patience.

If kids teach you anything, it's patience.  See, kids do things that aren't socially acceptable.

And kids cry.

They get sick.

 

 

You can't give them back.  Most of us don't want to give them back, but there are those moments sometimes, like when you've been up for 36 hours straight because the baby has colic, or you get that phone call from the school, when you would like to send them back somewhere, anywhere, for just a little bit while you catch your breath...Yet here they stay for 18 years or 28, or in some cases, indefinitely, and we love them more than chocolate, more than money, more than our own lives....So we learn patience.  "Love is patient, love is kind" (1 Corinthians 13:4–8a)

Nine kids later, I'm still learning and still working every day and every night on being more patient.  Tonight, we missed open house at school because of the screaming and the napping and the ear infections and the chicken dinosaurs, and when I thought about writing this blog entry, the only word that kept coming into my head was "patience."

Now that it's after 10:00 at night, and the babies are still coming downstairs every 2 seconds and jumping up and down on the beds when they are upstairs, it's becoming a chant in my head "patience.  patience.  patience..." 

Moms and Dads and nannies and teachers and grandparents...Stay strong.  Stay patient.  They're worth it.  (And they'll pick your nursing home and maybe even clip your nails and change your diaper someday...Then they will mimic what they learned from you.  You will be hoping for a smile and a hug and a mantra pounding in their brain "patience, patience, patience...")