I don’t always get it right, hell none of us do. That’s not the point of parenting. The point is to do our best; to show up for our kids; to be there, I guess? Sometimes our “best” falls horribly short. Sometimes we yell and scream at the tiny humans we swore to protect; sometimes we hear the harsh, impatient, tired words coming out of our mouth, and know that if someone else spoke to our kids the same way, we would be horrified, and want to shield our child from that person in that moment.

Some of the hardest times of parenting can be the continued and repetitive, monotonous lessons we try and teach our kids, hoping one day they finally get it. Sometimes they surprise us. Some of the best parenting moments for me, is seeing them put the things that I have tried over and over to teach them, in action…. finally…..

I have seen Chance growing up so much lately. I know I am particularly hard on him and his behaviour, being the eldest child; I expect so much of him and from him, and I often forget that he is still just a kid. My big nine-year-old boy. I have seen him at the start of a storm, where a year ago he would have melted down and lost his cool. He still does that from time to time, but the meltdowns are few and far between now, and all he needs is some space, and a bit of time, and he will come and apologise and speak to me in a calm voice.

The other evening, at the start of such a storm, I saw him with tears in his eyes, take some deep breaths to calm himself, saying out loud “it’s okay”. This blew my mind and I had a big chat to him afterwards about how proud I was to see him do that.

Sometimes parenting is banging your head against a brick wall. Sometimes it’s lying next to your child on a soft pillow with a full heart. I wish all of my fellow parents out there in the trenches, a soft pillow/full heart experience in the lead up to end of school and Christmas. What a joy it is.