You Need to Believe

Jack and James couldn't be more different.  Jack is a "goer," while James is a "watcher."  James will sit and do little to nothing, and be perfectly happy with it.  Jack, on the other hand, moves; all the time.  Sitting for him includes a waste of precious seconds that he could be utilizing to build another block fort, eat more food, or destroy something else within the house.  I see myself in each little man, and I see Cole in them as well.  It is in these wonderful gifts of parenthood that I have moments of weakness.  Such weakness includes my own vices of impatience and frustration, as well as weak knees and watery eyes when Jack kisses James, or James grabs my hand and squeezes it.  I find myself to be a tough, mushy mama.
I am a walking contradiction, it is true.

Children are capable of the same contradictions.  They are adorable.  They are annoying.  They go from being the cute lovable Gizmo in Gremlins, to the Gremlins themselves.  Walking contradictions.
Adorably annoying, lovable gremlins.
Enter the lesson from this week...
This past week Jack has decided to not sleep.  By not sleep I mean fight bedtime, and wake up intermittently throughout the night.  By waking up at 3, and 4, and 5 he then wakes up James.  Jack will go back to sleep, then James will wake up.  Then James falls to sleep and Jack wakes up.  And?  So the cycle continues.  The cycle continues, and mom needs an insane asylum for the sole purpose of passing out surrounded by nothing but white walls and absolute silence.  To say that this mom is exhausted, both mentally and physically, would be a gross understatement.
Enter this morning.

This morning I decided to take matters into my own hands, and make Jack sleep.  (I can hear you laughing already, "Yeah, make him sleep.  How'd that work out for you?)  Hmm.  Answer.  Not well.  I crawled into bed with Jack so he wouldn't wake up James.  He is a wiggler, and proceeded to wiggle.  And wiggle.  And wiggle.  "Jack, please hold still."  Wiggle.  "Jack, please don't kick my legs."  Wiggle.  "Jack..." I then took both his arms and folded them with mine, then wrapped his legs up in my legs, thus entirely immobilizing him.
He yelled at me, and began with the "I needs" to get me to let go.  "I need to go,"  "I need bear," "I need to go potty."  Anything to get me to release him.  Anything at all.  I finally said, "Buddy?  I will let go if you will hold still.  He said "Yes."  So I let him go.
After a few moments of wonderful quiet, he turned around in his bed and faced me.  I opened my eyes and looked at him.  He just stared at me for a minute, something he doesn't ever do.  What came out of his mouth next would have knocked me off of my feet had I been standing.  He said, "Mom, you need to believe."  I wasn't sure if I had heard what I thought I heard.  I said, "What?"
Jack repeated, "You need to believe.  You need to believe in me."

Enter all wisdom I thought I had compiled over the course my life, and adulthood.  Everything I thought I had learned, and mastered.  Everything I believe in, and try to hold true to.  How often did life teach me to seek the best in others, and thus the best in myself, then to trust that belief?  To trust in myself as much as I believe in God, and to take the goodness He gives and give it to others?  Even if that other happens to be a 3 year old little boy who has been the cause of my insomnia.  Every day I wake up wondering how I am going to teach my children.  I wonder how I can help them grow, and learn to be ready to face an ever changing world of uncertainty.  Can I arm them with what they will need to fight?  Can I give them what they will need?  Can I teach them?
I have obviously been asking the wrong questions, and Jack reminded me of that this morning.

As parents, and simply as beings on earth, we constantly wonder what we need to do to bring about the best end.  This is a good thing.  But sometimes we get so caught up in the control of where our lives need to lead that we forget where we are going.  In our quest to teach, we often forget to learn.  This morning reminded me that though I now hold the honorary title of mother, I do not know everything.  I never will.  It is in this humbling reality that I thank God for sleepless nights, and endless weeks of routine.
Lessons surround us every day.  It is a consistent reality check from heaven on high that in a quest to become our best self, we need to believe.  We need to believe as much in ourselves as we do in those around us, and thus believe in life itself.
As much as we think we know, God will always find a way to teach.  To teach and humble even those who think themselves learned.
And in this case?  It literally came from the mouths of babes.