Fear not, little flock

One of the benefits to having a baby later in life is that I have been privileged to watch all sorts of people raise their own children, secretly (or not) judge them, and plan out what/when/where/how I would rear my own family.

One of the benefits to living so far from friends and family is that they are forced to mind their bidness and I don't have to hear about what I am doing wrong in the child rearing department.

And one of the greatest pleasures that I have encountered is the lessons I have learned, time and again, that God knows my kid, knows me, and knows what we need. Even if my family, friends, and even my brain tells me it is wrong.

Tonight it took me three hours to put Jooj to sleep. Actively putting her to sleep, not just letting her drift off on her own after she played around for an hour or two.

First, I tried the way I decided on three years ago--and the way we had been doing it for three years-- after watching friends and family do things. It resulted in screaming, hitting, and kicking.

Then, I tried the Super Nanny way, wherein I just keep putting her in bed, without talking to her. I did this fifteen times. It resulted in her having an honest-to-goodness panic attack, screaming "Please talk to me Mami! I need you! I need you!"

Then I switched my prayer from "Please help her to go to sleep" to "Please let me know what to do with her." And I had one of those pure-knowledge, instant relief moments. I realized that what worked before was not going to work now, because she is different now. She is older, with a vivid imagination, and she has not left my side in a year. I realized that she has been away from her father for one year, this week, and even though she doesn't seem to be bothered by his absence, she feels it deeply. I remembered the other day when she just burst into tears for no reason at all, and I realized that she had been keening for him. That she feels my grief and my stress, and it piles onto her a little bit. And I felt her personality--just felt aspects of it. Insights and quirks and things about her that all of a sudden made sense. I just suddenly became wiser about my child, because she is His child, first and foremost. And He needs her to go to sleep and grow and bloom and He needs me to be her mother--specifically her mother.

And then I knew exactly what to do: I held her for a while. I put her down, rubbed her legs, and whispered to her the litany of people that love her. Twice. And she fell right to sleep.

Consider the lillies how they grow: they toil not, they spin not; and yet I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

If then God so clothe the grass, which is to day in the field, and to morrow is cast into the oven; how much more will he clothe you, O ye of little faith?

And seek not ye what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, neither be ye of doubtful mind.

For all these things do the nations of the world seek after: and your Father knoweth that ye have need of these things.

But rather seek ye the kingdom of God; and all these things shall be added unto you.

Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.

Luke 12: 27-32