A big ol' slice of humble pie

So this post has been percolating for quite a while now...but I keep putting it off.  Because, well, it isn't an easy one to write.

If I may be brutally honest, there's nothing like parenthood to humble you.  I mean, most times, I like to think that I've got my stuff together.  But then something will happen, and I realize just how much I don't have it together.  Like I don't have a clue.  At all.

This cuts a little too close to home for me, because before I stayed at home (with both the Noodle and now Mei Mei), I taught in a self-contained classroom for Children with Autism.  What did I work on 99.9% of the time?  Behavior.  Specifically behavior modification.  For like reeeealllly challenging behaviors.  And you know what?  I was pretty good at it.  Pretty good at figuring out what the behavior was trying to communicate.  Pretty good at determining what the antecedents were (i.e. those things that lead up to a behavior happening that cause someone to go off).  Pretty good at coming up with strategies to replace the problem behaviors.  Pretty good at ignoring said problem behaviors.

So you can imagine my frustration when I put on my b-mod hat, pull out all my tricks and they all BOMB.  Now don't get me wrong.  Neither the Noodle nor Mei Mei are anywhere on the Autism spectrum nor do they have anywhere near the behaviors that I dealt with day in and day out in my classroom.  But.......temper tantrums are all too frequent, sharing of time, attention and "stuff" is HARD, frustration levels are running high and many days there is just a thin veneer of calm that shatters instantly if a look, comment or object is taken without warning.

Lord help me.  That pretty much sums up my prayer life lately.  Guide me.  Direct me.  And the hardest one (but probably the most important one of all) humble me.  And you know what?  He is...by saying "trust in ME".  "I am in control...NOT you.  No amount of charts, reinforcers, plans, etc. can do what I can do."

 

I don't think for a second that God isn't at the center of our situation.  I do have a sneaky hunch that this may be just as much about me yielding as it is about the kiddos.  Talk about humbling.  God certainly knows how to knock us off our pride pedestal right where we need it the most, no?!