I'm not sure when or why he started praying such prayers.
Each night at the dinner table he asks God for the same handful of things.
Our Siah asks that our president might make wise choices. He asks that our country would want to know more and more of God. And he asks that God would show him a miracle... like a Red-Sea-Parting-size-miracle.
And I have no idea what it is about potty training that absolutely ruins this Mama, but it has done just that... FOUR TIMES OVER.
There's something about potty training, that affirms how little control you really have over the little souls that romp around your living room day in and day out.
There's something about potty training that humbles you. Maybe it's the cleaning up of all the pee and poop hour after hour? Maybe it's the way you find yourself pleading with a two-year-old to at LEAST TRY to get his personal business in the potty?
I'm well aware of how incredibly ridiculous it sounds, but potty training is one of those things in life that can bring this Mama to an all time low in these privileged days of parenting these many small children.
Yes, all the pee on the floor left me sobbing like a baby on the front porch. And my sweet little Charmer came up to me, started rubbing my back, and told me as he stood there in his sopping wet underwear,
"It's gonna be okay Mama, it's gonna be okay."
He'sweet.
I'm pathetic?
But it's the truth of how it really went down.
So many things that aren't personal, feel personal.
My Cowboy heard me crying all the way from the barn and I could hear his boots sccuffling up the dirt road towards the farm house. I couldn't even look at him.
"Love, it's nothing personal. The kid has been peeing in one place for three years, you've got to give him more than a few hours to catch on."
"I know. I KNOW! But I've shown him and I've explained at least 100 times and, and , HE"S NOT EVEN TRYING!"
"He'll get it. He just needs a little time, a bit of grace from his Mama."
I sob out the words..."I-HATE-this!"
That Cowboy puts his hand under my chin and looks into my eyes and he laughs. And he reminds me of how I want everything right now.
And it's oh so true and I don't care for that quality about myself, but I can't figure out for the life of me how to change it.
I take a deep breath and I pull myself together.
I tuck the little Charmer into bed that night, kiss his forehead, and he rubs my cheek with his pudgy little hand. "Good night Mama, I wuv you."
On day 3, the Charmer wakes up dry, comes down stairs and goes in the potty as if he'd been doing it his whole life. And you would have thought that I had won the lottery, the way I cheered and laughed all giddy, and picked that kid up right there in the bathroom and swirled him around and kissed him like crazy.
Then at lunch time he got up from playing and told us all he had to go, and the three older kids start chanting his name, "Go, Jeddy, go! Go Jeddy go!" And my little boy is grinning from ear to ear. And he comes out the potty triumphant with his pants up to his waist and his shirt tucked in half way cuz he pulled them up himself after he flushed that pee-filled potty!
That night at the dinner table, my Siah prays his handful of prayers and when he gets to the part when he asks his Jesus for a miracle, I find myself whispering thanks... For on a Wednesday in late May, the most miraculous thing came to pass here at the farm house...
ALL FOUR TREASURES CAN PEE IN THE POTTY!
It is as if I have just witnessed the parting of the Red Sea with my very own eyes.
And what I'm most thankful for, is the way that the things I fear the most, God uses to bring these six folks under this roof, closer to one another , and closer to Himself.
The joy of a family coming together to cheer a little guy into the next phase of his growing up years, reminded me that potty training really has very little to do with the potty. But in fact it has helped us all to think outside of ourselves, yet again, cuz don' we all need to constantly be relearning that one? To practice patience? To encourage one another with our words and our actions?
It's the seemingly ridiculous things that bring me into the sweetest spots.
I love that.
And I love this little guy....
Jeddy, YOU THE MAN! WOOT! WOOT!
