Parenting Revisited

I got up to get kids to seminary for the first time in seven weeks. Matt has shouldered the morning load alone, and has done a great job; but the past year of growing a baby and having a baby has severely compromised our effectiveness as parents. I can't remember the last time we parented with any wisdom and backbone. We're back, however, so those kids had better LOOK OUT!

Honestly, the baby is an excellent excuse, but not altogether responsible for our parenting issues. We've been watching the Cosby Show from the eighties recently, a great entertainment, but also a constant reminder that we stink as parents! I realize that the Huxtables are a fictional family, which allows them to be perfect in ways the rest of us who have actual challenges and adversity cannot attain. Still. Why can't I handle messy rooms and poor grades with wit and serenity, and crack everyone up while I'm about it?

Telling people I have seven children always raises eyebrows, and I'm certain people keep their opinions about our family size mostly to themselves. Once in a while, however, someone lets it all out. The other day a gal responded that having seven kids was great, if I could handle them. I almost laughed right out loud. Who said I could handle seven kids? I wanted to tell her if she knew someone that could handle seven kids, to give her my card; I could use the help.

He likes us!

It is always such a happy day when the baby smiles. Six weeks of ambivalent response to all the TLC is finally richly rewarded with a big smile--he likes us! We think it is because he recognizes his special people and loves us best until he gives those same smiles to a stranger who stops to coo over him. Anyway, it is very cute, and keeps the food and snuggles coming despite our fatigue.

Seminary plus new baby is not easy--the parents have on a number of occasions ignored the alarm and decided an extra hour of sleep was worth the chance that the boys would not pass seminary this year. I seem to remember getting the children up and ready for school myself with other newborns, but am unequal to the task this year. Matt gets everyone up and to school, and I wander downstairs after feeding the baby and showering, just in time for my first daycare child to arrive. He's starting to sleep more at night, however, so the bags under his parents' eyes may soon begin to fade.

These particular smiles are for Sadie, who loves to pick him up, especially if it means delaying homework or chores. Baby smiles always make me think that there is someone in that little body after all, and not just genetic material combined to form his particular tiny shape. It is his first attempt to show us who he is, and we anxiously await the next little clue to his personality.