Lessons learned

Becoming a parent changes everything. Your perspective on life in general. Your sleeping habits. Your eating habits. Even your bathroom habits (I don't think I've been to the bathroom alone since 2005).

Tonight as I was washing bottles, I started thinking about how much I've learned about life since I was blessed with my children. Here are a few of the top lessons I've learned.

It's possible to love someone so much it hurts.
I have a vivid memory of staring at Hannah when she was first born, thinking that I would give anything for her to never know pain, disappointment, heartache or fear. The thought of actual bumps and bruises wasn't as tormenting for me as the realization that she would one day cry from having her feelings hurt.

If I could, I would take all that away from my children.

I now have a greater appreciation for how God must have felt as Jesus prayed in the garden. They both knew the agony Jesus would soon endure, and Jesus went to his father in prayer, begging for Him to "fix" it. But God looked into the future and saw me and you and my children and your children, and said, "No, son. You have to do this." What love God must have for us!

It really does 'hurt me more than it hurts you.'
So my parents weren't just saying that to try to make me feel worse about what I'd done to get in trouble!

Disciplining my children is by far the most difficult part of being a parent. Because I love them so much, I know I have to make them mind. But it breaks my heart to know that my child is crying because of me. I want them to know they have to do what I say, no matter what, because it literally could be a case of life or death.

I tell Hannah that I love her 'all the way to the moon and back,' and I want her to behave so everybody else will lover her as much as I do. I'm sure there are parenting "experts" who will tell me I'm scarring her for life, but I don't want my children to be the ones everybody dreads. The ones that people whisper about and say things like "I wish they'd do something with that young 'un." I know people say that about unruly children...I've said it myself.

Proverbs 26:6 says, "Train up a child in the way he should go; Even when he is old he will not depart from it."

I'm not naive enough to think that my children will grow up to be perfect, but I do hope that I can instill in them a sense of right and wrong that will carry them through their lives as kind, loving and *hopefully* law-abiding citizens.

Time passes faster the older you get.
Last month I was in high school. Last week Hannah was born. And Carter was born yesterday. Or so it seems.

I sometimes forget how old I am. Not because I want people to think I'm younger than I really am, but because I honestly can't comprehend that time has flown by like it has.

It seems that since Hannah came along, the clock has been in fast-forward. Her first three years have been a blur, and I shutter to think how quickly the next 20 years will go. Carter's five little months have been so chaotic that I think I've blocked most of it from my memory. I watched him today rolling around on the floor, and then I realized that I didn't know he could roll over in both directions! He was even trying his best to say "mama". (Actually it was more like "mmmmmmaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh mmmmmmmmmaaaaaaaahhhhh", but it sounded like mama to me.)

I want to remember every second of my children's lives, and I want to enjoy them being babies. But I'd better act fast because Hannah will be getting married in a few weeks, and Carter will be headed off to college in a month or two.

*SOB*