Every Mama knows that having children the ages of my sons – 4 years and 20 months – is a challenging time. With children this young, I have to watch them every minute. The 19-month-old is a walking hazard. All he has to do is look at something on a shelf and it falls to the ground.
The four-year-old competes constantly for Mama’s attention, and he talks from the time he rises until the time he falls asleep. As soon as I think I’m going to get a few minutes peace, I hear, “Mommy! Mooooommmmy!”
Children are a challenge, but almost every parent says that it’s worth it. Why? There are many answers to that question, but over the past couple of months, I’ve jotted down a few of my answers. Here they are:
1) For Valentine’s Day, I helped my son pick out some cards and sign them. After signing mine, he took it somewhere, and when he came back, he said, “Mommy, I put your Valentine’s card in the top drawer in the closet, but shhhhhh—don’t tell anybody because it’s a secret!”
2) One afternoon on a beautiful spring day, I sat on my porch as my boys played. My four-year-old asked me, “Do bees have ears?”
“I guess so,” I answered.
“So they can hear the color red?”
“Do you hear the color red?” I asked.
“Yes,” he tells me.
“What does it sound like?”
Pause. “Red. It sounds like red.” Gotta love a kid that can hear the color red.
3) Another night my son was telling me that one of his television shows was about thankfulness, so I asked him what he was thankful for. “I’m thankful for my toys because I like them.” Then he asked me what I’m thankful for, and I told him that I’m thankful for his daddy, him, and his brother.
After that he turns to his little brother and asks him what he’s thankful for. The 19-month-old gives the same answer that he gives to every question posed to him: a shake of the head. “Nothing?!” I say. The four-year-old squealed in laughter, and the 19-month-old kept shaking his head.
4) The other day we were driving back home from somewhere. It was the most beautiful spring day, and the temperature was perfect. In order to keep my 19-month-old awake so that he would sleep when we got home and not in the car, I opened all the windows. The 4-year-old started singing for joy and being silly in the wind. As I glanced at the 19-month –old in the rearview mirror, I saw an expression that I will never forget. It was more happiness than I have ever witnessed in my life, and as I gazed at him, I found myself smiling and feeling jubilant too.
How else could I be reminded on a daily basis what is most important? In what better way could I be reminded that the simple things in life are what provide us with the most peace and happiness? And is there any other profession that would allow me to be more creative than working with my own children? I get to listen to their imaginations and try to find ways to feed their minds with all that’s good in the world.
Those are just some of my reasons why the difficult, daily grind of parenthood is worth every second.
Shelli Bond Pabis is a Winder resident and columnist for the Barrow Journal. You can reach her at writetospabis@gmail.com.
