I finished blogging last night around 11:00pm. I think I had 7 posts to add before the new year switched over. I plan on making a book out of my blog, so it was important to me to have all of 2011's stuff in the 2011 blog posts.
I got in bed and could not fall asleep. Fireworks kept me awake until about midnight. When I did fall asleep, it was a restless sleep. I don't know why my legs are hurting so bad this pregnancy, but they are. I woke up this morning with sore muscles all over my body. It feels like I had a fairly strenuous workout, but I didn't.
I was excited about worshipping God this morning. Our family has been out of a routine because of the holidays and travels, so this morning was a welcome shift back into our old routine. I had my clothes and Ava's clothes laid out so that I didn't have to put much thought into what we would wear. Jeremy is usually home on Sundays to help get Ava ready, but he had to go into work early today to get his Bible class ready. It was all up to me to get there on time.
The first part of the routine went well. I got dressed and ready in the amount of time that I had allotted myself. I went to wake up Ava and thought that her part of the routine would go smoothly as well, but it didn't. I want to pause right here and make sure that everyone knows (including my sweet daughter who will be reading this one day, Lord willing) I am not about to complain about how hard parenting is or how my child misbehaves. She is still a baby and therefore cannot be expected to act as an adult. But, this morning was not a finer moment. Jeremy and I are in the process of switching Ava over to table foods and a sippy cup. She has done really well so far, but she decided this morning that she had no interest in table foods. She flat out refused anything I tried to give her. I do not believe in force feeding, so I picked her up and put her in the car and headed out to the church building. I packed her sippy cup and some puffs for her to snack on if she needed them.
I got to the building and got her situated in class. I was holding back tears already because I felt like a horrible mom for not feeding my child breakfast. I quickly exited before anyone could talk to me because I knew all it took was someone asking, "Are you okay?" and I would start bawling. I am not a fan of crying in public. If I am going to cry, I like to keep it in the privacy of my own home or car and get over it. I sat in my Bible class that Jeremy teaches and bowed my head to pray with the rest of the class. I couldn't even concentrate on the prayer. I kept thinking, "what am I doing here? My child has not had breakfast?" It kept on nagging at me until I got up in the middle of the prayer where no one would see me and walked out of class. I walked into the bathroom to dry my eyes and compose myself. I decided that I needed to get Ava from her class and take her back home to have a proper breakfast. I could not in good conscience give her puffs and water for breakfast when she is accustomed to having fresh fruit and oatmeal. I knew if I didn't get something in her, she would not be well behaved during worship. My plan was to take her home and feed her and then come back for worship. I had about 45 minutes which sounded doable.
I walked into Ava's class and apologized to her teacher (Mrs. Cindy), but explained that I needed to take her home. As I was walking to get her coat off the rack, I started bawling. I could not hold it back any longer. I was so embarrassed. Mrs. Cindy stopped the class to make sure I was okay and then told me to compose myself before I drove home with Ava. I tried to and then left class. As I was driving home, I was almost hit by a car that tried to merge into my lane of traffic. I honked several times (which I never do) and started crying again. I know if they had hit me, I would have been okay because my car was bigger, but it would have been on Ava's side. I got home as quickly as possible and put Ava in her high chair. I breathed a sigh of relief because we were back home! I tried to feed Ava again and although it took some heavy persuading, she eventually ate her bananas. I cut up a strawberry and she played with it for a minute and ate it. I cut up another strawberry and she threw a temper tantrum that I didn't know she was capable of. I watched the clock. She screamed at me for almost thirty consistent minutes. I don't know what anyone else would do in this situation, but I let her scream. I didn't pop her leg because that would make her cry more and my goal was to get her to stop crying. I also didn't talk to her because everything I said, made her scream louder. I really believe what the Bible says about not provoking your child to anger, so I ignored her. She was going to be angry with me about any decision I made, so I figured the best decision was to let her be angry on her own instead of at me.
She finally calmed down after about 30 minutes. I wiped my eyes because I cried along with her the whole time. I don't like seeing her that upset. It bothers me to watch someone cry and not be able to do anything about it, but this was a situation where she was going to have to work it out on her own. Could I have cleaned the strawberries off her plate the minute I saw that she was upset? Yes, I could have. But, I am not the type of person who caters to every whim of a 1 year old. She has to learn that she cannot get her way, every time she cries. After she calmed down, I cleaned off her plate and gave her the sippy cup. She was fine after that. I gave her about 5 minutes to stay calm and get rid of her hiccups, then picked her up and told her how much I love her. I put her down on the floor and let her play for a minute then got her ready for her nap. By this time, we had already missed worship.
I got Ava down for her nap then went into the kitchen and cried my eyes out. I know skipping breakfast might seem trivial to some people. But, it is important to me. Lack of a good night's rest mixed with pregnancy hormones got to me today. I still tear up thinking about this morning's drama. Tomorrow I will probably be able to laugh it off, but not today. Today was the kind of day when I wondered if I really am equipped to parent my child. My heart tells me "yes" because God would not have given her to me if I was unable.
I am learning that parenting is a different mindset that you never get out of once you are in it. I am not able to switch gears as easily as I use to. But I did learn one valuable lesson today: no matter how angry Ava got with me and her strawberries, I never stopped loving her. It taught me about God's love for me. He doesn't stop loving me because I make a mistake or show bad judgment. My New Year's Resolution is to understand God's love for me through my children.
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