Life lessons can be so hard to learn when you are a kid BUT when you are that kid’s momma….. BOY HOWDY is it hard!! Life lessons are hard for parents because it is hard to watch your kid learn painful lessons and it is hard to walk through those life lesson with them and allow them to happen… BUT sometimes it’s hard because you have a particularly spicy rascal who desperately NEEDS to learn a life lesson but is so hard headed and such a tough nut to crack that you have to fight to find a way for them to learn.
Case in point…young Brock Jonathan Marsh. Brock is our spicy #3. Brock is our ladies man, our con artist, our sweet talkin’, big grinnin’, always gigglin’ rascal for whom we daily pray HUMILITY to enter his life. Brock wears his emotions on his sleeve and has a very difficult time with controlling his anger. Yeah, I know…many people would say, “But that sweet boy is only 7 years old…he’ll learn someday but for now… Momma, you should relax”. You are right… he will learn… but at 7 years old this fella is in prime learning position to learn before consequences get bigger and bite him harder in his adorable little hiney.
So here’s our morning. Breakfast goes good. No one gets grounded in the first hour and a half of the morning (a feat of no small measure in this house). Attitudes are good, shoes are on, lunches are packed and we are out the door for school without any major incident. This is HUGE friends! As we are walking to school I am thinking “Dang! Good morning! It’s gonna be an awesome day” ….and then..,,it hits. Zack won’t listen to Brock’s story because Mr. Zack is more interested in running to school ahead of us because at 9 1/2 years old he is way too cool some days to be seen walking with Mom and little brother. (We will discuss the suckage factor of 9 1/2 year old boys at a later date but man o sakes alive, this momma was not prepared for the insanity that is the roller coaster of bat crap crazy emotions from a tween boy. I knew it was coming with Kayla….just not Zack man). I digress…so Zack refuses to listen to Brock’s story which SETS… THE… BROTHER… OFF!!!! Brock becomes a raging inferno of pissed off-ed-ness. Staying cool, because I was a happy momma this morning and hadn’t reached crazy, screaming lady status yet, I reminded young Brock that it did indeed suck for Zack to make the choice to not hear Brock’s awesome story and he’s the one missing out. Well, kids, apparently that was not enough because Brock started slamming his backpack down on the ground and screaming and stomping off in a anger induced haze of insanity. So, for this momma, that ain’t even a little appropriate and in front of God, the school and the awesome police man who catches the Clarke Farms speeders, I grabbed that fool’s ear (the best child holding point God ever invented because they can…not…get…away!) and we marched on to school. Wait…it gets better!!!! As we are marching to school we see the new principal (who is a big dude by the way. Great for little kids because big dudes can be both cool and scary at the same time) He asks Brock why he was so hacked off and the story comes out that Brock is choosing a angry sucky attitude. Yep…totally me! I ratted my kid out and don’t feel even a little bad about it. I started talking about choices and attitudes and God bless this man…he jumped right on board the momma train and told Brock he could make a choice to have a better day but it was his choice. We walk off and Brock, being Brock, had “absolutely no intention of having a better day thank you very much because he was pissed and he was going to stay that way til he was good and ready to be a decent functioning part of society again..so there!”. I kiss my blessed fool goodbye, tell him I love him and start to walk home…5 seconds later he runs up to me with a look of sheer panic on his face…HIS GATORADE IS MISSING!!!! OMG!!! ALERT THE MEDIA, CALL OUT THE DOGS, PUT ON A FULL ON MISSING DRINK SEARCH, THIS IS THE END OF LIFE!!!!!
Yes, I am quite aware it’s….a….Gatorade. But to this fella, to which little in life is a big deal, Gatorade is a HUGE deal. No idea why. Maybe it’s the flavor, maybe the cool bottle???, maybe it’s the sticky quality that makes many people want to puke, but this kid LOVES his Gatorade. So, Brock’s a smart kid (a fact I do often call into question but it is true) and he figures out right quick that it must have fallen out when he threw down his backpack. I do believe his exact words were “when I dropped my backpack”. Hmmmmm…is that what we are calling slamming down a backpack in a fit of insanity these days? “And Momma…oh my sweet momma would you go find it and bring it back to school because I can’t possibly survive without the juice, woman!”. Yeah, those weren’t his exact words but it was pretty pitiful!
You know, life is full of choices. Attitude about life and events and, well…about everything…is a CHOICE. No one can choose your attitude but you. It’s all yours. People can try to affect it, people can try to change it, but it is ultimately your own choice. This important fact we strive to teach the whole of the Marsh Big Top because Gregg and I are determined to do whatever we can with the time God has given us with these crazy little human gifts to teach them and help them to someday become decent members of the adult human population. We want them to be enabled to make good decisions (and we know they won’t all the time, God knows we didn’t) and when they make bad ones we want them to be able to get up, dust themselves off, acknowledge they chose wrong, accept the free gift of Jesus’s forgiveness and move on with life and try with God’s help to do better the next time.
So with that in mind, today Gatorade became a life lesson. I did in fact find it on my way home. I did NOT however, turn around and take it back to my ill tempered sea bass. It is now sitting on the counter in the kitchen waiting for him to get home. I told him before I left that it does suck that he doesn’t have his Gatorade but he is the one who made the choice to slam down his backpack which resulted in the losing of the precious drink. Yeah, I’ll admit, I totally laughed when I got a very pitiful sounding voicemail from the young lad asking if I had found it and when I am bringing it to school. I did write his teacher an e-mail to let her know that I will in fact not be bringing it to school and my life lesson teaching reasons why and to thank her for showing up to work today ;-).
You see, I am learning that as hard as it is to see your little ones upset and hurt (yeah..still knowing it’s only a flippin’ Gatorade), and as hard as it is to sometimes not do whatever you can to make them smile, it is so important for them to learn those life lessons. Sometimes I really do wish that these 3 gray hair giving gifts Gregg and I got had come out with a “how to” manual but then I realize that they are so spicy and so different and I don’t have time to read a manual anyway… so thank God he didn’t send one because it would have just meant more work for me! And then I am thankful for God’s daily graces and the help He gives me with raising these people and the humor He brings to my life so I can laugh when Gatorade becomes a life lesson.
A Beautiful Mess 