tweens

Thanks to all for the encouraging words about my last post. I had a great reminder as I was fishing ants out of the ground for M's ant farm. God wants us to watch the ants and learn from their steady work ethic. While I am frustrated, it is a good reminder to just keep going.

I read a funny article about older boys in which the mother was feeling the need to apologize to the new neighbor about the gang of 8-12 year old boys that lived in the neighborhood. The new neighbor had toddlers and the mother was remembering her own fears of "big boys" when hers were small.

This made me laugh! When my boys were tiny, nothing made me more upset than "big boys" coming on the playground and tromping everything in sight. They were fearless, loud, seemingly aggressive and all around obnoxious. I would often back my brood up and leave for fear of them picking up some nasty non-sharing, pushing, shoving habit from these creatures.

Of course, now I have these creatures.

To all you moms who, like me, find yourself hiding in the house, watching from the window, and being amazed at the amount of noise and destruction these boys can create. Take heart, I am. It seems that this is a normal developmental stage. They are bigger, louder, and more fearless, and are just learning how to control themselves (or at least we think that is the direction they are going). Learn with me to watch extra carefully, while pretending to let them be totally independent. Help me learn to respect the mothers of small ones and teach these big ones not to run around the babies or play rough near them. Let's call out their future parenting skills by teaching them how to help those worn out toddler moms by playing in an age appropriate way with the toddlers. And by all means, lets take these sweet savages to large open spaces where they are not condemned for being all out, sweaty, loud males.

To you mothers of toddlers, please be more generous than I was. They are just really big toddlers in many ways. Almost all of them have a good heart beneath all that dirt. They don't mean to run past your toddler and scare you. They don't intend to teach them bad habits. They really are just trying to hold on to pieces of their own toddlerhood while fighting to grow up at the same time. Shower their moms with understanding. Instead of wondering where on earth they are while these ruffians descend on your playground, remember that they are worn out from 10 years of parenting little warriors. They are relaxing and enjoying a bit of freedom from the need to constantly watch their sons. Sometimes the boys are fine and really are not doing anything wrong. Instead of fearing these ruffies, find one that seems to have a heart for the younger ones and call out their desire to be the "savior" of the playground. Ask for their help watching the young ones. Not only will this help them learn to be more careful and give them a "mission" that keeps them from running everyone down, but it can keep you from having to hop up every little second to keep yours from running away. Don't forget that before you know it you will be on the other side!

So, cheers to parenting and the neverending struggle of figuring it all out!