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Tuesday, March 16, 2010

If I wasn't a mother


Becoming a parent takes the selfishness right out of you.  I have to attribute much of my personal growth to having children.  God calls them "blessings," yet so many times I believed the opinions that they "hold us back" and "tie us down."  If I wasn't a mother, it might have taken me a lot longer to learn what is most important in life. 

I would not have grasped what selfless, unconditional love means.  I would not have this sense of humor to laugh when everything seems to go wrong; flexibility when someone else's needs trump my own plans; and patience when I can't control my circumstances.

I'm still figuring out what kind of mother I should be, but I already know that God is using my children for my own good.  And we all thought it was just about teaching them ;-)

Parenting is the best kind of education for the whole family.

Wednesday, March 03, 2010

Math is hard

It was never my favorite subject, because math basically hurts my neurons.  So tonight, when my daughter explained her worries about arithmetic, I had to secretly agree:

"Mom, math is hard!  It's just that there are too many things.  My brain's all junked up and full of all of these numbers...like addition, and subtraction, and times...It's just so full!"

So this is what six-year-olds stress about.  Of course I encouraged her with an inspiration of motherly wisdom, or a bedside pep talk: "Once you know what you know, you can't forget it!"  (Just don't ask me when and where two trains meet going at different speeds.  Ouch, my neurons!)

And then I kissed her goodnight and told her to give her brain a rest so she can earn some more smart wrinkles tomorrow.



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Bella's cool phrase dictionary:
  • superdy- as in, something that's really super!
  • frizzerin' - to be colder than ice, ice baby
  • junked up - to be so full of stuff that you can't even think about one more thing