Keep Training

Ameliya is growing everyday.  Each moment of each day she exerts new independence which is enthralling and exhausting.  She can follow directions (let's go change your diaper, take it to the hamper please, this is yucky and goes in the trash, etc.) but is very very strong minded.  Some days it feels like I scarcely sit down before I need to get back up and correct her again.  Strong willed children are not for faint of heart parents.

Her newest experiment in naughtiness is biting.  She gets in her mind that something is hers and swoops in to take it - usually from a sibling - they tell her no but she won't give in and then mom gets involved.  Biting has become her newest defense.  Mostly to the mom who has to follow through, but a couple of times to a sibling who tried to stand their ground.  So frustrating.

We're working through it.  I don't tell you this to make her out to be a terror - but to encourage you that if you are in a "trench" to keep on keeping on.  I believe diligent training at this age bears much fruit as children grow.  However, I know it's exhausting.  

 

^That's often how I feel.^  Ha.

We work to really praise the GOOD things Ameliya is doing and can do.  She feeds herself... 

 She snuggles and loves...

 She reads and reads and reads...

 

 

 

She has a million dollar smile...   

 She can drink like a big girl...

 She loves people well...

 She can drink her medicine (liquid calcium for teething) like a big girl...

She cooks and plays pretend!

So weary mommies and daddies...you with the toys on the floor and the books strewn about at the end of the day...Our work is not in vain. 

At the homeschool conference I went to this month, speaker Nancy Bjorkman said that being a mom of little people often makes one feel like you are lacing beads on a string with no knot on the end.

You change a diaper (a bead on your string!)...

the baby poops (the bead falls off).

You vacuum and mop (2 beads!)...

baby spills her snack on the carpet and dumps her milk on accident (there go the beads again).

All day long you accomplish little tasks but all day long the beads fall to the floor around you.

Do you get it?  Do you feel what I feel?  The desperation, the utter despair at getting no where and the knowing of having to do it all again tomorrow?  It's frustrating, exhausting, and seems so pointless at times.

However, friends...be encouraged.  Each diaper, each wiped sticky face...in all those actions you are making a difference...because, you see, GOD himself ties the knot at the end of your string.  He counts your beads and carefully laces them for you.  He secures you. 

Take heart, friends.  And keep on keeping on...

{Thank you Nancy Bjorkman from Heppner's Legacy for speaking right to my heart.  You are so appreciated.}