Jensen and I were tooling around Wal-Mart this morning during our weekly grocery shopping trip when I noticed a young boy (maybe 2-3 years old) getting whiny near the check-out lanes. My heart went out to the exasperated, young mother trying to calmly pacify him. Eventually, the whining escalated and the mother came unglued.
"Just tell me what you want! I don't know what you want!" she announced to her son as she threw her hands dramatically in the air.
I looked down at Jensen who looked up at me, quizzically. I promise not to talk to you like that I said to her in my head and smiled. She unknowingly smiled back and continued to play with the bag of cat food I put in the cart. We continued our way through the store and finished up our trip.
Fast forward not 10 minutes later. I'm in the car driving back home and Jensen is whining into oblivion. I know she's not hungry. I know she's not in pain (at least I'm pretty sure). I know she's not bored (have you seen the eclectic array of toys attached conveniently to her carseat?!). Although I don't say it out loud, the phrase WHAT DO YOU WANT is being screamed in my head at a volume that surely could be heard outside myself. And at that point I know I've come unglued.
After a few deep breaths, I ask myself WHY? Why does her crying and whining make me so stressed out. Is it a maternal thing? Is it a natural instinct? If it didn't bother me would that be a bad sign? I think my stress comes from not KNOWING what she wants. Not KNOWING what I can do to help her. She's trying to communicate the only way she knows how and I am at a loss for how to decode it.
"Sometimes babies just cry for no reason," a mom recently told me. How is that supposed to help me? I mean, I don't cry for no-wait, yes, sometimes I do. Okay, point taken.
Since she's not going to be able to talk, let alone communicate her emotions to me for at least a couple years, I better start A) learning to handle this frustration better, and/or B) learning to decode her communication better. I don't know which option seems easier. Because, of course, I want the easiest path.
So, I get the girl home and tuck her in her crib and after about 15 minutes of dilly dallying she conks out for a nice morning nap. Okay, I say to myself, made it through another morning. Now on to the afternoon. I take her morning nap time to get some chores done and read a little bit of a book. I can feel the stress de-escalate and calm return. Whew, a momentary unglued crisis averted.
I learned today that I should never, ever judge any parenting style. I should also never judge any child. Who the heck knows what my kid is going to do to embarrass the bejesus out of me one day. I also learned that the phrase, "How can I help you?" is certainly much more agreeable than "What the h$#* do you want?!".
Lord have mercy.
Yes, yes, yes......see it all the time and go through it too! It's easy to get that nice little voice in your head going, uh huh...I wouldn't say that, I wouldn't do that....but the moments come and go and your reactions are very much just instinct. Coming unglued for people like you and I who like more structure and reliability , will take practice and patience. Remembering what we're reading and continuing to "talk" out in our heads what God is teaching us so that it becomes practice is exactly what Lysa talks about in the book. I came unglued today myself and I can feel when I'm getting to my limit but unfortunately I have to push through it because theres no one around to step in on days like this and give me a "time out". So, coming unglued happens and I learn and hopefully it happens less and hopefully I can read into my clues better....I can ingest less caffeine (bc it's 12:00 and I'm still not asleep...mental note!) because I think it makes me grumpy, and I can talk to my daughter about why I'm upset. Yay to discovery right!
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