August 12, 2009

• {Potty Break}

  Do you ever feel like as a mom that sometimes your only place of solitary quiet in a day is when you go to the bathroom?

  Having only one in the house can often be a challenge…
  I think I have the largest bladder humanly possible.
  And I’m quite sure it’s grown out of pure necessity through the years.!

  The fact that our bathroom is upstairs too has aided that fact as well – - waiting to go up until I have another reason to (taking up a load of laundry. going to get dressed. to make beds – some days. but pretty much all our time is spent downstairs).

  So usually when I finally make it there it’s because I can’t hold it another second. But it seems no matter what.. even if I’ve just asked each of the kids if they have to go (several times too, just to be sure), when I finally find that little space of time in the bathroom within minutes there’s a light knock at the door, followed by one of three voices…

  “But I didn’t have to a minute ago when you asked!!”

      

  Tonight, once again, the exact scenario happened. Only it was the youngest member of the family who doesn’t happen to just tap on the door and let me know she has to go ~ she stands outside and repeats over and over in her ever sweet sing song voice,

  “it toming out mommy. right now! i tan feel it toming. urry, urry. it toming….”

  And I know, because I’ve learned from experience when she says it’s coming. It’s coming!

  Mumbling something under my breath about, “every single time I come in here….” I opened the door more quickly than necessary and let my irritation show in the long exasperated sigh that escaped my mouth. 

  I was down in the kitchen putting dishes away when what seemed an eternity later, I heard that familiar call…

  “mommy. I done!”

  Still in a bit of a self pity huff I climbed back up the stairs…
  wishing for a uninterrupted potty break like everyone else seemed to get.
  wishing the bathroom didn’t have to be all the way upstairs.
  wishing for a house with two bathrooms…
  Imagine that!

  I pushed open the door and looked down at the top of my girl’s messy blonde hair ~ there are moments when your kids seem so big, like they’re growing way too fast. But then there are those moments too where you feel emphatically they are your forever babies. They seem so small. And this was one of those moments she looked still so small to me. Sitting there with her legs sticking straight out, kinda half fallen down in the toilet.

  She grinned up at me and said in kinda a shy, sheepish voice,

  “i sawry mommy. i need you help.”

  I couldn’t hold back the smile at the image of her sitting there. Her precious words. The way she says, “sawry.”

   

  My heart melted. Revealing the underlying realization that she isn’t always going to ask me for help, or need my help… certainly not in this way. I hope!

  And as I reached for the toilet paper as she jumped off and near did a head stand on the floor in front of me, I scolded myself inwardly for being so short of patience and selfish. After all, with my other girl being almost twelve… and anyone with a almost twelve year old girl, or who remembers being almost twelve yourself, well… Oh my! That’s a whole other post~ But you would think that I would automatically register these days of doing every little thing for them isn’t going to last. That “help” isn’t always going to be simply hurrying up my coveted bathroom times, or climbing the steps to the call of, “I done…” 

  I have a feeling that someday I’ll wish the “help” they need from me could only always be so easy!

  My mom has often told me, “every stage of parenting has it’s exhausting parts….”

  That’s why I know no matter what “stage”of parenting I’m in the only way to offer my kids the help they need is for me to be calling out for help myself!!
  Not just a once in the morning, help me through this day kind of thing either.
  But a continual, constant conversation that’s never far from my lips – “Lord, I need you.”

  No matter what it is…

  trying to teach those math problems that look like a foreign language to me…
  burning the last four eggs and there’s nothing else for breakfast…
  wondering if the bickering between the kids will ever stop…
  if I’m doing anything right as a mom…
  or when I find I’m the one doing the “can’t hold it jig” outside the bathroom!!

  Every day. Every moment. Finding Him faithful to be and do exactly what He says He will~

  “God is our refuge and strength, a ever-present help in trouble.

  Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way (yeah, there are those days it feels like the earth is giving way!)…

  The LORD Almighty is with us; God is our fortress.

  (and why do we make God our fortress, our Help? so we can say….)      

  Come and see the works of the LORD. 

  Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted in the earth.”

  The LORD Almighty is with us; He is our fortress.”  – Psalms 46

  = = ~ = = ~ = = 

  All too soon there will be HOURS to spend in the bathroom, uninterrupted, for as long as I want!

  Probably wishing for a little knock on the door that needs something.

  Until then I want to be a joyful helper to my kids when they call.

  And I know that only happens one way…

  especially the joyful part.

    

  amber.

   = = ~ = = ~ = = 

  Had to share these pictures of Emma and her little friend Gracie in a three-legged race at a recent picnic~

  they were so funny to watch!

  
  

  

         

   
  …these pictures make me think of the blessing of having the kind of friend that’s not afraid to strap themselves in with you and hobble through the race of life by your side!

  

         

  • 1:15 am
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