I truly believe that to receive the full benefits of humility from raising your kids you have to have at least 3 of them. Most people can do 2 kids with relative ease and they can maintain all of their illusions about what an amazing wonderful parent they are and take credit for all of their kids successes and failures without putting much thought into whether or not maybe God just created their kid with a certain temperament and personality apart from anything they do as a parent to "make" them a certain way. They can happily sit back and speculate on what they would never do as a parent or what they'd never allow to happen and maybe even get all of the way through rearing their young children without experiencing many things that "only neglectful parents" experience.
Such as...drawing on the wall, falling down the stairs or off the bed, cutting their own hair, or any number of things that I MYSELF said I could not imagine how a parent could let happen. How could they if the parent was paying attention to their kids at all?
Enter child number THREE. The humbling child. This is her job. To humble us. Yes, it is her job to amuse us, adore us, and amaze us as well, but her main job in life (it would appear) is to humble us.
So yeah, I was talking to Cheney on the phone the other day during nap time for a much needed catch-up on each other's lives phone date. Shelby and Jesse were obediently watching a movie and Preslie and Lucy were sleeping. So I thought. So, 45 minutes into the "nap" Shelby comes and gets me and says that I "HAVE" to come and see what Lucy has done. I make it to the stairs where she is sitting with her dark purple hand rubbing eye shadow into the carpet. Her face is a golden glow with illuminator and her right cheek is dark purple and caked with eye shadow. She has also caked her neck with eyeshadow for some reason. My sink and vanity ((that I had just cleaned an hour earlier)) were covered in illuminator and eye shadow and all of my make-up brushes were ruined. After I changed her poopy diaper and washed her face I put her to bed where she immediately fell fast asleep. That Child!
Shelby and Jesse have never in their lives messed around during nap time. They are really obedient when it comes to bedtime stuff. Thus, I am unprepared for this child who also wrote all over the wall, her sheets and herself (with a washable marker) the other night when she was supposed to be sleeping. I am up for the challenge, but pray for me, b/c who knows where her creativity and rebellion will take us on this journey to humility.
Side note: I hope the 4th child is the gift from God who is super-easy and obedient to reward you for all of the hard work you do with the third.
