It is astonishing how much I don't know about parenting.

I love my mom, but she was not a good role model for parenting. She fell off on both sides of the horse. Predominantly, she was really passive and did not set boundaries for us. But when she did attempt to discipline us, she did so irritation and anger. She would make threats in anger ("If you do this, you will not be allowed to do this" or "I'm going to make you do this") and then slide back on them, unless we made her angry again. She stopped spanking us when we were young, because I don't think she liked doing it, and resorted to just saying things to make us feel ashamed of ourselves. Which didn't really end up well either, psychologically speaking.

And yeah, no dad in the picture. Just grandparents who were hesitant to act like parents, even though we probably needed it.

So here I am now, a grown-up confused woman with a 1-year-old who is learning about his independence.

Conclusion: I HAVE NO EARTHLY CLUE what I am doing! A lot of times, I don't even know where to start. It's insane. I'm sitting here looking at myself going, "Who the heck are you?? Do you even know how to function in the real world? What happened to the self-assured mom you just were a few seconds ago?!"

Kids keep us on our toes for sure. Always changing. So after a really nice season of parenting, somebody yelled, "PLOT TWIST!" and here we go again, learning everything all over again.

I'm so incredibly thankful for Stephen. He is WAY better at this parenting thing than I am. But I can't call him every single time during his 10-hour days I find myself faced with a new parenting conundrum that I can't even find the first step out of.

So anyway, I've asked for prayers from a fe groups of people, without divulging all the info about my mom to all of them (I did to one secret group). I need mental clarity and direction and most of all the fortitude to keep plugging right along as the winds of a new season kick up around me.

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