Sometimes my daughter does stuff that reminds me of my relationship with God. Sort of like…
She wakes up in the middle of a dark, scary night and RUNS for me. Once she’s in my arms, she squirms and kicks and fusses until sweet rest finds her. And then she sleeps in THIS position:
A sort of, “Do I HAVE TO? I don’t WANNA get up,” attitude bounces out of those photos.
After waking up (cranky) we got her ready for the sitters. She wore her feety PJs because they have Ana and Elsa on them and she refuses to take them off. I pick my battles, and I’ve been around long enough to know that you can’t win against Elsa.
So I let it go.
(I couldn’t help myself, okay?)
She slept for an hour and a half at the sitters and came home merry and bright. I had an hour and a half “break” before my piano lessons started, after which we were picking up a few donations for Lacy’s Project, after which we were eating dinner and decorating gingerbread houses with some friends.
At this point, my “shoulds” kicked in and I cleaned like crazy -dishes, vacuuming, picking up, dusting.
Alice asked for her high chair and then pulled this number:
When I went to save her from certain neck breakage, she simply said, “I’m stuck,” and looked down at the one leg she hadn’t managed to free from the buckle.
Stuck? You’re STUCK? Your problem is that?! No, sweet child. Your stuck-ness is what’s saving your bacon.
I sometimes I wonder if God feels the same way about me… I think He does.
“God, I’m STUCK. Get me out of what’s keeping me safe, preferably yesterday.”
“Alicia. No.”
“PLEASE?!”
At this point, I think God pats my head and chuckles. Because toddlers are pretty dang funny.
During my five music lessons, Alice ran out the door and onto the neighbor’s grass. I found her because her light blue jammies really stood out against the grey day yesterday.
“I want go home,” she said, reaching her pink, cold hands up toward me.
I do that too.
I leave home and wander out into the grey cold and soon my Heavenly Parents come searching for me. Sometimes I run in the opposite direction, but sometimes it’s so cold I reach my chilled pink hands up and say, “I want go home.”
And God lets me choose. He lets me choose to run away or reach up.
Letting me choose is His gift to me. He LOVES to let me choose.
I don’t QUITE understand this. I still have a hard time letting my kids choose. I have ONE rule when it comes to decorating gingerbread houses, and it’s simply, “Let them do whatever.”
But last night I found myself jumping in, “No frosting tips in the chimney.”
“No licking the roof.”
“Don’t make plans to destroy the house yet, Trent, it isn’t even done being decorated…”
“But MOM…”
I can’t imagine God’s side in watching me make crazy choices, but I hope someday to be more OKAY with the kids making crazy choices without piping in to STOP the crazy before it gets out of hand.
I guess decorating gingerbread houses is good training ground? Because when it comes to kids, candy, and Christmas… there is no stopping the crazy.
Alice surprised me by picking up the frosting bag and trying very neatly (for an almost-two year old) to pipe frosting on the chimney. She knocked a candy cane out of it’s spot.
“Dane it,” she muttered.
Monkey see…
(I spy a frosting beard.)
“Mom, when we smash the houses… we will get a little surprise from the chimmee!”
Trent is seriously more excited about smashing the gingerbread houses than he is about building them. And yes, he’s already checked our closet over to make sure we have enough hammers to go around. This kid does not mess around when it comes to destruction.
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