day 47: crying

P.S. We did his hair like this today because he's getting a haircut, and we wanted to see how high we could get his mo-hawk.

E has been teasing and bothering B relentlessly over the last 2 days.  She's been devising any means possible to make him cry.  It is pushing my buttons I tell you.  There's always a moderate amount of crying with two tantrum stage toddlers running around our house, but the last 2 days have been ridiculous.

I once read an article that has been running through my mind this morning.  It was written by a tired mom at the end of her rope.  In essence, she said that she finally realized that the children didn't need her as a mother when they were perfectly happy and lovely to be around.  Anyone can love and care for a child when they are acting perfectly.  But it takes a mother to love and care for her children when they are hard and trying and draining.

I've loved pondering about that. It takes a mother to wipe leaky-poopy-diaper after leaky-poopy-diaper (giving upwards of 7 baths a day), to wipe tears from those eyes that have been tearing ALL DAY LONG.  To lovingly direct a child who has been disobedient and defiant.  I'm not a mother for the easy days, they don't really NEED me then.  I am a mother for the hard days; the days that no one else could go through and come out loving this child.  That is why I am their mother, to love them into better tomorrows, to demonstrate to them that love is unconditional. 

In days like this, the spirit teaches me how much our Father in Heaven loves us; it is manifest in His forgiveness when we continue to make the same mistakes/choices day after day; it is manifest in His willingness to listen to me pray about the same soul wrenching things month after month; it is manifest in His plan for us to have families, that we may be taught more about His character by experiencing a fraction of it ourselves.  Yes, days like this are hard, and trying, and emotionally/physically draining, but when I let them, they are also enriching, spiritually enlightening, and soul changing days for me.  Yes, I am a mother for the hard days, and the hard days are for me to become A Mother.