A bit of snow mixed with rain is still falling from the gray sky onto the wet white fluff covering the grass outside. I am inside nibbling on gingerbread, sipping ice coffee, and emptying the dishwasher in the quiet–doing the things that constitute a mother’s break. The twin terrors–I mean, toddlers–are sleeping.
I contemplate them, slightly withdrawn from the meltdowns over the gingerbread-cookie-making, and the refusing to eat rice and corn, and the battles over toys… They really aren’t terrors, I remember. They are simply two 21 month-olds. They have lots of needs and emotions and lots and lots to learn. They need me to teach them. Can I really take all that emotion and potential and train it? How much better am I than they are? I wonder tiredly… They fight honest and heartbroken over toys and pacifiers. But don’t I sometimes argue with their Daddy about simple things like what podcast we should listen to, and whether or not he should wear that shirt to church tonight? What are they learning organically while I purposefully scold and take their toys away?
I find myself in a confusing and ever-changing kaleidoscope of interpersonal humor, play, and conflict between my two children. They switch rapidly between moments of selfishness and generosity, first taking all the toys, and then suddenly and graciously returning them to their twin.
The other day, Ellie had three flashlights that Teddy had been carrying around. I did not know how she had gotten them, but I told her she had to share them. She decided to return them all to Teddy.
“Good job, Ellie,” I said. “Say ‘thank-you’, Teddy,” I coached.
“Dat-do!” They said together.
“No, Ellie, you say ‘you’re welcome!’” I counseled.
“Y’ we-come!” They both chorused.
We are all learning together.
Small son ran a fever last night. This is why I need ice coffee during nap time. Teddy awoke and stayed awake for two of the wee hours of the morning–his way of coping when he is in pain, or overstimulated, or out of routine. I no longer consider this unusual. I believe it is his way of keeping me near when he needs me. I wonder sometimes if he is making up for the bonding he missed during the first few days of his life that he spent in the NICU while his twin sister kept me awake at night… But still my frustration rises as we try rocking only to have him push me away, and try having him lie in his bed with Mommy nearby only to have him beg me to rock him. For a while he lies down between Mommy and Daddy and holds Daddy’s hand–and then begs to go back to his own bed where we repeat the cycles.
Am I showing him the patience and love he needs in these night owl sessions? Will he learn from me that God is patient and slow to anger, or that there is little mercy for those who cannot sleep?
Yesterday, there was snow in the forecast and it was a week until Thanksgiving, so I listened to my Christmas playlist while I waited to pick up Ben from work.
The song, “Breath of Heaven,” started playing, and I listened to the familiar words, remembering the Christmas when I carried two tiny ones inside and struggled to connect with a three-year-old who was not my own.
“Do you wonder as you watch my face, if a wiser one should have had my place?”
The words, meant to represent the thoughts of Jesus’ mother, again connected with me.
A wiser one, yes. The responsibility of little ones who need me can feel like a complexity I am not wise enough or strong enough to carry.
But as the next line of the song says, “I offer all I am”, as I did two years ago, to the burden that is too big for me to bear alone. I could not carry the weight of those three children that were placed in my care. One of them is no longer with me. But God could carry them and even now, still can.
“Be with me now.”
Words in quotation marks are from “Breath of Heaven”, by Chris Eaton and Amy Grant.