Jess: Our little baby will be 16 months old on Friday, and I
simply can’t believe it. In fact, a few weeks from now marks two years since we found out that our family
would be growing. It is amazing how different our life looks since then. I can’t
honestly say we have enjoyed every minute, but life is wonderful with James in
our lives.
As I wiped pee off the floor this
morning, I realized that there is one thing that has been really important
during the last two years: PATIENCE. Now, just over a year ago, Wes and I wrote
a blog about patience,
and our lack thereof. And yet, out of everything that we have done, from
reading books to talking to other parents to observing our own situation,
having more patience has been the biggest game-changer.
In Evan
Almighty, there is a point where God (awesomely portrayed by Morgan
Freeman) talks to the main character’s wife about how God goes about answering
prayers. He says, “Let me ask you something. If someone prays for patience, you
think God gives them patience? Or does he give them the opportunity to be
patient? If he prayed for courage, does God give him courage, or does he give
him opportunities to be courageous? If someone prayed for the family to be
closer, do you think God zaps them with warm fuzzy feelings, or does he give
them opportunities to love each other?”
There is so much patience required in
being a parent. First, you have to wait nine months for the kid to bother to
make an appearance. In that time, you wait to hear a heartbeat, wait to see the
baby, wait to discover the baby’s gender, wait for signs of labor, wait, wait,
wait. There’s no speeding up the process—babies need time to develop. And even
once they’re here, there is literally nothing they can do for themselves for
months. You wait for the day they can soothe themselves, sit up alone, feed
themselves, sleep through the night, etc.
All of this waiting, all of these
opportunities to be patient, are what have created greater patience in me. I
can see it in other areas of my life, as well. I’m more patient in traffic,
more patient when projects take awhile to get going, more patient in everyday
conversations. This is going to be a great asset in my life as a pastor. But
the greatest benefits of patience learned through parenting has been having
more patience for parenting.
Throughout James’ young life, we have
made many changes: liquid to solid diet, sleeping in our room to sleeping in
his own room, following James’ schedule to making our own, bottles to cups,
three naps to two naps to one nap. Each one of these changes is pretty major
for a little guy who hasn’t known anything else his whole life. Each time we
make a change, we’ve gone the “slow and steady” route. Introduce a little solid
food. Gradually tweak James’ schedule till it becomes our own. And now, we’re
working on two slow processes: getting rid of the pacifier and potty training.
By not having expectations that these
things will happen overnight, we don’t jar James out of his comfort zone. We
take our time so that the new thing seems natural by the time we’ve completely
switched to it. Patience is key. James isn’t going to be in “big boy” underwear
by tomorrow. But he just might use the potty, and that’s something to
celebrate. For James, too, is learning patience. He’s also learning that his
parents love him and will walk with him through the challenges in life. And he
is teaching us so much along the way.
Wes: Jess, once
again, said basically everything that needed to be said. In fact, I loved the
way that she ended her part of the post so much that I actually feel bad about
writing anything after it. So, if you don’t want to read this part of the post,
that’s cool. I would have stopped with Jess’ words as well.
But here’s the deal. I have to write something. In part
because I’m one of those people who almost always has something to say and in part
(a much larger part) because Jess is expecting me to write my half of this
post. This blog is a team effort, and we are partnering in it. If I were to not
hold up my end of partnership, it would not be the same. That doesn’t
necessarily mean that it would be less of a blog—I already admitted that you
could only read Jess’ parts and be perfectly content with life—but it wouldn’t
be complete in the way we meant it to be complete.
That’s also what I’ve found to be true with parenting. Jess
and I joke on occasion that she parents James and I babysit James, like it’s
something I do for short periods of time and then receive some form of payment
for services rendered (clothes washed, food prepared, etc…). We’ve both known
people who function this way, and in most cases, that works fine for them.
But we’ve worked hard to make sure that our parenting is
different—not better, but different, and something that better fits with our
understanding of family and philosophy of childrearing.
So when we joke about me babysitting, it’s actually a
reminder to both of us of the partnership we have entered when it comes to our
son. Both of us see our parenthood as a pairs match—neither of us should have
to bear all of the burden of raising James on our own. That’s not how we have
set up this game to be played.
That is not at all to say that one cannot do a fantastic job
raising kids by his/herself. I will be the first to admit that Jess is the
better, more equipped and prepared parent. James would grow up to be a fine
young man if she were a single parent, and—in all honesty—I probably cause more
damage with this partnership than would be there if I were not in the picture.
James already has a bad habit of head-butting people and sticking his tongue
out at them, because hey, I think it’s hilarious.
Jess could do this
whole parenting thing on her own and shine at it, but that’s not how we have
decided to do this whole raising kids thing. It’s a partnership, and one we
each have to actively be a part of if we want to see it work.
Luckily, I’m not as forgetful with James as I am with
posting our blogs on a regular basis!
So here’s just a little glimpse into our process and two
things that we have found to be vitally important in how we raise our son. This
is not meant to be instructive—not that it couldn’t do that—but is instead
meant to show you a little more of who we are and what has rang true for our
lives, this past year especially.
That’s all for now. You stay classy, World Wide Web.
wes and jess
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