Hi there,
Did I mention that Linton baby #3 is on the way, due July 5th? And it's a boy? Yeah. Cool, and daunting at the same time.
But not that daunting. After all, we've done this twice already. We have established our family culture, for better or worse.
Sometimes I find myself trying to push back the cobwebs in my memory to remember the newborn days with Natalie and later Rachel, and remember what we've learned so far.
This morning as I was cleaning up the breakfast dishes, I came across a cold bowl of oatmeal with only one or two bites missing. Ah-ha, acceptable losses. In my early days as a parent, I would have fretted over that bowl. I would have inwardly berated myself for letting my kids waste food, or scolded myself for not doing enough to encourage them to eat it. Outwardly I might have tried to coax (or drag) a reluctant kid back to the table to finish it. Or put it in the fridge and presented it later, insisting that they finish it before eating something else. And I did win a few of those battles, but the repeated experience taught me that 5 cents' worth of oatmeal isn't worth spending my energy on. I put it in the compost bucket and move on.
With oatmeal in particular, the girls treasure the morning ritual around it. Sometimes they eat the whole bowl. Most times they eat some and leave some in the bowl. Some days, like today, they take a bite or two and forget about the rest. I ask them to bring their used dishes to the counter when they finish their food. I've calmly repeated this instruction the requisite 1,000 times, and now they often (but not always) do it unprompted. In the case of the girls' putting their dishes on the counter, I've decided through repeat interactions that it is worth my time to ask them to clean up after themselves, even though it's often easier for me to do it myself.
I've had similar internal and external battles over wasted water, sand, toilet paper, construction paper, etc. There's a gradual cost-benefit analysis that happens, and I eventually decide whether to choose that battle or not. I reserve the right to change my mind, too.
As an 18-month-old, Rachel used to rip plants out of my garden. If you know how much I love plants and gardening, you know that was an ultimate character test. I failed a few times (found myself yelling at her) before I got better at coping. Eventually, I designated "okay to cut" plants and spots where she could dig in the dirt and pull things up. And if she pulls up something I care about, I take a deep breath and calmly remind her which plants are okay to pull, which are not. If I really can't take it, we all go back inside.
Above all, I no longer beat myself up over wasted materials. "It's the cost of doing business," one might say, when it comes to being a stay-at-home parent. I have a little bit of an environmentalist streak, as well as an efficiency streak, that used to really make me cringe at all the waste. I can say now, 4.5 years into the whole parenting thing, with two kids and another on the way, I am over it.
I remind myself that I make up for that wastefulness in other ways. I shower every other day (not because I'm so conscientious--I'm just comfortable with that routine and I don't feel dirty until 48 hours post-shower. But I can still take credit.) I set good examples by reusing items when possible, without being a hoarder about it. I compost and recycle. We don't upsize--we are keeping the not-so-big house that we have, in the neighborhood that we love.
"Don't sweat the small stuff" applies here, but it's not specific enough for me. I had to figure out what was actually small to me, and what was big. Harmony in the household is big. Spills are small. Teaching my kids to clean up after themselves is big. Their doing it perfectly or immediately is small.
What do I want them to teach their kids as they raise them? That should be a guiding question in my mind as I tackle these minor aggravations. I want them to be able to rise above their minor aggravations and value the relationship above all.
Every increment to the family is a bump up in the level of chaos and minor aggravations, sometimes major ones. Another ball in the air for the juggling act. Hey, it'll make me a better juggler. And, turns out, I love kids. (We're stopping at 3, though!)
