I'm sensing a shift this week. Parenting has gone from trying to keep a child alive to being concerned with my son's behavior. Until now, our main concern has been trying to keep Cooper well fed, clean and healthy. Haven't been too successful at the healthy thing lately; he's getting over another virus right now. Fever, runny nose, vomiting.....Yuck! Well fed - now that we are good at! Now where was I............
Oh right, the shift. In the beginning, we, newbies, simply want our child to survive our feeble attempts at parenting. We are glad they have no memory of how terrible we were at diapers in the beginning. Or how we simply could not stop the crying. We just wanted to keep him alive and it was an incredible bonus if he was happy. The older Cooper gets, the more I realize this was the easy part.
Over the last few days, it seems my son is developing a bit of an attitude. He has learned which things or places in the house are not appropriate for him. And of course these are the things he wants most. He wants to eat the dirt out of the house plant. He hauls diaper to the laundry room in an attempt to sneak some dog food (unsuccessful as of this post). Maybe he's not as well fed as I thought - haha! He gets very upset when I try to steer him away from these things. He gets especially upset when I shut doors or pick him up and move him away from the dirt he most desires.
We have reached the point of no return. We can never go back into survival mode. From now until he's grown (and for a while after that, I'm sure) we will constantly be monitoring his behavior. We will be correcting, training, scolding, teaching. I know we will have lots of fun along the way, but in the end I hope to have a well-mannered, respectful, godly man. Guess God will be hearing a lot more from me - praying for my son......and my sanity!
Gotta go! Someone learned to climb stairs!
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