Keeping It Real

Parenthood, and life in general, can be exhausting, but keeping things in perspective certainly helps.

Sometimes my kids (especially my middle child) talk my ear off.  It can be enough to drive a person crazy when all you want is to not hear any voices for a few minutes.  But then I think about parents who's children don't or can't talk at all.  Those parents would give their left arm to hear their child start speaking and I'm complaining because mine talk too much.

When we are going through a vicious cycle of illness and I hear myself complaining about how someone's been throwing up for 2 days and I have to close down daycare while they recover, I think about the parents who've got it worse.  Parents who's child is going through chronic illness or cancer and miss weeks or months of work while they pray their child will survive.  It makes cleaning up vomity sheets seem like not such a bad deal.

When I find myself whining about an itchy case of eczema I think about my dad being hooked up to a colostomy bag, dealing with gout, while fighting cancer at the same time.  And I never heard him complain once.

When I'm feeling pulled in a million directions because I am over-run with children, I remember when we only had one and all the tears we shed trying to have a second little one.  And I think of the would-be parents who have struggled for years to have a child and how much they long for a child to need them.

On a similar note, when I'm rundown because the kids only want me so often, I'll think down the line when they are teenagers and just want to be independent and how I'll be their annoying mom.  I'll look back when they are 14 to when they were little and wanted me all the time and I'll wish I could go back to having tiny little arms around my leg.

When I'm stressed about money or feeling broke, I need to just be thankful that we have a roof over our head and food on the table.

And finally, when life gets to be too much and I want to run away, I'll remember to count my blessings and be thankful for what I have.