Parenting

For anyone who knows Ben and I, it's no surprise that Kyle is our strong-willed child.  He was lucky enough to have both parents be very strong-willed themselves.  Parenting his strong-willed little self is very challenging at times.  Most days I ask him to do something and he looks at me and laughs and does what he wants.  Which usually results in me saying if he doesn't obey me right now he will be getting a spanking for disobedience and then he usually obeys.  His new thing is when I ask him to get in the car he runs off so I get in the car, act like I'm leaving and he screams and runs to get in.  It's very much a battle of the wills lately.

One big battle is naps.  He still is too tired to not take an afternoon nap but tells be everyday, "I don't like naps."  I then tell him everyone has to take naps and so does he.  I would let him just read books in his room or whatever but it usually results in some kind of temper tantrum from being so tired and waking up his brother who is napping in the next room.  So I have to lay down with him in his bed and usually nap with him.  It takes a while usually to get him to calm down and be still to allow himself to go to sleep.  This is no surprise to me because since he was born he has hated naps.  I had to let him just cry and figure out how to go to sleep on his own when he was an infant because he WOULD NOT take a nap.  I tried rocking him, and he would scream.  Finally after about 3 days he figured it out and napped great after that.  Then once he could climb out of his crib he had more freedom than he could handle and wouldn't take a nap unless he had me there to help him.  It's hard being a parent.

But today I got a huge blessing and encouragement from God to keep on keeping on even though Kyle makes me feel like the worst parent in the world sometimes.  After he through a fit when he woke up from his nap (a very common occurance...you'd think he would wake happy after a nap) I went outside and he came out and said, "Mommy I'm sorry for yelling in anger."  I almost cried.  It made me so happy.  I hugged him and told him I forgave him and was so happy that he apologized to me.

So even though parenting is really hard, it's the little things that make it worth it.