It’s An Honor To Be a Parent!

I was brushing my teeth trying to hurry out of the house when I heard my youngest daughter call, “mom” for what it seemed like the 100th time that day. My initial thought was, “I just need a minute to brush….” But this thought quickly changed! And then I thought, “what an honor to be her mom! What a privilege to be able to give her security and be the person she runs to for everything, literally!

Little do we realized at these moments of exhaustion, that we are truly privileged to be the parents of these amazing kids that are brilliant, loving, fun, full of energy (too bad we don’t have the same amount), and yes even noddy at times! These moments will soon pass and then we will be wishing to hear them call our name and want to talk to us. I have talked to mothers that wish their teenagers would talk to them.

I know it is ok to have these feelings, they are normal, but what we have to be careful as parents, is that we don’t get stuck there. When we, parents, stay in that frame of mind that my kid is driving us crazy with the 101 time they ask the same question or call our names (specially right after your closed the bathroom door, because you have been holding it for ever). This is a dangerous place to be, because it can easily affect the way we treat our kids. We transition to an easily irritated parent because we are done.

So, while brushing my teeth, I went from… “oh, I just need to have a second for myself….” To, “what an honor to be her mom.” This change of thought gave me the push I needed to relate to her in a patient, loving way. Just saying that to myself, was powerful!

What kind of things do you say to yourself? Are you letting exhaustion, frustration get in the way of how you feel towards your kids? Yes it is tiring to say the same thing over and over again. Remind them of the same thing, answering the same questions….but guess what? On day we will miss those questions, we will miss their knock on the bathroom door and we would give anything to hear their voice on the other side.

Kids grow too quickly, so let’s take over our thoughts and change how we may feel at the moment and remind ourselves of how amazing our kids are, let’s put aside the list of what they haven’t done, or what they shouldn’t have done, and just love them!!!!