The stuff guilt is made out of...

I never learn. I don't. A couple of years ago, I spent an entire installment of the monthly column I wrote expressly upon  warning others against it.

Bragging, gushing it's all the same. Yesterday I believe I was gushing regarding the joys of parenting, specifically how easy it was now. I believe I used the word "cushy". And thus, of course, came the inevitable smack-down. But I took it humbly and without complaint for I deserved it. I know better.

When I picked up Finny from pre-school yesterday he commenced to whine. Before we reached the car he had started. In fact, he had been warming up since that morning but he was in full throttle by the time I had his car seat buckled. This went on from 4pm until 8pm. Literally. For much of the time he was sobbing in a heart broken and (at first) heart breaking manner. Life was just soooo unbearably hard for Finny yesterday. It was all too much. Because his nerves were frayed, and he was generally delicate and exhausted, he elected to stay home with me demanding things instead of accompanying everyone else to soccer practise.

At first I pandered to his demands. Everyone has a really bad day now and again, and it is nice to be pandered to. However, after a while I realised that even this was not helping him and it was sure as heck not helping me, and so I took it down a notch.  It must be said to my credit though, that I did continue to be kind, just in a slightly less focused way.  When he discovered that I was indeed abandoning  him to watch High School Musical 2 alone, surrounded by various half eaten and discarded snacks to frivolously go off to do the dishes, he was outraged and deeply wounded. Unable to find solace even in impromptu baseball field song and dance numbers, he retired to his room, wracked with sobs. He would stop for a moment or two, and then apparently remember that he had been done profoundly wrong, whereupon he would raise his voice once again in mighty lamentation.

All the while I continued to wash the dishes feigning tranquility and serenity. (I'm not sure for whom but it  stopped me from joining him at least.) When the others, ie Fresh Audience arrived home, there was more of the same for a while and I comforted myself that at least he was wearing himself out for a good long restorative sleep. And then suddenly, a switch was flipped just in time for bed and he was in Manic Perky Mode. By this time, Aaron and I were feeling rather frayed ourselves. I had school work to do and we had also been preparing for a very serious evening of uninterrupted TV viewing and kid free snacking. After Finny had come downstairs giggling like a leprechaun for the third time, Aaron sent him back up to bed with a very stern warning to not come down again, which of course opened the flood-gates once again. At this point though, we had heard it for so long, that the wails had become sort of white noise (in the same way that people can sleep through a train blaring it's horn 3 feet away from them if they do it for long enough) and so we did not even notice when it had stopped.

A little while later Aaron went up to check on the kids and came downstairs with misty eyes saying, "I'm such a mean dad-come and see..." I followed him up the stairs to find this:

Apparently Gracie had gathered up the troubled little fellow from his crumpled soggy heap at the top of the stairs or wherever it was that he had set up camp, and brought him to her bed. She is so incredibly maternal and loving. When we came to see them they were breathing in unison just inhaling each others' baby breath, it was the most peaceful, loving scene. And of course as we gazed upon it we felt much, much guilt. How could anyone be annoyed at such a cherub! The poor sweet little man! Thank goodness he at least had a sister with a heart.

This is not an unfamiliar cycle. I was telling Julie today that the times we are least fond of our children is generally bed-time. They are really quite trying, quite annoying and rather unappealing when after having lovingly and lengthily put them to bed, they pop up again over and over again, like maniacal jack- in- the -boxes. At this time they seem to have been sent to this Earth only to try us. And try us mightily. And then finally, blessedly, they fall asleep and look so completely innocent and open and vulnerable that we cannot imagine how any monster could feel anything but overwhelming love, compassion and patience for such a creature. And this all generally happens within a single hour. Our hearts are full, nothing they do could ever irritate us again.  Until the next night. Rinse and repeat.

And so you see, that there are certain cycles in parenting. We delight in how easy it has become, we are given a reality check. We get mad at our kids, we are stricken with guilt. It's the ciiiiiiiiircle of life.

Comments

[Charis]

This is one of the most precious pictures I have seen in a long time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Such sweet children. I love it!

[Amz]

This is so true! We are so upset with them by bedtime, that we rush through the bedtime ritual - teeth brushing, skipping through the story if there is one at all, and then hastily tuck them in. Mike and I call it the boom-er-rang syndrome, when they pop out of bed so many times! But somehow we seem to have the patience of Job after they are sleeping snuggly in their beds and they can do no wrong in our eyes...it truly is a refining fire.

[Jen]

There's something about a sweet, sleeping child that melts your heart and brings on guilt like nothing else in the world.

[Carolyn]

Kids are great when they are sleeping. Thank you for expressing so well what I feel on a daily basis. By bed time I think I will not make it through another day like this one. Then they are sleeping and little angels and I know they couldn't possibly test me tomorrow like they did today.

[Deanne (Julie's sis)]

Those are the sweetest pictures! I often tell Julie I make sure I look at my boys sleeping every night...it convinces me to let them live another day.:) It is so refreshing to know that EVERY parent goes through this almost satanic ritual of bedtime, though, and I am not really being condemned to an early Hell as I'd like to let myself believe.