THE PAGE IS RIPPED OUT!

Wouldn't it be nice if they sent you home from the hospital with a parenting manual? The manual was foolproof, error proof and promised 100% satisfaction guarantee or you could send them back or get an even exchange?

No, none of us wants to send our children back, but there are day when we wonder how things are going to turn out. I feel that this "manual" I posses has a few pages ripped out. The pages that explain the following:

• How to get your child to listen.
• How to get your child to stop arguing with you.
• How to get your child to sleep through the night.
• How to get your child to eat more than his 5 basic food groups--milk, hot dogs, string cheese, bananas, and cereal.

Are your pages missing too?

Here's how I rationalize that I'm doing the job the best I can and they won't be messed up someday. When I holler, I hear my mother's voice. I believe I turned out fine, so I must be doing things correctly. My own mother's voice being projected from my own frightens me, but also provides comfort. I once thought that she had it all wrong--putting clean clothes in the wash wasn't a problem. I wasn't being disrespectful when I talked back, I was de-fending myself. My room wasn't a mess, she could vacuum around all the clean clothes on the floor just as well as I could--but I was too busy. Huh? With what? I wasn't watching too much tv--I didn't need to get outside and play. She was a waitress. My waitress.

My all time favorite complaint of my mother was when she threatened to change her name. It always confused me why she wanted to do that. Now I know. Mom. Mom! MOM. MOM! MAAAAAAM! Only to be told when responding. "Awe, nothin."

What I didn't understand was my mother's manual was missing pages too. She was in the process of writing her own.

I wouldn't change it. Some days being MAAAAAAM! is the toughest job in the world. Those days I feel that I've failed, and wished I could have done better. But there is greater satisfaction in those tough days. Once the kids are fast asleep and the house is quiet, the reward of recharging my batteries seems so much better. Then we start again the next day--some days are a repeat of the day before, but more often than not, they are better.

So my mom's manual to raising children is now complete. It would be really easy if she just handed it over to me. Instead, she watches me write my own. Mine is far from complete, and I am sure there are going to be a few pages that I'd like to delete. Thus far, my chapter titles include, Kids are not robots. Kids can't be controlled. Kids can be difficult to understand. Kids love to test limits.

However, I just have to remember to "stay the course" as Scott tells me and to love them endlessly. They won't be babies for long, or even pre-schoolers for long. One day we'll be able to see that we parented well by writing our own and not following someone else's manual.