For This Journey We're On

This past year I have really struggled with complaints, discontentment and discouragement.  It never fails, every store you walk in eyes begin to turn and glare at you as if you’re a terrible parent and do not discipline your child.  Your kid begins to run wild, throw a tantrum… or possibly even make a little too much noise at the checkout line.  Oftentimes, those are the times when my toddler is being good – yet it doesn’t keep someone from saying, “boy you have your hands full” or “must be dealing with the terrible twos”!  Yeah, I could go on and on here.  The truth is, YES, I do have my hands full.  Yes, I am dealing with a defiant toddler who is learning to obey, and what it looks like to behave “properly” in a store.  But what parent doesn’t go through that at some point in time.  The reality is… she is a child.  And all children (even us adults) go through stages of disobedience.  Don’t we all disobey God?  I know I have, and probably will later on today.

After one too many times of seeing glaring eyes staring back at me, or rude comments made in a check out line… I have come to the realization there are too many discouragements in this world around us and not enough encouraging words.  We are parents, and in this case, 1st time parents.  This is knew to us in many ways and the last thing we as parents need are people discouraging us!  And that goes for me too!  I have often found myself saying to new moms… “oh just enjoy this time, soon they will be toddlers” and so on. I know I heard that a million times when Katherine Grace was the “perfect little baby” who could do no wrong.

Its hard.  Life is hard and raising a toddler is hard.  But I bet so is a sassy ‘tween’ or rebellious teen!

We will always face difficult times and instead of beating one another up and discouraging parents daily… we should be encouraging one another!

I can assure you – I KNOW how hard this is – I really don’t need someone reminding me of it.

I read THIS POST online yesterday and it brought all of my feelings and emotions to light.  I have been thinking on this long before that post, but reading it put it all into a better perspective.

Toddlers are CURIOUS.

FULL OF EXPRESSIONS (& don’t always do what you want them to do)

Sometimes just BAD TO THE BONE.

They are CREATIVE & LOVE TO LEARN!

Not always COOPERATIVE.

Little Explorers (even when that means getting into mommy’s makeup)!

On the wild side…

ADVENTUROUS.

But… they’re also…

LOVING and CARING

SWEET when they sleep

Sometimes…. they don’t mind SHARING.

Find FUN in everything!

Did I mention LOVING?

Since becoming a full time, stay at home mommy – I have really tried to focus on the fun times, the loving moments and the good of this age.  I am LEARNING myself, just as she is learning.

So… will you join with me as I learn how to be more encouraging, and embrace the difficult days!  Lets remember life one another up with encouraging words, and not tear each other down!

And lets remember NOT to point the fingers at others… because we ALL know we’ve been there ourselves (and if we haven’t – we might one day)!  Lets just remember to bottle these days up… because THIS TOO SHALL PASS and one day, I bet we will miss these days!  :)

Until then… Brantley