My heart is seriously a puddle on the floor right now! I am so very in love....with my OH SO sweet little boy! I'll admit, having him isn't easy all of the time. I know that I post all things sweet on my Facebook page, but let me assure you Facebook can be so deceitful. I have my times as a parent where I feel like a total failure. Having a very active, vocal toddler is HARD work. For example, the other day he got so wound up playing with Josh on the living room floor that he just threw himself backwards out of excitement and bumped the back of his head pretty hard. WHY? I have no earthly idea! The kid is just pure wild and impossible to be tamed sometimes. He cried a lot in his sleep after the bump on his head (which is totally unlike him) and I was all ready to jump up and rush him to the ER on the snow covered roads. I slept none that night! I checked on him I don't know how many times, googled brain bleeds for over 30 minutes...finally after 3 something in the morning, he stopped his sudden waking with bawling. He might have had just a headache, I am not sure. There are so many things that could be wrong with them, and the little babes can't tell ya what's wrong so as moms we stay up all night freaking out while our dear husbands snooze away. So ever since then, he has spent a lot of time in his play pen in time out calming down when he gets wound up so we don't have another incident that keeps this momma up all night. Oh, I might add he acted perfectly fine the next day...and he acted perfectly fine the night before, just while he was sleeping.
The point I am trying to make is that being a parent is a tough business...that is just one example out of soo many things that I feel like I fail at daily and I am sure that I am totally accurate when I say that I do fail him as a parent. I don't always make the right decisions, sometimes I wanna assume fetal position and bawl, I am lazy from time to time, I microwave his food, and the list goes on. But I feel good about most of my parenting, because I give it my ALL, I do my BEST, and I LOVE him unconditionally. So even though being a mother is such hard work at times and very tiring, it is so very rewarding.
Tonight while rocking my sweet boy, he took his little hands and framed my face and he had such an intent, serious look on his face and he kissed me literally over 50 times! The kid was overflowing with such a sweet, pure love for me. I started smiling, and he would bust up laughing for a second and then get a serious look on his face and start all over with the sweet kisses. After rocking him for several minutes and singing him his favorite song about ten times in a row, I laid him down in his crib where he told me, "Night, night....I wuv you." That right there, takes a person's breath away. I am tearing up just re-reading what I have typed. How blessed am I? Money can't buy that. I am in love with my little blessings. One of the best things about this whole deal is that right before I put him to bed, his Daddy kissed me goodbye and Sawyer watched. He has learned to be sweet to momma from his Daddy!!! We are setting a good, loving example for him. This just confirms to me that we are doing something right. When an almost two year old is bursting with that much love, you know that you are doing this parenting gig okay. So Sawyer taught me something tonight, he taught me that the best thing I can do for him is to teach by example. Be loving, caring, Godly, full of joy and he will follow by example. What a sweet lesson that was.
So starting tonight, I am going to be intentional about surrounding my child with people that are good examples. Recently, someone dropped the f bomb several times in front of Sawyer and I about went crazy momma on them....but I didn't, I just sat there and fumed internally. Not anymore. My God-given duty is to train up Sawyer and guard his heart. I will not surround Sawyer with people who don't have the respect to keep a clean mouth around my little sponge, I will NOT surround Sawyer with people that are bad influences on his pure and tiny heart. I will just leave.
So my prayer tonight is that God will create a clean heart in me and Josh that we will be the best example for Sawyer. That we will be aware of what is coming out of our mouths and others, TV screen, and radio. I am so glad that my eyes were opened tonight to just how much of an impact we have on Sawyer's life. It was definitely a sweet lesson.
