Parenting is exhausting!

Being the mom of a baby is a cinch, I just love it. I could have tons of babies. I think I can even handle Nadia's octuplets. But, when they get a little older (2+), I lose my touch. Kids are mischievous and smart to top it off! Just when I think I have everything figured out and under control, they pull a stunt and do something that completely throws me off. I've realized that there is an easy way to raise kids. I could let them do whatever they want. I could let them test me and get away with it. I could clean up after them and do everything for them forever. This would be so easy, my days would go faster and I would never have to scold. Sounds enticing, except it's not parenting. Every day I am reminded how hard this job actually is, and how naive I was when I just had that one baby that made parenting seem so fun and easy.

This last week I was cleaning out the garage and the boys were running around in the front yard. They were playing well together (which is a golden moment) so I wasn't really watching them as closely as I should have been. Last I saw they were playing with sidewalk chalk. Next time I looked, my neighbors fence had chalk graffiti all over it. I knew I should have been worried that they were being so good for so long! Okay, so no big deal, it's just chalk.... I'll just send them inside and I'll take a wet towel over there and clean it up. This would have been my easy parenting route and would have taken me 5 minutes tops. Instead I realized this was a great teaching experience for the boys. I had them clean up all the chalk that was thrown around the sidewalk. Then after talking with them, I had them knock on the neighbor's door and apologize. Jefferson was petrified and started crying. I just kept telling them that it is hard to say you're sorry, but it was the right thing to do and he would feel better afterwards. He was scared that the neighbor would be mad at him, but he finally knocked on the door. When my neighbor answered both Jefferson and Grant said "sorry for drawing on your fence, we are going to clean it up now." Then we set out to clean it. I think the boys actually learned something. Jefferson told me he did feel better.

The whole thing took me 45 minutes, a lot longer than the 5 minutes it would have taken me to do it myself! But I think they learned a lot from this experience and maybe they'll think twice when they are tempted to do something like this again.

This is a picture of Reagan when I leave her at the table by herself for a few minutes. Her face puffed up pink and red where the oatmeal was. I think she was reacting from the cinnamon. Hopefully not another food allergic child.