13 October, 2016

Gagging on a day

I blogged the following post in 2010 when our boys were 11, 8, and 5. Friends who have little ones I want to encourage you: it isn't like this very often any more, but it used to be, and we survived!

"The mothers agree that indeed the years do fly. It's the days that don't. The hours, the minutes of a single day sometimes just stop. And a mother finds herself standing in the middle of a room wondering. Wondering. Years fly. Of course they do. But a mother can gag on a day." Jain Sherrard  
I really like it and it describes today - I gagged on today and in fact, many of our recent weekends. 

I could describe the awful behaviour that we've been suffering, but I won't spoil your day. I'm just praying that our boys will move through whatever stage it is that is making them so poor of hearing, so rude of speech, so short of patience and so full of complaints, that it makes them extra difficult to live with at the moment.

It is a pity, really. Today was a gorgeous autumn day and we even took the time to go on a picnic (and it took time—driving around Tokyo on a Sunday is a pain). Unfortunately we didn't really enjoy the outing, mostly because parenting is just painful at present. 

And that takes me back to the quote above. I couldn't help but long for these painful formative years to be over, to long for days when we can take a picnic and enjoy being together instead of struggling in random directions and in the meantime hurting each other. It is, of course, a longing for what cannot be until heaven, but that doesn't mean I don't still long.


1 comment:

Sarah said...

Thank you, Wendy. I always find it helpful when parents with older kids look back and say, "Yep, it was tough." It's empty nesters I find have the rose-coloured glasses on a bit too much. There will be plenty of things I'll miss when my boys are no longer small, but I'll also be rejoicing that I no longer have to get up at night (I hope).