There is a groundhog living under our neighbor's shed. He comes out occasionally to sun himself and we can watch him from our bedroom window! He is really quite cute. I have walked past that shed many times while working in the yard and have never seen him or noticed even any evidence of him. But, there he was last week in all his glory! We have enjoyed watching him over the last week. It is amazing to me to think about what lives just beneath the surface of the ground we walk on. And, what lives just beneath the surface in the people we meet everyday on the street, or even the people we live with 24/7.
I know that I talk about my boys alot, but being a mother is what I do! It is my life at this point, so I hope you will indulge my constant use of my children as illustrations. ( And, I am trusting that you will not let on that I talk about them so much when you see them!) Anyway! Caleb is fast approaching 14 and I see so many things coming to the surface that totally shock and surprise me. I never thought my sweet child would ever not want me to hug and kiss him. I never thought he would ever talk back to me. I never thought that he would not find as much joy in our conversations as I do. I never thought that he would rather talk to his friends than me. But, it turns out that these things are all true in his life right now. These are the "groundhogs" that live just below the surface in his life and now they are showing themselves. The only difference is our little groundhog next door is cute, and these "groundhogs" are ugly to say the very least.
I feel like the teenage years have been written about, blogged about, talked about, and psychoanalyzed to death. And yet, there are still no REAL answers. When you are the first time parent to a teenager you are basically just taking it one day at a time, and hoping that you nor your teenager end up permanently scarred by the whole experience! I mean you can read all the Dobson books on the shelf, but when you are living it...it is a whole different ball game. Aside from carrying around my iPod with the words "Stay Calm" recorded and playing in my ears at all times, I really don't know how to manage the feelings that well up inside of me when these things appear unannounced...coming out of our teenager in a manner that is somewhat akin to poltergeist. You can count to ten, take away their cell phones, cry, plead, and pull your hair until it comes clean off your head, but at the end of the day you never really know exactly if what you did was the right thing.
Prayer has become my constant friend. Prayer is the only thing that seems to get me through these frustrating times. Prayer takes me to a place where I can claim the passage..."Train them up in the way they should go, and when they are old they will not depart from it". I am just wondering who is being trained? Me or him? Maybe a little of both. By the time Jacob hits 13 maybe I will finally have a handle on this thing. Poor Caleb, at the end of the day he is just a guinea pig in the test lab we like to call "Parenting". Except, if I am the scientist in this whole experiment, why is it that I feel as if I am the one running through the maze trying to find my way out, while dragging my child along with me?
(Just a note: I did read this to Caleb and he gave me permission to share this! Maybe it was good for him to hear my heart!)
Posted on
Mon, April 13, 2009
by Crystal Colp