Patience

There are those who say “Don’t pray for patience because then you’ll be given trials to give you opportunity to learn patience.” But I say, “How else will I learn it then??” So, I pray for patience and guess what?

It’s working.

I’ve been impatient all my life. Impatient to do the things my sisters got to do before me growing up, impatient to start our family, impatient to be done with school, impatient for Matt to be done with school, impatient to feel financially secure, impatient to have a house, impatient to have a wonderfully beautiful baby grand piano, and etc. But there are also those day to day things that try my patience. Here are some examples:

• When Brennen gets into a tub of vaseline and smears it all over everything.
• When Brennen unrolls an entire roll of wax paper, toilet paper, paper towels, and so on.
• When Brennen grabs onto my legs, throws his head back and whines “mom mom mom!” Then continues to cling to my legs as I’m walking away if I don’t pick him up “right now!”
• When Brennen reaches up to the table, grabs my full bowl of cereal and knocks it on the ground.
• When Brennen thrashes around so badly that I can’t get him into his car seat.
• When Brennen takes the lid off his sippy cup and pours all the juice contained within onto his head.
• When Brennen climbs into the bathtub, grabs my almost full bottle of shampoo, and pours half of it down the drain.
• When Brennen refuses to take a nap even though he obviously, desperately needs one.
• When Brennen pulls my hair.
• When Brennen won’t eat any food I give him then comes begging when I’m eating carrots (of all things to beg for! and to think I just tried to give them to him for lunch....)

There are a lot of other things that try my patience that aren’t related to Brennen but my sweet little boy probably takes the cake. I thought I knew what motherhood would be like but I had NO idea what it would actually be like! (It may sound like I made some of that stuff up but if you’ve ever had kids and especially if you know mine you know that I did not make any of it up and that those things can happen in the .2 seconds when you have your back turned.)

In case you haven’t met my little guy I will tell you this: He. Is. Wild.

• He never holds still, ever. Even when he’s captivated by Baby Einstein or a story we’re reading him he’ll still shake his leg, fiddle with whatever’s in his hands, or walk back and forth in front of the TV. First thing in the morning he’ll run down the hall to my side of the bed (if Matt’s the one who got him up), pound on the mattress until I pick him up, then snuggle into my arms…. for about 5 seconds. IF I’m lucky. Then he wants down again and that’s usually so he can nab my phone from the nightstand and run away with it. Constantly on the move.
• He’ll run from room to room grabbing a toy from one and putting it in another.
• He spins in circles all the time.
• He obviously got his (lack of) patience from me because he tries for about .5 seconds to do something or get a toy from a hard-to-reach place before he freaks out, screams, falls backward, and throws his head back in a full fledged fit.
• He talks constantly. Only about 10% of what he says can be understood but he still jabbers all the time. Non-stop.
• Basically he’s just a ball of energy that is SO much fun yet very hard to control.

All of that being said, I wouldn’t change his personality for the world. He is also very happy and laughs and smiles so easily. He shows love for the people he cares about and is such a joy to our lives, even though he’s a little crazy. : )

So, as impatient as I’ve been all my life I’ve never had my patience tried like I have these past 15 months. And I DO pray for it every day and I find myself having an easier time dealing with the little things that used to drive me near the edge. I’m glad that I’ve been given so many opportunities to work on this and it makes me very happy to be able to see myself slowly improving and becoming a better, more loving wife and mother every day!