practice of the virtue

So Kate is wearing me thin. So thin! I never imagined myself the hardened harsh mother who speaks gruffly and sarcastically to her children. I always imagined myself a gentle mother. the image in my head was of a woman dressed in soft white with the sunlight dancing about her, illuminating her hair and face as she sits in the grass with her happy children quietly, yet gayly, playing together. Mind you, there were always four or five children, young children, in these daydreams. Very romantic, no? Is the life I’m living now very romantic? No.

Things have been progressively deteriorating over the past few months. It’s no wonder either, what with John’s work continuing at an insane pace, my own pursuits into teaching infant sign language classes, and other major happenings in the last three months. And then there’s the fact that Kate is now 3 years old. A life stage that seems to imbue an already spirited and opinionated toddler with a more intelligent, questioning, and downright willful pre-school persona. Now, I say intelligent, for her sheer knowledge and ability to retain information is astonishing to me. Yes, she is intelligent but far from reasonable. And it’s this that gets me.

“Kate, please wait there for Mama. I’ll be right there.”

She pauses about 10 feet away, only long enough to turn her curly hair aside and take a peek at my face, and then she smiles wryly and darts off faster than before. Every entreaty to wait, to listen, to walk “like a person”, every warning of time-outs, consequences, or punishments go unheeded. I listen to the escalating severity in my voice as I hurry after and finally catch up with her. And then I’m left hoarse, red faced, out of breath and contemplating re-examining my stance on corporal punishment as a means of discipline. All this while holding desperately onto Jack hoping he doesn’t go toppling out of the one arm I have only half free.

I pray and pray for patience. I’m given daily practice of the virtue. And daily I fail. And the worst is I know the strategies of positive guidance. I know the strategies of parenting that should and could work. Yet I can’t seem to get them from their neat and tidy university-era file in my brain and bring them to the forefront of present life. Maybe it’s not Kate I need patience with, maybe it is me.