Better Stinky Diaper than Stinky Attitude

I am drowning!!

I am loosing him!!

I am a horrible parent!!!

I walked in the kitchen yelling this at Chad.  You should have seen the look he gave me.  Thoughts have been brewng in my head and I am completely stressed out.  Luckily I have a GREAT husband and parents that can talk me off the edge.

I love being a mom.  I have been blessed with 2 incredible kids.  The Lord has put great examples, friends, and bible studies in my life that have helped us through parenting.  It has not been easy and it has been ALOT of work but the valleys seemed very rare and almost forgotten.

But now.... 

It is a WHOLE new ball game now.   My children have changed in the blink of an eye, well not really but it feels like it.  Now I am realizing the parenting I have done the past nine years is NOT the parenting I need and it does not work now.   How do I parent? What do I do?  How do I handle this?   

Over the past 6 months I have watched my children separate, meaning they have been best friends for 7 years and now they have nothing in common.  Their friendship has not only been a blessing to me but something that I have loved to watch and cherished.   It makes me sad to realize they have their own friends and that they don't have the same interests (not bad, just a change)

I have watched the issues that we deal with as parents change.  It used to be easy things that all it took was a talk, a time out and worse case, a spanking. (I can't even remember the last time we had to do that). 

Parenting now.......well it has been the most humbling part of parenting so far.   There is a lot I can not control.  The issues are matters of the heart.  I have had to learn to LET them make their own choices, where as before I have always made them for them.

Now let me tell you, after talking to my man and my mom, I feel a lot better.  They remind me that I STILL have O-mazing kids.   They reminded me that we have been great parents and taught them well to this point.   It is time to learn a whole new kind of parenting.  

Another personal struggle I have is this pedestal.  So many of my friends tell me,

*your kids are perfect

*when I have kids, I want to be an awesome mom like you

*You need to teach a parenting class

*I am going to send you my kids to you for you to parent.

I feel like I have no one to go to talk to.  If I did, I feel like they would laugh and say, I have nothing to complain about (and truthfully I don't)  I just wish I knew someone I could through this journey with. 

I feel like I am drowning because all of this is hitting me at once and I am not prepared.

I feel like I am "loosing" Ian only because I am losing my parenting role.  I just have to learn this new stage of parenting

I feel like I am a horrible parent because I feel like I am letting my kids down because I do not know what I am doing.

Right now. I just have to turn to God.

Pray for Wisdom

Patience

Guidance

Role models/mentors

and mostly pray for my precious kiddoes' hearts.  Matters of the heart are so much harder than matter of right or wrong.  As my Dad puts it soooooo well.....BETTER STINKY DIAPER THAN STINKY ATTITUDE.

HERE IS TO THE NEXT 9 YEARS AT THE SHADS HOME!!!  (it will soon be a faint memory too)