Going All In

My last post detailed a hard weekend of parenting.

It wasn't easy to write.

I don't like admitting my faults.

I'm not sure that anyone does.

It's completely against human nature

and especially against American thought to say

"Hey, let me tell you all about the ways that I screw up on a daily basis."

But the more I reflected on all my parenting fails last weekend,

I realized that almost every aspect of parenting is hard.

It's supposed to be.

A continuous dance of move and sway

and locking eyes with your dance partner.

And learning how they respond to the music.

With you.

Doubling our family count with two toddlers was no cake walk.

And learning to parent in your thirties for the first time was like treating a red hot sun burn after a day at the beach;

it needed a lot of TLC.

But while I cannot say I desire the hard days;

I'm learning to take them at face value;

a moment to embrace a chance to learn,

do better

and stop looking for something easy.

If it were easy, I wouldn't care what kind of personalities my kids developed,

would let them juggle knives while standing on our kitchen table

and would disregard all sanitation rules

(ok, maybe not all).

I believe that the biggest challenge to being a parent is

choosing to parent

and choosing it for a lifetime,

especially when it's hard.

So Dinosaur and Princess,

be warned.

You have no passive mama.

She's a warrior.

And she's learning.

Just like you.

She will not give up on you.

She refuses to stop learning from you,

teaching you,

dancing with you,

and guiding your steps as much as she can.

She's in it for the hard days;

the crazy days,

the laughs,

the tears,

the breezy,

the hard.

It will not always be easy,

in fact, she'll bet on it.

but she's crazy about you.

And she's all in.

Forever.