Broad Strokes

Is it just me or does anyone else have those days where you feel like you've completely failed in every detail in how to effectively parent your child (particularly your 2-year-old)? We've had quite the week with Kaden Jay. The kind of week where we feel like no amount of diligence, consistency, love or logic will impact or discipline this spirited, passionate, wild child. I've had images of my Kaden heading off to kindergarten and later getting a phone call from the principal saying, "I'm sorry Mrs. Vollmer, can you please come pick up your child. He keeps telling his teacher to 'Stop yo attitude,' " or of him going on to college, meeting his college roommate and instead of saying hello, he hits him and screams at him for no apparent reason at all. After about a week of extremely tough parenting with this little one, I was about at the end of my rope.

And then a funny thing happened. Kaden woke up this morning suddenly feeling good with no sniffles, snotties or sneezes. "Oh...sank you for yunch, Mommy!" "Kaden, can you please put your fire truck in the playroom?" "Oh, ser, (sure) ser, Mommy!" His entire disposition had changed...literally overnight. The whole morning was a wonderful delight, so much so that I even wrote on my calendar for December 3: Kaden healthy. Kaden happy. I anticipated a long morning of sibling disputes (Zachary is home from school on Monday mornings and also got a ton of new toys last night celebrating his birthday a little early. Could have been a recipe for disaster...) Instead, the boys played so well together. When Zachary wasn't quite ready to share one of his new toys, Kaden cheerfully chose another. When they wanted to play the same thing, they laughed and cooperated. Just when we were at the end of our rope and thought for sure that we had no clue what the heck were doing as parents, we were blessed with a day like today.

And that's the thing about being a parent. It seems like there is so much more labor than gain sometimes, but that's really not true. Our children are absorbing so much every day. I heard a couple of months ago that kids remember the broad strokes about their parent's parenting. We place a high value on respect and self-control and love in our family, so when we have a child who is sassy, spazzy and grumpy it's easy to think that we're just total losers as parents and that our children are going to grow up totally dysfunctional (a little irrational, I know...). But then a day like today comes along and we are reassured that our little one truly is loving and kind and is working hard on being self-controlled. (It's much easier to do this when he's feeling good, instead of feeling so cruddy with those colds.) And although we know our sweet Kaden is filled with passion and spunk and that will probably never change, I am a little more convinced today that he probably won't go off to kindergarten telling his teacher to "stop her attitude."