September 23

Isaac has been unusually emotional lately. He gets frustrated easily, loses his cool, and cries over what are, on the surface, extraordinarily insignificant things. (No lie: being told to get dressed can --and often will-- send him into a tailspin.) This morning was no different, and he pitched a fit all the way to lunch, and then continued complaining and whining and dragging his feet as we walked into Red Tractor. Adam was mad. I was mad. But just before I yelled at him, I had a moment of clarity: getting mad at him hasn't historically helped at all. In fact, it's like throwing gas on a raging fire. So I tried something entirely different. While Adam ordered, I had him sit on my knee and we had a little chat.

I don't really remember what we talked about, but that dose of close, one-on-one contact had an instant impact on his mood. The tears stopped, he leaned his head against my shoulder, and seemed to just... relax. We looked through pictures of potential Halloween costumes on my phone, he pointed out a few he liked, and by the time the food came, he was back to being Sweet Isaac. He even finished all of his food in record time and walked peacefully back to the car.

Almost 13 full years into this parenting-thing, I can say with complete conviction that it's hard. Actually, hard isn't a strong enough word: it's a blend of gut-wrenching, painful, frustrating, and difficult that I couldn't even come close to imagining until we welcomed Abby to the outside world. But those rare moments when I'm sure I've done the right thing --like I did this afternoon by keeping my cool-- it's also an amazing, wonderful, and deeply fulfilling gift. Of course I'm thankful for the hallelujah moments, but I'm thankful for the harder ones, too. It's painfully cliche (and I'm cringing even writing it out), but it's so true that the difficult times magnify the greatness of the good ones.