I’ve run into a snag in parenthood. Trying to define the words I use is making me stumble awkwardly down the path of educating through dialogue. I believe in open communication with my children to the point where I even bore myself sometimes with all the communicating. You see, Vaughn, the butterflies come into our garden because of the nectar-producing plants. Nectar is a sweet juice that…zzzzz. I find myself in moments of explaining why or how something happened and realize I don’t know what words to use. Having to stop my explanation to my 4-year old of why people are mean sometimes to define words like kindness and forgiveness ends up losing us both on the many rabbit trails I find.
So last month I decided to focus on a new word each week. Figured it would be good character-building to introduce patience, grace, generosity, etc in at-home speak and it will help my kids keep up with the conversation when I’m in the car trying to explain why we need to be kind to everyone, even when we feel like screaming and hitting (like you just did to Timmy). You know, visions of me explaining, and them absorbing everything. Most likely it will be me explaining, and them zoning out completely. But my vision wins for now.
Anywho, I started with patience. My definition was “to wait with a happy heart”. I was so stinking proud of that one. Off with a bang! Over the course of the week I found so many opportunities to tell Vaughn, “I need you to be patient right now. And that means to wait with a happy heart”. And he bought it! That would stop him in his whining tracks. I actually started finding other things to do when he asked for something just so that I could give him an “exercise” in patience. You want a peanut butter sandwich? I realize it may look like I’m just sitting on the couch watching RHONJ for the 3rd time this week but I was actually just about to fold this laundry that’s been sitting here for two days so, “Hang on, son. Be patient for mommy. Wait with a happy heart.” (of course, I didn’t actually do the laundry) A little sick, I know. But I was character-building.
Week 1 done. Patience learned. I’m such a great mom.
That was last week. This week I chose grace. Definition: sharing or giving with a loving heart. I made a mental note to have all of my definitions circle back to the heart. The big lesson at some point down the road being that character is made up of things we do with our heart as our guide. Man, I am good. Mental note #2: maybe next week’s word should be pride. Nah.
Monday: I started by telling Vaughn that the iPad belongs to Mommy and I love it. I use it a lot and it’s something that is very valuable (rabbit trail here to define valuable) to me. I have games, books, and movies on it for you because I love you and I want to share this valuable thing with you. I allow you to use it because I love you. And it’s with a loving heart that I share this thing with you. And that is an act of grace from Mommy to Vaughn. He smiled and said, “Ok, can I play with my iPad now?”. Um, I think you may have just missed my point. We’ll try again later.
Before bed that night I took one of Vaughn’s silkies (little silk blankets he’s slept with since he was a baby) and tell him about grace once more. I explain that this silkie is something that he loves and it would be a big act of grace to let Ellie sleep with it tonight. To share something you love with her and have a loving heart while doing that would be very graceful of you. He said he would think about this during story time. Side note: I looooove this age. Watching the thought process and reasoning happen is incredible to me in such a young person. I look at him as a baby still and then he has these moments that remind me of his personhood and I fall in love with him over and over again. Fast-forward to end of story time. He tells me that he loves his silkie and he loves his Ellie and he wants to be grace. (We’ll work on how to use these words later. The point right now is what it means, and CHECK, he got it!) He hands her the silkie. I’m blown away but try not to show surprise at this huge act of love. It doesn’t matter that there are three other silkies laying beside him. What matters in this moment is that he chose grace. I really want to be all ram-in-the-thicket and give it right back to him saying it was all a test and YAY! You aced it! Because honestly, Ellie has silkies of her own and doesn’t really know the difference yet between hers and his. And I’m just so darn proud of him. But I let it stick and put Vaughn’s silkie in the crib with Ellie.
This morning, however, he came to his senses and saw her with it, promptly forgot all forms of grace in his morning stupor and snatched it out of her hands. A work in progress. All of us.
But I realized that this exercise of word defining is teaching me more than Vaughn. Over the past two weeks, I’ve sat in waiting rooms (there’s a reason they are called waiting rooms, not patience rooms. I DO NOT have a happy heart when I’ve been sitting for an hour after my appointment time with no end in sight. There is waiting with a happy heart and then there’s waiting. BIG difference.) and had my patience tested more than I would have liked. But because I’m consciously trying to teach these things to my kids, I’m trying to live them out as well. Teaching a word and living a word is also two vastly different things. Mental note #3 to write about that sometime.
I also had the opportunity to extend grace to my new friend, Faith, this week with my Monkees and she began telling me of a community service project she got involved in last week as a result of the help she had received from us over the past month. She said, “Everyone needs something. And everyone has something to give. It doesn’t matter who you are. We are all called to be faithful servants of God’s love. And that means that we give His love consistently to everyone we meet, no matter who they are. Rich or poor, healthy or sick, man or woman, child or adult. It’s not our call to judge; it is only our call to love.” Faithful servants = loving consistently. Hmmm…
I’m astounded at the ways in which God is teaching me how to love. I may have a little bit (a lot) still to learn as I try to parent my children to be givers of love but I’m so thankful for people like Faith that have been brought into my life to teach me. To show me that no matter how I try to define all the “big words” of life for my kids, the only words that truly matter are those that circle back to the heart.
Next week’s word: Faith. What better way to teach it to someone else than try to learn it myself?
he hung the moon 