Yet, life with them has been a struggle lately. They are two spirited children, thank goodness, but oh it is exhausting me. I am realizing that part of the problem is my reaction to them and my inability to accept reality. The reality is that they are two and a half years old, exploring, living fully, investigating all the ends and outs of their bodies, our home, their world. They also are not logical creatures right now. Trying to use logic and rhetoric on them does not work yet. Trying to make them understand how tired Mommy is or how much Mommy wants something is ludicrous. They are in a "ME" centered age and I need to come to terms with that. I think that sometimes Chris and I expect them to understand things and communicate beyond their years and that just isn't fair to them.
I spoke with Dayna Martin, the radical unschooling mentor I called a couple months ago. It is always so lovely to talk to her because her words kind of shake me out of my victim "woe is me" mentality. I always feel re-energized about my parenting after talking to her. I always come away re-committed to peaceful parenting. I've been so rough with the cubs lately. She helped me understand that I am working against myself with the "Law of Attraction" I told her that though I usually parent in the way she and I talk about, it is often with some nervousness wondering if it is going "to work", wondering if the girls will actually comply with my wishes. Instead of staying relaxed about the whole thing and going with the flow of our lives, I'm attracting more problems to me. Anyway, I could go on forever about this.
Suffice it to say, I am reaffirming my passion for being a mother. I love being a mother, but lately I was actually disliking it. I am also realistic enough to know that we go through these phases of hating and loving parenting and I need to go easy on myself. Since I"m with the cubs all day, I don't get the opportunity right now to do Seva in my community. But I realized that doing for my family IS my Seva. Wholeheartedly, serving my family is how I give back to my community. It is a great gift. By serving I don't mean I'm a servant to them, I just mean that taking care of my family and myself is a beautiful thing to be doing with my time right now. Instead of resenting it sometimes, welcoming it with open arms, could make all the difference in my own pleasure and satisifaction with my days.
And instead of reenforcing this notion of "Oh, I'm so tired and the cubs are so wild and none of my friends understand because they all have one child" I can try to use my yoga methods more and come to peace with the chaos of this phase in the cubs' development. It is really about accepting the situation and not feeling the need to change the situation.
Side notes: The cubs weren't napping again today and I wanted some me time with the book I'm reading "The Lovely Bones" I asked the girls to play together while I read and Ursula kept trying to climb on me. I finally got frustrated and stood up saying with my arms open "I need some space" then I walked into my bedroom and closed the door. All I heard from the cubs after that was "I need some space, I need some space" mimicking me. It was pretty funny and made me laugh in spite of myself. The other side-note is the cubs were fighting yesterday...I mean really fighting, tackling each other, trying to bite, head butting, pulling hair the works. I didn't stop them at first because I figured they were pretty evenly matched. I have never seen children that young go at each other like that. Once again I had to laugh in spite of the situation. Their expressions were quite comical.
So here we are sometimes broken, sometimes shining brighter than the Northern Star, but still this is perfect, as is. Grandly, messily, perfect.
No comments:
Post a Comment