better buckle up and prepare myself for the ride :)
Speaking of rides, it has been a rocky one around here lately. We have family and friends that are ill and some that are going through really tough times. It all has been weighing heavy on my heart. Drew's work schedule is such that he is gone almost every week and the demands on his time when he is home are great. It is hard to parent on your own and right now I am trying to step up and do that as best as possible so he can attend to the trials he has to face. Sometimes I feel like I gotta keep a good front. If I look like I have it together trying to be a wife, a parent, a teacher then I must, right? Yeah, not really.
So my littlest guy (who happens to be a student in my preschool class as well) has learned a few choice words from his older brothers. He says them constantly. More like he yells them constantly. He has chosen to make my classroom a platform in which to yell the word "Sha-up (shut-up)" all day long. He also loves the words "You stupid" and "NOOOOOOOO" and "Poop." He likes to hit and push as well. Welcome to the twos. If my daughter had said those words when she was 23 months I would have been mortified. Now I just wave my white flag and surrender. What a great parent I am. Here is a short snip-it of Nick being instructed to say not so kind things by his older brother.
See what I have to contend with? He is very proud of himself and thinks he is very funny. Oh, btw, he thinks he looks good with a Happy Meal box on his head too.
In addition to that my dog had to have unexpected, impromptu and expensive surgery on his ear. He has to wear the cone of shame for the next two weeks and he is not supposed to be messed with by anybody while he recovers. Yeah, right. I have 4 kids and 2 other dogs who are most fascinated by his new hat that they won't leave him the heck alone. He looks pathetic. I have to admit trying to watch him eat is kinda funny, but don't tell him I said that.
It must be showing on my face that life has been a bit challenging lately. In fact when I was at Target yesterday grocery shopping a woman who I didn't know stopped me in the ketchup isle. This really is no joke. She said, "Honey, I know you don't know me and I don't know you but when I walked by you I just felt the depth of worries and the heaviness in your heart. I really feel called to pray for you. Please don't think I am strange, I just know I am supposed to tell you that everything is going to be alright. In fact I would like to just give you a big hug. Would you mind?" Maybe I just needed to hear that right then and a hug sounded good so we hugged in the middle of the ketchup isle. It was strangely touching and nothing like this has ever happened to me before. We parted from our hug and went about our way grocery shopping.
Here I am thinking to myself how does she know things are rough right now? I took a look at what was in front of me and realized that it could have nothing to do with the fact that I have 2 (yes 2) grocery carts filled almost to the brim and a five year old pushing the second grocery cart behind me crashing into the shelves while I have a 23 month old screaming from the top of his lungs from my cart for the entire Target to hear, "Sha-up, sha-up, sha-up, shu-up!" continually for almost the entire time we have been shopping. Naaa, that couldn't have given it away.
As we parted from our new hugging friend Harrison belts out with, "Mom, who was that??? Why was she hugging you??? Don't you know you are not supposed to talk to strangers??!??" Well, at least I got one thing through to his thick skull :)
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