The Sampler – Understanding? Impossible.

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5 Minutes for Mom brings you exclusive samplings from the best mom blogs in our weekly column, The Sampler, hosted by 5 Minutes for Mom contributing editor Shera, from A Frog In My Soup.

Recently Rachel Callahan, the mom behind the blog, Grasping for Objectivity in my Subjective Life introduced herself to me and offered today’s post for The Sampler! She began blogging in February and was instantly in love, not only with the ability to keep a journal for her daughter, but also because of the awesome community and social interaction being part of the mommy blogosphere offers. Through blogging she also discovered something about herself, “I have always wanted to be a funny person, but have never had the delivery to do so – it just never comes out as funny as it was in my head. However, since blogging, I have discovered that I AM funny, I just need to WRITE it instead of tell it!” I truly hope that you enjoy today’s Sample!

Understanding? Impossible.

I sat, exhausted in every way, trying to understand why I was exhausted. I always overanalyze – I want to have a REASON for everything so that I can categorize it and put it in the neat little box where it belongs.

I realized that I was exhausted because I didn’t understand what happened. Yesterday morning my cute, bubbly, compliant and loving 18 month old woke up a 2 year old. She was belligerent, said “uh uh” to everything I asked her to do, hit the nearest thing in sight anytime I told her no, and gave me looks that could freeze the Gulf of Mexico. Then, just a few hours later, she was back to her loving, cute, happy, laughing self.

How does this happen? What caused it? What should I do differently? My blog, after all, is called “Grasping for Objectivity in my Subjective Life”. I’m a numbers girl – a logic girl. This must make sense somehow!!

Then I realized, I am not, nor will ever have insight great enough to understand what drives a toddler. Just like I didn’t know why she cried constantly when she was five months old. Sometimes, parenting is a mystery.

So when will parenting become more objective? When will I understand my child and why she acts the way she does? Certainly not when she’s a teenager. I wonder how many times my Mom went to bed at night, exhausted simply because I was beyond understanding.

BUT – she was a great Mom. An effective Mom. She taught me what I needed to know and she taught it well. It stuck. Even though it may not have shown on those blustery teenage days where I was incomprehensibly illogical, it DID work.

So, maybe I don’t have to understand to be a great Mom. Maybe I just have to try my best with the understanding that God sees fit to give me. I don’t have to analyze my daughter’s every move to make it fit into a logical box, I just need to go with it, one day at a time, slow and steady, keeping my eyes on the big picture – to raise my daughter to love and follow God.

~ Written by Rachel Callahan of Grasping for Objectivity in My Subjective Life.

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This column is Hosted by Shera. She can be found at A Frog In My Soup