In the midst of busy schedules, bill payments, chaos of working, and everything in between, every now and then there comes a time when you realize that you are kind of an amazing parent!
I shall share my moment 🙂
So last year the boys began to save their allowance for the game Disney Infinitey Marvel. It just so happened that Santa surprised them with it instead! So they decided that they would spend some of their money on new character figures for the game instead.
In order to do this, I would have to go to Kroger to exchange their coins for dollars, first.
Let me begin by saying that I a very comfortable home body. If it isn’t going to work, the gym, or taking the kids back and forth to school, I would much rather just be at home, I HATE deviating from my routine route!
So the day comes for all of this to go down. I picked the kids up from school, according to my daily route, I should then just head back home. So badly, I wanted to just cancel on them, make up an excuse, tell them that we would go another day.
Instead I bit the bullet, and we went to exchange the coins for dollars, and on to Toys R Us!
While there K2 & K3 found the characters that they wanted, but K1 however, could not find the one that he wanted.
Naturally, he was disappointed. Imagine being soooo excited for a certain day to come, thinking about it all through school, only to be disappointed in the end….that was K1.
So I told him that he could either pick a different character, or wait, and we’d go to Walmart and see if they had that specific character there. He chose to wait.
GREAT!!! Now I have to make yet ANOTHER EXTRA STOP!!!
I JUST WANT TO GO HOME!!!
On our way there, I asked him a few questions about his day at school. He spoke in an unsual pitch, and was smiling for no reason…smiling hard…It was weird.
Didn’t take me long to realize that he was literally smiling to keep from crying.
I decided to just leave him alone and allow him time to process through his emotions.
I admit, I did start praying to God that Walmart had this toy.
I know it is a silly prayer, but I am a mother, I pray for my child, and at that moment that was his prayer.
I’m sure God answers kid’s prayers too.
It was then that I had my “Ah Ha” moment. I began to think about the big picture of parenting.
Here I was going out of my way, above and beyond, and nothing was in it for me.
That’s love.
I began to wonder how many other moms would do this?
How many would have just MADE him pick out a different toy, as if his choices didn’t matter?
Scold him for feeling sad, tell him to “just be grateful”, as if his feelings did not matter?
I admit, making him pick a different character did cross my mind, so did making him wait another day (I REALLY wanted to go home). Now I am glad that I didn’t.
In that moment, I was proud of him. He knew what he wanted and instead of settling for instant gratificiaction, just choosing any character he bit the bullet, he was patient, he waited for what he really wanted.
Then, I looked at the role that I played in that scene, and I became proud of myself. Proud because I allowed him to make his own decision, for respecting his emotions, for acknowledging his person.
His emotions, like my own, were a sum of his expectations and his reality, his are no less important than my own, simply because he is inside a smaller body.
He is still a person, a human being, who has hopes, dreams, expectations, desires, goals, all within the realm of his very own understanding. His desires are just as real to him, just as necessary to him, as mine are to me.
The only difference, is that he still needs my help to bring his to reality (kind of how we all need God’s help….but that is another post).
I am more than grateful for being able to be a stepping stone for him.
I am even more grateful that he was an aid into my own revelation, to understanding my children more. To be more cognitive of their choices, before I shun them off unimportantly, or force them to make a decision, that is not of their own.
So thank you K1, for being you, and reminding this servant, of exactly how much you matter.
By the way, Walmart had the character!!!
Stitch.
4 Kings and A Queen 