What do you do when you feel like the world's worst parent?

On Sunday afternoon, we asked little man to clean his room. He had spent most of the day dumping out all of his toys playing. We gave him about 15-20 minutes to clean; a perfectly acceptable time frame in our eyes. About every five minutes, we went into his room to remind him to keep cleaning and that all of his toys that weren't put away would take a time out. Each time I walked in, he was deep in play. Cleaning was clearly the furthest thing from his little mind. I wanted so badly to toss the toys into his bins; a task that would've taken me all of two minutes. I knew that after the 20 minutes, there would still be toys on the floor. We'd take them, and then he'd throw a fit. I wanted to avoid that, but I knew I needed to let this learning opportunity unfold. I resisted. And then all hell broke loose.

We explained (again) that his toys would take a time out for the rest of the night since he did not follow instructions. He screamed. We asked him to please stand up and take a deep breath. He threw his body on the ground. We asked again.  He kicked and hit his fists on the ground and yelled. We asked him again to stand up and take a breath, and if he did not, we would continue to take toys out of his room. The screaming continued. And pretty soon, his room was empty. Literally...empty. The bunk bed and dresser remained. He even lost his sheets and blankets because he ripped them off the bed during his tantrum (it's been our policy at home that if he cannot treat things nicely, he will lose them for a while). All of his room went into the next door office despite his pleading, sobbing, and trying to pull toys from our hands. When the room was clear, we asked him to stand up and take a deep breath or we'd start to take his birthday and Christmas presents too. The tantrum got worse. We took his presents. We made him sit in his bare room until he was done and calm down. An hour later, he was ready to talk and we were exhausted.

We made him put all of his stuff from the office back into his room by himself and explained the presents would have to be earned back by not receiving safety rooms at school (these are isolated time outs away from the other kids that really take a lot to get). We know he can go without safety rooms because he's done it many, many times. We know that he can snap out of his tantrums and we're trying to teach him how to do this, but I feel like nothing we try is working. It's two days until his birthday, and he has only earned one of three birthday presents back and has earned no Christmas presents.

My fear is his birthday will come and we'll have to return presents because he did not earn them back. Part of me wants to stick to my guns and take the presents back to show him we will follow through (though I really don't think he questions our follow through. We are not wafflers!). The other part of me thinks this would be a great lesson to demonstrate God's grace and explain how God gave us the free gift of salvation and eternal life even though we make bad choices. How do we know which is the right decision? I'm exhausted thinking about it. Today I feel like the world's worst...and meanest...parent.

"Growth in the Midst of Obstacles"

This weekend I've been thinking an awful lot about priorities and how I divide my time. On my 10 miler yesterday, I listened to Mumford and Sons, and the song, "Awake My Soul" , my favorite Mumford song, came on. There's a line in here that reads, "Where you invest your love, there you invest your life..." The truth of this lyric hits me every time I hear it.

Then today at church, our pastor's sermon was titled "Obstacles in the Midst of Growth;" he preached out of Acts 6:1-7. If you're not familiar with it, Acts describes the birth of the Christian, New Testament church. In this portion of Acts, the disciples experience a huge increase in the number of believers...the text doesn't say exactly, but our pastor likened it the growth to going from 500 to 8,000 believers in a matter of months. His sermon focused primarily on how the church should respond to obstacles presented by growth. In this particular instance in the New Testament church, the number of believers increased so rapidly that other things were being neglected, namely helping widows and preaching the word of God (Acts 6: 1-2). So, the leaders of the day suggested that they choose seven wise men who were filled with the Spirit to carry out these deeds. The body commissioned these men by praying for them, and the text tells of the results: "And the word of God continued to increase, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith" (Acts 6:7).

Our pastor pointed out that growth requires an element of change without changing our principles, just like the apostles decided in the situation above. They knew they had to adjust things in order to keep their principles alive. I kept thinking about this in terms of my own life--as my family grows and as I grow as a teacher, there are more demands on my time. Sometimes I slip into survival mode; our pastor described this by saying we get so busy doing things right that we don't stop to reflect on whether or not we are doing the right things. My survival mode doesn't always maintain my principles. When I'm entrenched in this mentality, I trade my Bible time for grading time. I spend more time working than with my family. I eat crap food instead of healthy food. My principles get shoved aside in survival mode.

The leaders of the early church had things figured out. When they experienced the obstacles of growth, they didn't slip into survival mode. They spent more time praying than planning, they studied the word, they relied on the power of the Holy Spirit, and fellowshipped with other believers. This is what allowed their growth to be successful (Acts 6:7). It's a great template for how to manage our own obstacles as we grow in our families and careers.

Adoption

I guess I realized this week that this is the only space I haven't made our upcoming adoption public, so this is me making it public. The end of this month will mark four months with our little man. It's been a trying four months, but last week we were reviewing some of his files and doing paperwork for our adoption finalization, and we were reminded how much he's grown in a year. He's an incredible little boy whose traveled a rough road, and unfortunately his memory is impeccable. We are not rock star parents, but we are stable for him. And stability does a whole lot of good for kids.

After he's with us for 6 month, he can officially become ours. He has begun calling us mom and dad more consistently, and a few times he's said his last name was Helzer. He also claims Sampson is his brother, so I'd say he's fairly warm to the idea of us adopting him. 

While the road to parenthood has not been easy for us, I wouldn't trade it for anything. This little guy has captured our hearts and made us feel a love we've never known before.