Our zoo has some baby wallabies this year. I think you are allowed to pet the wallabies, but I didn't tell Carolyn that and we were just as happy to look at them up close.
Probably her favorite thing was this wooden train perfect for climbing over and crawling through.
She was fascinated with the budgie exhibit (apparently budgerigar is just a fancy name for parakeets)- but didn't like it when they came too close looking for food. There were hundreds of colorful birds flying around and she was awe-struck looking at them.
Overall, a relatively successful day. I think Carolyn had some fun and I did, too. I must admit to feeling a bit down on my parenting skills lately. I sort of feel overwhelmed by the expectation that I'm to be the chief engineer of all things amusing and I just can't keep up with it all. I don't have that many ideas or that much energy. I wonder if I'm somehow letting Carolyn down on life skills she should be learning about self-entertainment by even trying to program it all out for her. She's capable of playing by herself- but oddly enough, she does this best during the hour of the day we have the TV on. Maybe that's because she's come to expect that during that hour Mommy's busy making dinner. She has a wonderful imagination and I wonder if I stifle it by being so always "there." But then I feel guilty if I'm not "there" because then I wonder if I'm missing out on a moment that is only here for a glimmer of time. She is growing up daily- each morning she wakes up more the little girl and less the young toddler. I miss those days when it seemed to be enough just to sit in the room and watch her kick at toys or crawl across the room.I've loved being Carolyn's mommy since the moment she came screaming into my arms- not the boy I'd made myself expect (and would certainly have loved if he had come), but the darling little girl my heart had always longed for and the most beautiful, precious child I have ever seen. In many ways she has given me far more than I've given her in our 26 months together. But there are days (like today) when I feel just drained out from constantly giving and giving and giving and fighting battles of the will I just wish I did not have to fight. She's developed an unpleasant habit the last few days of just sitting down and refusing to do anything when she is told no. Physically I am finding it harder and harder to pick her up and force her to do anything- it hurts now and I am afraid that if I strain myself too hard, I'll hurt Little Baby.
Tonight when we were trying to leave the hospital after bringing Daddy dinner, she went into a patient room (empty thankfully), sat down, and told me she wasn't leaving. What should I do? Every fiber of mommy sense I have says that this is perhaps normal, but completely unacceptable behavior. Yet I could not physically have wrestled her out of that room along with all the other stuff I had to carry out- and if I had tried, she would have screamed so loud that it would have disturbed all the patients on the floor. I see the defiance in her little eyes as she KNOWS I'm not in a position to force the issue. I finally somehow get her out of the room on her own steam only to have her sit back down at least 3 more times on the way out the door. By the time I got her to the car, I was emotionally and physically exhausted and left feeling like I'd missed an important point here- I'd gotten her to the car without breaking my back or putting the little one in danger- but did I miss a moment I should have taught my daughter that she needs to obey Mommy whether she feels like it or not? What should I do when she does this again tomorrow?
Issues like this are so emotional for me because more than anything, I want to get this right. I have been entrusted with these sweet little lives, the most precious of all God's gifts- and I must steward them to the very best of my abilities. What I do and say and teach as a mom matters more than anything I will ever do in the professional world. And I just don't want to mess it up. Anyone else ever felt this way??
5 comments:
When you get an answer, let me know, because i have no idea, and i have the same concerns!
the beauty of it all is that you simply can't mess it up in one rough night. you get many, many more chances to get the "you must obey mommy" message sent the way you intend to.
so let the rough nights go and rebuild your energy for next time! (my unofficial, non-parent advice)
EB, I feel like this EVERY SINGLE DAY!!! I am a firm believer that once you become a mother, you are given the capacity to feel immense love- and the flipside of that is immense guilt. About everything, all of the time- no matter I do, I wonder if there was some other way I could've done it or should've done it and how I've possibly failed Allie as her mother. And this week has been especially bad (which is probably why my only blog post this week was about someone else's child!) And I'm not pregnant, so I don't even have crazy hormones to blame on my emotional swings! I think that teaching your children that its important to obey Mommy no matter what is probably going to take their whole lives (and I could offer some stories from our high school years as proof but won't!) and the fact that you're even worrying about this means you're a fabulous mother. Bad mothers wouldn't even have this thought process in their head, let alone a blog where other people can see their struggles too! I think all of these experiences are also designed to make us finally respect our parents- I saw a poster today in a store that said "Parenthood helps you forgive your own parents everything!" Someday far, far off Carolyn will be having this same discussion on whatever technological development will have replaced blogging by that point, and you'll be able to smile and think- "Look, I raised an amazing, thoughtful, caring woman- and now she has a toddler of her own to help her appreciate what a process that was!"
I could be less than honest and tell you exactly how to parent and if you would only . . . . everything would turn out ok. But the truth is, I don't believe there are any guarantees.
However, I can assure you most emphatically that there were once parents just like you out there, fretting over every little move, wanting so much to get it all "just right," more than anything else in the world.
And I can tell you that they did not.
They were consumed with love for their little ones, but they failed them miserably. On more than one occasion.
But I would also tell you that God was most gracious, and gave those same parents the incredible blessing of seeing daughters grow up into young ladies who love Him and bless others. And the end of the story is that those parents could not be happier.
EB, my sister-in-law often voices the same feelings about not doing something special every day for her 2yr old girl...here's what I think -- If every day you did something that was fantasically amazingly, outta-this-world fun, then, essentially, every day would be the same. We need those "blah" days to re-group and reflect. If there are no boring days to which compare other events, how do we know when a truly special day has just occurred a.k.a spending the day with our mommy at the zoo?? I'm sure you are doing exactly what you should be doing, just as Carolyn is playing her part correctly too - teaching you how to parent, testing her limits and gaining oodles of independence so she can grow to be a bright and confident girl!!
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