One benefit of getting older and having older children, meaning those who are well beyond the baby years but not ready to leave the nest (thankfully), is the profound appreciation of special times together. Opportunities to serve the Lord together, vacation, family pizza and movie night...
When you can look out over the next 5 or so years and realize your family landscape is going to be quite different, it puts a lot in to perspective. You try not to count down to when the kids will leave home, but it is difficult not to when the goal is to prepare them to leave. When they are at a point of knowing a lot of what mom and dad know about the world, it's impossible to think of them in the same way as when they were small.
What is strange are the times the sadness rushes up on you as a mom, and you desperately want to turn back the clock just one more time. You want to peek in their room and see young bodies strewn about in sweaty, sleepy, childishness...
I loved making my girls doll cakes for their birthdays and watching them in dress-up clothes day in and day out. My one daughter wore a little white veil for 2 years; it was utterly tattered at the end, but she felt so pretty in it. Her soft little hands and arms would carefully place it upon her sweet little head and wherever we went, she had it on. My son would want to hug me continually and all the kids would ask for stories every night...but no more. No one asks for a story in my house at night. No one wants to get in bed with us in the middle of the night anymore. To think I was against that practice when we started our child rearing years--how thankful I am for a husband who understood the preciousness of children calling upon mom and dad in the wee hours for comfort!
In many ways times were so much easier back then. Growing women and men is not the work of a sprinter, any parent knows that. These are the days of Cross Country running. Over hills and in to valleys, navigating long stretches of sometimes flat and sometimes bumpy emotions. My son yearns to be a man like his father, taking on habits of his dad but resisting the reality he is a little mini of the man I adore. I sometimes can't bear the thought of that still-smallish boy having the frame and countenance of a man. I see it in his sisters and I keep wondering where my little girls went and how it passed so quickly. I thought I had more time...
Oh! If only we never had to tell our sweet children the realities of this world! If we could always be concerned with table manners and cleaning one's room. But I must recall, there are those who perpetually live in the world of a child with their fully grown babes...and give thanks for this opportunity to walk through the reality of life with my own children.
God help me slow down and listen, hear, connect, care, and have wisdom with how I use my time and words. Help me cull what is irrelevant and live as the woman I want them to emulate or marry.
Preparing,
When you can look out over the next 5 or so years and realize your family landscape is going to be quite different, it puts a lot in to perspective. You try not to count down to when the kids will leave home, but it is difficult not to when the goal is to prepare them to leave. When they are at a point of knowing a lot of what mom and dad know about the world, it's impossible to think of them in the same way as when they were small.
What is strange are the times the sadness rushes up on you as a mom, and you desperately want to turn back the clock just one more time. You want to peek in their room and see young bodies strewn about in sweaty, sleepy, childishness...
I loved making my girls doll cakes for their birthdays and watching them in dress-up clothes day in and day out. My one daughter wore a little white veil for 2 years; it was utterly tattered at the end, but she felt so pretty in it. Her soft little hands and arms would carefully place it upon her sweet little head and wherever we went, she had it on. My son would want to hug me continually and all the kids would ask for stories every night...but no more. No one asks for a story in my house at night. No one wants to get in bed with us in the middle of the night anymore. To think I was against that practice when we started our child rearing years--how thankful I am for a husband who understood the preciousness of children calling upon mom and dad in the wee hours for comfort!
In many ways times were so much easier back then. Growing women and men is not the work of a sprinter, any parent knows that. These are the days of Cross Country running. Over hills and in to valleys, navigating long stretches of sometimes flat and sometimes bumpy emotions. My son yearns to be a man like his father, taking on habits of his dad but resisting the reality he is a little mini of the man I adore. I sometimes can't bear the thought of that still-smallish boy having the frame and countenance of a man. I see it in his sisters and I keep wondering where my little girls went and how it passed so quickly. I thought I had more time...
Oh! If only we never had to tell our sweet children the realities of this world! If we could always be concerned with table manners and cleaning one's room. But I must recall, there are those who perpetually live in the world of a child with their fully grown babes...and give thanks for this opportunity to walk through the reality of life with my own children.
God help me slow down and listen, hear, connect, care, and have wisdom with how I use my time and words. Help me cull what is irrelevant and live as the woman I want them to emulate or marry.
Preparing,
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