Last Saturday, I took Mo to visit a dance studio where she will taking ballet lesson. I told her that we were only going to watch, we weren’t going to dance. That is the equivalent of welcoming a mosquito to a BBQ full of pregnant women and saying, “We’re only going to watch. We’re not going to bite.” It ain’t happening. Suffice it to say, the studio was busy that day and the instructor graciously took us to observe a class. Mo promptly decided to that it was time to do her stuff and I don’t mean plie, porte-de-bras or eschappe. With a tight smile, I remove my reluctant, boneless dancer and we have a come to Jesus meeting in the ladies room. That settled, we rejoin the instructor and discuss ballet slippers, tuition and tu-tus. Mo, ever so often, busts out with an “I want my dance outfit” to which both the instructor and I explain that ballet slippers and tights are part of the outfit. Overall, things are going well, Mo has her bag with her tights, slippers and tap ties in it, which she promptly throws to the ground.
Mo: I want my dance outfit
Me: Mo, that’s not how we treat our things. Pick up your bag please.
Mo: No thank you.
Me: Mo. Look at me — no, look me in my eye. Pick up your bag, please.
Mo: No thank you.
Me: (embarrassment rising as the entire room of parents is now watching this scene unfold) I am going to count to three and you will pick up the bag.
Mo: (silence)
Me: One
Mo: (silence)
Me: Two
Mo: (silence)
Me: Three
Mo: (nothing)
Me: Mo. this is not a choice. Pick. Up. Your. Bag. Please.
Mo: No. Thank. You.
Awwwww, hayle! Inside, I was apoplectic, but on the outside, I was cool. I told her to sit down in the waiting area until I was finished. You would have thought I poked her eyes out the way she carried on. In my head, I was dying of embarrassment and not just because the other parents were clucking softly to themselves, but because I actually haggled with a two year old for about 5 minutes with less than optimal results. The kicker is, both the instructor and the parents lauded me on my parenting skills! Words like, “well behaved”, “so bright”, “engaging”, “smart” were being used to describe Mo, who is sitting in that plastic chair sniveling, and muttering under her breath, “I want my dance outfit.” Some of the parents were bold enough to say, “I could never talk to my kid like that. She’d be kicking and screaming.” One told me that I was doing a great job as a parent. I almost passed out. I know, gentle reader, that this little episode is tame. She wasn’t doing a full tilt tantrum compete with bonelessness, screaming, kicking, biting, and general mayhem. But the frustration I felt was on the same level as if she had.
I’ve been feeling like I have no handle on Mo, that all of my attention lavished on her rolls right off. And while I know the opposite to be true, more often than not, I feel like I am totally failing her as a mother. Yes, she is smart. Yes, she speaks well, but I don’t take credit for that, and I’m not trying to be modest. I believe that nature is usurping nurture. My mom, in valiant efforts to assuage my frivolous concerns, went so far as to even ask Mo herself if I was nurturing. “No.” she says, from her place in the dollhouse where the Daddy is in the kitchen, the baby is in the rocking chair and the Mommy is in the bathroom, with her head in the toilet and her feet in the air. Thanks.
As a result of these and other flap ups, I’ve been praying quite a bit. I pray for patience, for the ability to be the mother that my girls need and that they deserve. I pray for guidance. I pray for patience with myself to recognize that they are only little people and that my expectations of should be commensurate with their age. Mostly, I pray to God that He would keep His hand on my shoulder and guide me in the right direction. I’m not asking for big-hit-me-on-the-head- signs, but a little gentle nudge would be great.
Mo and I had a pre-nap snafu the other day. Co was already asleep, and I wanted Mo to nap; she didn’t want to — that about sums it up. I felt myself getting angry and frustrated that I was trying to negotiate with a 2 year old about the merits of a nap. So, I said, “I’m the Mommy and I say it’s nap time,” and promptly plunked her buns in the the bed, wheeled around and shut the door before she could issue forth with her favorite rejoinder, “We don’t say ‘no’, we say ‘yes’!”
I sat down to check my email and just had to stop because I was feeling so, so, defeated. What am I doing wrong? So, I just prayed, right there in front of the computer. I asked for that guiding hand, for me to realize that I’m on the right track and if I’m not that I’ll be steered back there. I took a deep, cleansing breath, and then, finished checking my mail. There was a message in my inbox called Invisible Mother about a mom who felt completely invisible to everyone. She went on to write about how she was wondering how things had gotten to where she was only seen as a chauffeur,cook, secretary, and so on, when another, more well traveled friend presented her with a book about the great cathedrals of Europe. She realized, upon reading the book that the connection between herself and those who built the the great cathedrals was a powerful one. For you see, there is no record of who built the great cathedrals. The builders devoted their entire lives to a work that they never saw through to completion. They received no credit for their choices except that in the eyes of God. In her story, she writes, “I closed the book, feeling the missing piece fall into place. It was almost as if I heard God whispering to me, ‘I see you, Charlotte, I see the sacrifices you make ever y day, even when no one around you does. No act of kindness you’ve done, no sequin you’ve sewn on, no cupcake you’ve baked, is too small for me to notice and smile over. You are building a great cathedral, but you can’t see right now what it will become.”
And I read that paragraph again and again. And again. God sees me. He sees the work that I’m doing and when I miss my mark on the blueprints, He points me back to the right way. I get it now. I get it. This is the guidance that I was looking for, that as a mother, I have to keep perspective on child-rearing and on my own aptitude as a mom. My children are loved, healthy, fed, clothed, and thriving. Like the builders, I am laying foundations for something great. Of course, bricks and mortar don’t talk back, but let’s not lose focus here. Apparently because of the magnitude of the sacrifice needed to build a cathedral, this author goes on to mention, the likelihood of a cathedral being built in our lifetime is nil. Through the sacrifices a mother makes, consciously or unconsciously, she is constructing something phenomenal.
