Eight is ENOUGH!

Getting ready for smash cake!

Elliot turned 8 on the 20th of February.  Eight.  How did 8years pass by already?  In some instances I cannot figure out where the time went. Then, on the other hand I look at his baby pictures and feel like that time was a million years ago.  I can't understand it.  Every mom feels like their kids grow up too fast.  Every parent wants to keep the innocence of childhood just where it is.  Time doesn't stop though.  Our kids grow up.  We get gray hair.  Innocence is just starting to be replaced with experience.  

Some weird fluttery thing happens in my heart when I fold laundry and see that Elliot's socks are the same size as mine.  At 8, this kid can out eat me at meals.  He is a total bookworm and a real goofball.  He's wonderful.

When we brought him home from the hospital I had no idea what I was doing.  All the babysitting in the world can't prepare for parenthood.  I had expectations, such as when he would sleep though the night, that were quickly silenced by real life experience.  

I've read more parenting books than I can count  in the past 8 years.  Some have given better advice than others (best by far is Parenting With Love and Logic).  All of them have helped me in some way.  Some have just offered comedic relief (read I Was A Really Good Mom BEFORE I Had Kids...oh and read my post on it by clicking HERE).  

Foster Cline author of Parenting With Love and Logic wrote, "The greatest gift we can give our children is the knowledge that with God's help, they can always look first to themselves for the answers to their problems." What that statement says to me is that if they have a heart rooted in God they can rely on Him to look inward to first solve a problem.  Step one in making sure that happens is to point my kids toward God. I have to intentionally plant a seed in their hearts that will grow as they grow.  The years I have to prepare them for the real world are short lived!  

I want my children to be confident, self-reliant people.  I don't want to be a helicopter mom--to hover over them so they don't make mistakes; or attempt to solve their problems for them.  I know God has a plan for their lives and in that plan there will be turmoil and heartache.  There will also be happiness and blessings beyond what I can dream up. 

Elliot's first birthday was a family-filled celebration.  He got his own smash cake from Grandma Mary and was covered in frosting.  Birthday 8 was having a sleepover, eating pizza and Angry Bird cake pops.  But, under his growing exterior is still a sweet, tenderhearted kid.  He teared up when he read his birthday card from John and me.  That is the evidence that we are doing something right.   

The slogan for the Peace Corps is "the toughest job you'll ever love."  Maybe, but I think parenthood has it beat. :o)

Thanks for reading.