It's Not Easy Being Two

My last post is not entirely fair to Andy, although it certainly expresses my own frustrations in parenting a soon to be two year old.

In fairness, Andy is developing a remarkably inquisitive, sensitive, bright and determined attitude towards the world around him. I have to put myself into his shoes, and wonder what it must be like to possess his depth of feeling without adequate means of self-expression.

He doesn't have his own blog. He doesn't have friends and family to call on the telephone. He doesn't yet have the ability to delay gratification. He can't empathize with his similarly emotionally-challenged cohorts. And he can't possibly be expected to sympathize with his poor sleep-deprived parents (that won't happen until he has his own sleepless Boy-Wonder). In short, Andy must feel a lot like I do a few days before my period with no chocolate in the house.

Kahlil Gibran said, "Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself."

I love Gibran's viewpoint, because it frees me from projecting myself onto Andy. Did my genes or influence cause him to be persistent, sensitive, and volatile? Perhaps. But, perhaps not. Life (God) longed for Andy to be just as he is.

Here's another often quoted verse, which makes me feel even better:

It takes every kind of people
To make what life's about
Every kind of people
To make the world go 'round

The song doesn't say It takes the easy-going, happy people
To make what life's about
The people who never resist or persist
To make the world go 'round

Nah, that would be much too boring. It wouldn't make a very good song, anyway.

Last week I picked up a copy of Your Spirited Child. The author puts a positive spin on traits that might be considered "difficult". She acknowledges that many parents of spirited kids must go through a period of mourning for the child they expected to have, or wanted to have. (For parents of disabled children, how much more intense their mourning must be!)

Mike and I wonder if this is the untold truth of parenting. Do any of us have the child or children we expect to have? (***Gasp***, this is how my parents must have felt!)