Help or Hinder?

One of the frustrating things about motherhood is that very small children can make it hard to do tasks that were a piece of cake when I was childless. Take folding laundry, for instance. In my pre-child days I didn't like doing it; I procrastinated terribly; but once I got around to it, it was easy.

Until I had a child who was big enough to grab the laundry off the coffee table or couch and undo everything I'd just done.

For many months, folding laundry was a source of unending frustration for me. Then Chickie got to the point that she mostly ignored what I was doing, and thankfully Zoodle has never been that interested in Daddy's freshly-folded T-shirts, so this boring task became manageable again.

And now...this is really cool, folks...Chickie, who used to hinder me in my laundry-folding efforts, has become a helper. Last week as I was trying to get through a full basket of clean laundry, Chickie was eager to assist. And it became a little game--I'd fold something, give it to her, and she'd figure out what pile it went in, whether it was one of her shirts, in the nearby pile...



...or a pair of Daddy's socks, which belonged on the far side of the table.



Involving Chickie in my chores is something I haven't generally wanted to do in the past, since her "helping" tended to make tasks take longer. Finally, though, she is at an age when sometimes she genuinely helps--no quotation marks required. (She's gotten good at sorting utensils when I'm unloading the dishwasher, too.)

These bits of independence are so encouraging to me. I imagine in just a few more years, if I can keep the school district from finding out I have a kindergarten-aged child, I'll be able to put her to work full time doing cooking, cleaning, and childcare. It's about time I get down to the serious business of eating bon bons and watching soaps all day.

Saturday thanks and prayer

Thank you so much to each of you who commented on yesterday's post. The comments were so encouraging--as I expected they'd be! Thank you for coming through for me, again! I responded to all the comments, in my own comment.

I loved one thing that Sandra wrote, and wanted to share it. In case you don't "know" Sandra, she has a really fantastic blog calle Add Humor and Faith...Mix Well. It is funny and inspirational, and as I've said before, I'd like to just sit down and have a cup of tea with her. Or maybe coffee; I'm more on a coffee kick these days. With some half and half, but no sugar. Mmm....

Where was I?

Oh, yeah. Here's what Sandra said. I'm hoping by typing it out, it'll stick in my head so that I'll remember it for the next couple of decades.

The prayer I said many times during the child-rearing years was this: "Please diminish the things I do wrong, and enhance the things I do right, because I haven't a clue which is which!"

Now, that's my kind of prayer.

Thank you again for being such an encouraging group of blog readers. Enjoy your weekend!

Mommy fears

I am afraid.

I think it's hard to be a mom without having fears. Some moms fear that their children will get sick, or be snatched from a parking lot, or hit their heads on coffee tables. I have felt all of those fears.

But these days, one of my biggest fears is that my daughter will turn into a brat.

I'm typing this, knowing that label is highly distasteful to me and probably to readers. And yet I'm not going to reword it because emotionally, that's the fear I've got. Honestly, I don't even know if it's a very logical fear, but logic often plays only a bit role on the stage of fear.

I was a compliant child. I mean, ultra-compliant. I was scared to death of displeasing my parents, or God, or any other authority figure. I was a follower of the "letter of the law."

Chickie didn't get that compliant gene. Instead she is more like her dad. She has a fun-loving temperament that wants to try new things, and test all the limits, and get away with breaking the rules. I know this is her personality, and that there are fantastic aspects to her quirks--she will probably be a leader, and she'll speak her mind without worrying too much about what people think.

But it's so foreign to the way I was as a kid, and it scares me. When I have to tell her multiple times to do go upstairs for bed, I fear that I've been too easy on her. When I force her to take a bath she doesn't want to take, and she screams her way through it, I fear I've been too hard on her. I just don't know where that perfect balance is, and I suppose I'll be trying to figure it out for the next 15 years or more.

I don't want a child who is so wild and unruly that we can't go to a restaurant without getting dirty looks and whispered judgment. That thought sickens me, and so I require respect from my daughter, and I try to be consistent with discipline. Yet I also don't want to suppress her fantastic, spirited personality, so I try to give her grace.

I just hope that even when I give her too much discipline one day, and too much leeway the next, there will be enough love mixed in that I won't mess her up too badly. I hope that God will have the grace to guide my path, and Chickie's. I hope in a decade and a half, when she's graduating from high school, I'll have tears of pride in my eyes when I realize that Chickie has become a young woman who, while imperfect, displays both strength and humility.

I am hopeful.