Admittedly, parenting is hard. It's much harder than I thought it would be. I suppose I can be thankful that I thought so highly of my skills before they were actually put to the test. Otherwise, I may not have been brave enough to have a child, and surely wouldn't have considered six of them!
A big frustration and an even bigger embarrassment is when I fail to teach my children something obvious. I sure was surprised when the doctor asked me if Daniel played Peek-A-Boo when he was still tiny. What? Am I supposed to include that in the curriculum of life? Nursery rhymes, too? What the heck is Sesame Street for?
Occasionally, I run across skills and concepts that I assume my children have acquired - mostly from my amazing hands-on, real-time examples. Did you know I've never had to teach the kids how to flush the toilet? They picked that up on their own! And it's amazing the way they just know that shoes go on their feet, rather than their hands. But it was a little exercise in patience trying to explain to Leah through the answering machine that she needed to push the green button that says TALK to answer the phone and talk with me. I think she finally got it during the third call.
So I guess there are some things I think are clear to the kids, only to find out I sorely misjudged the situation. This was reinforced this afternoon when Rebekah says: Do you know what I learned from a book today? Me: What? Rebekah: Animals do not wear underwear.
Ah...a perfect example of something I didn't think I needed to actually teach.
They might wear underwear if they knew we could see their bums under the fur they think covers them completely.
ReplyDeleteWould you like to teach my kids how to flush the toilet?
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