Another New Phase

Dear Gabriel,

You showed me a defiant side of you the other day. I feel like when it happened I had a flash forward a few years, and I do NOT want that kind of relationship.

We were getting ready in the morning and you HATE being pushed to rush. But we had to rush, so I pushed you. I pushed you to get dressed, brush your teeth, have breakfast, do all the morning rituals before getting out the door. The more I pushed, the more you looked at me with loathing.

As you were walking out the door you yelled at me, "You are a MEAN MOM!!". Then you slammed the door. It really hurt my feelings. A lot actually. It took me about an hour, until all of a sudden I just started crying about it. I haven't seen that side of you before and I realized that we are getting to another level of life with you. I have to learn new parenting skills with you now. I have to learn new tactics, because the "young child/toddler" tactics aren't working, and truly aren't appropriate to be using any more with you.

Here I am on unchartered ground again as a mother. A new phase I haven't been exposed to yet. New emotions and situations that haven't reared their ugly heads yet. But as I was thinking about this I had to remind myself that we are also approaching a time when there are so many more beautiful parts about our relationships that we can expand on.

You are thinking deeper. You are feeling things on a more sophisticated level. You can understand more when I explain complexities of situations to you. You are wanting to learn more and more and more and more about everything.

As I was dropping you off after all this happened, you came back to the car and gave me a hug, "I am so sorry mom that I disobeyed you." You are still young enough to apologize quickly and move forward.

I don't want our relationship in the future to be how it was pushing you in the morning. I don't want to push, push, push, nag, nag, nag to get you to respond to me. Sometimes thinking about how to parent in different situations is exhausting because I must have the humility to admit that it ALL STARTS WITH ME.

So my goal is to open my heart to the Lord's way of parenting. He doesn't push us. He waits for us. He reminds us. He lets us all on our faces and fail. And then he is there for us when we need Him after we are bruised up and learned a few lessons ON OUR OWN. That is where you are now. You want to learn so many lessons on your own.

I love you so much. Let's keep working on this together.

Love,

Your Mom