wibbit

Tonight I received an email from a good friend who was "experiencing parental difficulties". She asked for advice. Funny that she did, today of all days. I actually had a good hearty boo-hoo today at lunchtime over my exactly in the middle child. I do so much with No. 1's activities and am constantly in a dialogue with the two little ones (come get your diaper changed, are you hungry, pick up this item off the floor, stop doing that, calm down, etc etc etc etc ad nauseum)
Second- and third-born both get lost in the shuffle.

I wish I had've had some wise counsel for her. I told her, "if it is any consolation, I do always remember your saying everyone should have than one child to spread their own crazies out. Not fair to make an only child get the brunt of all Mom's issues. "But", I added, "about me having five? It has pushed me into a whole new set of neuroses!"

Oh, and the thing that set me off at lunch? Sweet nine-year-old number 3 asked me if I wanted to see the little green frog. "Sure", I replied, not knowing what I was in for. She was holding onto King's hands and he was lifting her as she jumped straight into the air. Simple enough. That's all there was to it. No tricks, no flips. Stupid, right? But it was cracking her up. So much so that each time she composed herself and tried to jump up, she collapsed in laughter again.
All of a sudden I caught a glimpse of her as a young woman, dressed in white, just before heading away with the man who will take her away from this nest. "Daddy, do you remember it? Let's do little green frog! Come on, before we dance. And everyone will see her bald, slender, grizzly-faced daddy lift her up as she collapses in laughter. Those standing on the perimeter of the dance floor will smile and giggle politely, but will think it is simple and stupid. No one will know how special it is to the bride and her daddy. The two of them may not even know, but yet it will be.
That's when I lost it. Through sobs I told "three" how much she meant to me. How deeply I love her. How it makes me sad and frustrated that I don't get to spend as much time with her as I'd like to. "Times like this," I said, "remind me of the sweet, happy girl that you were when you were 3." And 4. But sometime during 5 she became jaded by older siblings who had a chronic case of the grumps....and a mom who was expecting her fourth and quickly after her fifth child.

I told my dear friend with three nearly adult sons that my only stab at trying-to-get-it-right stems from another piece of advice she and her husband gave us after they had watched a set of videos from church: Apologize. And be truthful about feeling spread too thin and the fact that you try to be all things to all children and that sometimes you fail. Pray together as a family for a spirit of forgiveness. Then move on.