Purple Gorilla's

A few weeks ago, our family devotion was on fact and opinion. We wanted to teach our kids about truth.  As we read our Bible passage, we began to explain that things such as food, clothes, sport teams and so forth are examples of opinion. There are some things that we have the freedom to choose what we like and do not like. However, there are other things that are truth, whether one agrees or disagrees because God has set a standard. Tim and I were thinking that we must be doing a pretty decent job of explaining this to the kids because they all seemed to be listening intently. I should not have been surprised when Abbi interrupted me midsentence with this statement, “Mom, so it’s like if I think gorilla’s are purple but you say they are black.” All I could think was, “What?” Honestly, I couldn’t even understand what would make her think of that example in context of what we were discussing, much less have a good reply.  This was one of those moments where I wish I could crawl in her brain to see what’s swirling around in there. The purple gorilla completely stumped me. Thinking that the kids were completely missing the lesson, we just wrapped up the devotion and said our bedtime prayers. We thought that maybe we needed to wait a while before trying to explain fact and opinion. However, a few days later, Abbi brought up the purple gorilla’s again. Probably sensing my confusion on the matter, I suppose she decided to prove to me that she understood exactly what had tried to teach them. To my surprise, she explained that if a gorilla is black, but she says it’s purple, that doesn’t make it purple. She may not believe that it is black, but it is still black. I have to say, I felt proud and ashamed all at once.  Abbi had thought of a good example, after all. In fact, she was saying exactly what we were saying, just with an Abbi spin. Her example was so out of the box (I still don’t know where it came from!), however, that I could not stop to realize she was grasping the lesson. It was then that I realized not only how different my daughter and I are, but how much her perspective can contribute. This black and white brain would have thought of some kind of boring example, but not Abbi. As a mom, if I am going to parent her well, I must learn to get past that fact that she just approaches things differently.  Rather than being dumbfounded at her thought process, I’m going to have to appreciate her creative way of thinking. I will probably never fully “get” her, but I’m a little jealous of all the color in her life!

Choosing My Battles Wisely

It’s the third week of the new school year and mornings are running much more smoothly than they were this time last year. I must give partial credit to my genius idea of getting the kids up 30 minutes earlier than last year. Who knew that less sleep equals less chaos? However, our pleasant mornings can mostly be attributed to the absence of Abbi’s drama. This was no easy task. Mornings were nothing short of miserable most days last year. Her strong-will and my strong-will aren’t really compatible. Perhaps if our strong opinions were the same, but oh they are not at all. Somewhere between May and August, I wised up. With our biggest battle being her clothes, I evaluated the morning chaos from last year and realized that her meltdowns were usually a result of me trying to tell her what to wear.  It didn’t take too long into last school year for me to figure out that if I really wanted her to wear something, then I better not give any indication that I liked the article of clothing. Otherwise, it would not even be a consideration for her. Our battles continued, though, because in my mind I’m the parent and I obviously know what matches and looks best together. Right?  Obviously not. Over the course of my thought provoking summer trying to figure out how I would make mornings more pleasant this school year, I came to one conclusion. Her clothes are not a battle worth fighting. I must relinquish and let her pick out her own clothes. I know that some mom reading this, probably my sister, is laughing because you would never consider not letting your kids pick out their own clothes. This was honestly huge for me. You know what? She is actually pretty good at choosing her own clothes. She has gone to school every day looking very well matched. I will never admit this to her, but some of the outfits she has put together are much more cute than anything I would have chosen. It is always humorous to me how God likes to use my kids to teach me lessons. I am pretty sure this lesson is two-fold. First, as a parent I have to realize that it’s good for my kids to have their own tastes and styles. A frequent saying I use is, “God made you YOU, so don’t try to be anyone else.” If I am going to preach it, then I must parent it. Second, as a parent, I must keep the bigger picture in mind. Her clothes don’t really matter (as long as they are appropriate, modest and clean!). I want her to grow into the young woman God desires her to be. She really appreciates the freedom to make some decisions, so this has become a big step towards that direction. There has also been a change in our relationship over the past few weeks. The result of my letting go of this battle has been her seeking my wisdom and advice on more important things such as friends. I wish I were one of those parents who gets things right the first time. I seem to always get things completely wrong then figure out what I should be doing. I’ll just eat my humble pie and be thankful that everyone in my home had a good start to their day today.