So at church, Harper decided to give himself a haircut.
It wasn't a lot, just a little off one side. But you can imagine my shock when I went to pick him up from his class and instead of a typical Sunday school craft in his hand, he was holding a small ball of hair.
We have been having a hard time with this kind of thing, at school and occasionally church. He is truly such an awesome kid, and even a model citizen... 99% of the time. But he spends that other 1% of the time with a proverbial hairball in his hand.
The short version of this story is that I often feel like a first time mom with that child. Even though I'm almost ten years into parenting, every day feels like day one with my little guy. He just has a way of keeping me guessing and bewildered!
On Sunday, I was exhausted by it. It is truly exhausting to spend so much time trying to parent with intention, to shape a child's character, not just their behavior. I am certainly not complaining, parenting is the great joy of my life, but I was just over the ball of hair if you know what I'm saying.
I desperately plopped myself in front of my friend Sue, who happens to be the wife of our pastor, and she kind of runs the church nursery. Oh, and she is seriously one of the sweetest, most compassionate people, and also a sensational mom. Hence the desperate plopping. I spilled everything we had been struggling with and I begged her for advice and I trapped her in that nursery way longer than I should have and at one point she fake cried because she was so hungry. She listened graciously, she advised wisely, and she encouraged me as mom.
So Day 13: I brought Sue cookies. I had planned to bring her a donut because one question I actually asked her during the trapping was "And, we were supposed to get donuts with grandma and grandpa today, should I let him have a donut!?" I mean that's where I was at emotionally, I was asking our pastor's wife about my 6 years old's donut.
But the donut didn't work out, because I didn't think of it until later. :( but she got pastries nonetheless. She wasn't home when I delivered them, so unfortunately there won't be any of Tom's paparazzi style photos of the hand off. To tell you the truth, I will be shocked if they survive the relentless raining that started about five minutes after we left them outside, in front of her garage.