My Outlandish Life

I love the phrase “Jonah Day”.  “I’m having a Jonah Day” just seems to say it all to me.  It doesn’t get a lot worse than it did for Jonah, a day that started bad and ended worse.  But to say I’ve had a Jonah Day doesn’t sum it up.  It’s been a Jonah week.  And just like Anne, I feel as though I have Marilla Cuthbert standing over my shoulder saying all I need is a plum puff and I’ll be fine, and you know…she’s probably right.  If by plum puff she meant wine and a massage!

If you’re completely baffled by my references, well then, I’m sorry for you.  But if you must know, it’s from Lucy Maud Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables.  This is my favorite book series, the movies I must MUST watch every time I’m sick, and the reason I long to go to Prince Edward Island.  Now you know.

Americans, we’re so dramatic.  But I can’t help it, it’s who I am.  And right or not, A Jonah week is what it feels like it’s been.  Even as I type the words it feels ridiculous.  I have a beautiful home, healthy children that I get to hold and kiss every day, a job I love, and a husband who adores me, do I get to even say I have Jonah day’s…much less weeks?  Probably not.  But since I do have a flare for the dramatics, I’m going to complain a little.

You know when you hit that point in life (maybe your finances, your job, your marriage, your family) when you go “wait, this isn’t what I thought it was going to be, this isn’t what I planned”.  Yup, I’m there.  I’m there in the form of parenting.  Instead of no instruction manual, there were about a billion, and I was certain I had taken what I needed from each to create the perfect children.  I’m being facetious of course, but really, not.  Never NEVER was I prepared to have kids that push the limits, rock the boat, rebel, and literally leave you on your knees praying and crying.

Now here’s the funny thing, I’ve totally told every parent ever that this is parenting.  You want your kids to push the limits, to not take what you’ve said as truth and never grapple with it.  You want your kids to question.  Rebellion is a normal part of child rearing.  It’s healthy.  But I didn’t want it to happen here!

But alas, it has.  My kids are not perfect.  In fact, they screw up regularly.  And this week the screw ups have been catastrophic.  My teenager is rebellious, questioning, frustratingly, well…stupid.  I hear they get their brains back eventually.  I’ll be waiting.  My 10 year old never thinks before acting, we call him the bull in the china cabinet.  And my 6 year old is a button pusher with the best of them, she wants to know where the lines are so she can be sure to step over them.  I keep telling myself that they are leaders, sometimes this helps…sometimes.

In truth, it’s exhausting!  And some weeks they gang up on you.  Life piles it’s heartaches in dump trucks sometimes and leaves you at the bottom of the heap.

I know that what I tell every parent is true.  This is parenting.  It will all be ok.  You pull yourself up by your boot straps, take the appropriate measures, teach and pray, and get through the day.  Tomorrow is always fresh with no mistakes in it (Pollyanna).  Yes, I’m a bit of a Pollyanna, but what I really need today is a plum puff, or wine and a massage, definitely prayer.