When You Long For the Easy Button

Back in the day, when our first baby was our only baby and the Mariners were still worth watching,  we would sit around watching television and daydream about his childhood. Because when you only have one baby and he's content to stay in one place and shove toys in his mouth for hours on end, you start to assume that maybe, just maybe you've got this all figured out. 

Well. True confession time: I never anticipated that third grade would be the thing to knock me off my high horse. 

Oh my word. The anxiety this year has brought. The expectations, the homework...FRACTIONS. Let's not even go there.

 A lot of mommy bloggers like to talk about how God uses motherhood for our personal sanctification. Let me just say that I think they might be onto something there. Nothing teaches me about dealing with my own anxieties like helping my firstborn prepare for his first presentation. 

He practices his speech with his notecards, tries on his outfit, rehearses some more, but I that deer-in-the-headlights expression remains on his handsome little face. 

My stomach clenches and I try to conceal my own emotions. 

What if the kids make fun of him? 

I should have driven all over town looking for a Fedora and bow tie. He needs a better costume.

He looks so grown up. How did we get here? 

As I'm making dinner and breaking up squabbles, his anxiety is evident in his body language. Isn't there an easy button, a formula, anything to fast-forward through the hard stuff? Quick. Let's go back to sitting on a blanket and drooling over plastic keys. That was better than this. Easy. Comfortable. The desire to shield and protect, to enable him out of an uncomfortable situation is overwhelming. And I'm embarrassed at how easily I forget God's promises of His faithfulness. A good mom would bust out a verse from memory, probably even kneel and pray. But tonight I'm not that mom. 

There's miles to go before we sleep and can't we just be done with this already? 

 He couldn't fall asleep last night and he woke up with dark circles under his eyes. Even though he looked quite dapper in his quest to impersonate FDR, my heart hurt a little as I dropped him off at school. Is this going to be a total disaster? I'm anxious for the school day to end. The carpool line starts rolling in seventy-three minutes and I can't wait to get there.