Silly Mom Thoughts

Darn those country songs that make me cry. They’re predictable, but I fall for it every time. I always know there’s going to be one line that the singer repeats in each stanza that evolves as the song progresses. For instance in There Goes My Life, Kenny Chesney sings about a boy who gets his girlfriend pregnant and thinks his life is over, “There goes my life,” he complains. The song evolves until, in the end, he’s watching his little girl drive away to college and thinks, “There goes my life” as she is driving away. Song after sappy country song does this. I Love You this Much by Jimmy Wayne. Don’t Take the Girl by Tim McGraw. Butterfly Kisses by Bob Carlisle. The list could go on and on.

Saturday morning, I had escaped the house while Turk stayed home with the kids. I turned the radio to country since all of the Christmas stations were on a radio break. I caught one of these country tear-jerkers mid-song. I knew it was one of those predictable one-liner sob numbers when I heard Trace Adkins sing, “You’re gonna miss this, you’re gonna want this back.” He sang about a young bride in a small apartment, wishing her newlywed days away by telling her dad that one day she’ll have a house and babies. He reminded her that she would miss these days, and not to wish them away. But it was the next verse that had me sobbing. It was the next verse that I was meant to hear:

Five years later there’s a plumber workin’ on the water heater
Dogs barkin,’ phone’s ringin’

One kid’s cryin’, one kid’s screamin’

And she keeps apologizin’

He says “They don’t bother me.

I’ve got 2 babies of my own.

One’s 36, one’s 23.

Huh, it’s hard to believe, but…

You’re gonna miss this

You’re gonna want this back

You’re gonna wish these days hadn’t gone by so fast

These are some good times

So take a good look around

You may not know it now

But you’re gonna miss this”

Seeing the words written down does not give justice to the way the song floated into my ears and landed heavily on my heart. One day, I will look back on all of these frustrating times and miss this.
I believe I was meant to hear this song at this particular time, because things have been really tough with Bug in the past several months. One minute he is a wonderfully sweet child who is kissing his sister or telling me, “I wuvs you, Mommy.” The next, he’s a raging lunatic, his head all but spinning around, simply because I told him he couldn’t have any more milk. It’s draining, it’s frustrating, and it’s crushingly depressing when it feels like all the parenting we’re doing isn’t working at all. (Deep down, I know it is, but in the heat of the moment it feels like we’re failing.) I love my Bug to death, but sometimes I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how else to get through this stage of tantrums and asserting his independence other than the consistent ways we already have been parenting him. I am simply thankful that God sent him to Turk and I, as we are strong willed and won’t let him get away with everything that a less strong-willed parent would.

These years with our high-spirited Bug are difficult, there is no doubt. But I know they are only making me stronger as an individual. I also know that, through our unfailing love and consistent discipline, Turk and I are shaping Bug to be a wonderful, selfless individual who knows when to put his foot down, and when to let it slide. One day, I will look back on these times and think, “I miss those days,” but for now, that simple thought is enough to help me appreciate the here and now.