Prayer Requests...

I have nothing to talk about except all the crap I've been whining about for what feels like months.

Silas is well, so Gavin woke up yesterday morning with a barking cough.  He was up at least 4 times last night with coughing and fever and general whineyness.  At one point, I grabbed my pillows and slept on the floor next to his crib.

I give up.  I can see no light at the end of this long tunnel of illnesses.

Silas is now terribly off routine from having strep, and now we're locked in a battle of wills every morning.

"I DON'T WANT TO DRESS MYSELF. YOU DO IT!" vs. "If you don't get dressed, you're going to get to school too late to eat your breakfast, and that will only hurt you."  Except it doesn't just hurt him.  It causes me to be neurotic and worry and stress about him being hungry until lunch time.

Yesterday I wrote a long email to a family member who is struggling with an adult child (read: almost 40) being incredibly irresponsible.  The child is in another jam, and the mother is tired of bailing the child out.  The child is telling the mother that to make the child clean up her own mess makes the mother a horrible person. And the mother feels tremendous guilt mixed with tremendous frustration and indignation.

My advice was that we as mothers have to allow our children to fail and learn lessons and deal with consequences and stand on their own two feet.  Everyone needs help once in a while, but it is not helpful or beneficial to always bail someone out of their messes.

And I believe all of those things.  Nothing is more frustrating than dealing with an adult who is completely incapable of running his or her own life and constantly runs to mom and dad to get bailed out.  I've dealt with it quite a bit, and I do not want my children growing up to become those people.

Doing my part to make them self-sufficient doesn't start when they are pre-teens or teenagers or adults.  It starts when they are small.  It starts by me not coddling my children and doing everything for them.  It starts with me showing my children how to do things and encouraging them to slowly and steadily learn the skills they need to be successful in their own right.

But it's hard, right?  Or is it just me?  I mean, Silas is four.  And he sees me doing everything for Gavin because Gavin is still learning how to do, well, pretty much everything.  So, his inclination is to try to manipulate (yes, he is a master manipulator) me into doing things for him that he should be doing for himself.

It is a constant internal battle to remind myself that I have to teach him how to take care of himself.  The guilt and fear of making him feel unloved or like I care more about Gavin than him is always there.

Then weeks like this roll around where I see the outcome of really spoiling your children (doing absolutely everything for them because they were sick), and it is a harsh reality check of why I am just going to have to swallow that mom guilt and force him to become a worthwhile human being.

Could you just pray for my mom guilt to at least slightly subside?  I feel it takes up way too much of my time.

Also please pray that we get a genuine reprieve from all this coughing and sneezing and misery!

K, thanks.  Bye.