Control.

Parenting my oldest is seriously kicking my ass.

Parenting my youngest bonus is doing the same.

The two teenage girls in the middle are well... teenage girls.

I keep cutting off most of my hair again.  And dying it white.

Needing change.

Find I often do this when I look around at a bunch of shit I can't control. Can't change.

It's so hard to lean into the stuff that is out of our hands. Particularly, the stuff that we feel we should be able to impact and influence, or rather, the stuff we used to be able to impact and influence. And for our purposes here, by stuff, I mean shit, and by shit, I mean teenagehood.

Funny enough, I've written about this from the start.  My angst about not being able to get Aspen to where I wanted her to go, where I needed her to be, because the alternative only shined a brighter light on my perceived failure.

Of course, things have changed.  What I now know... what I now understand about her, her diagnosis, her syndrome.

I’ve been quiet here mostly because there are literally a thousand things going on every single day right now.  Our lives, our schedules… it really is bananas.  So many things are really very good.

And yet, I still can’t ignore that there are a lot of things I wish I could change.

Wish I could fix, make better, shift or yep, freakin’ control and control so hard that I could strangle the life out of it. Namely, my children. I mean, I don't want to strangle them necessarily.... umm...errr... no, of course not.

I wouldn't mind getting my hands on their emotions however, the things that cause pressure, the things that cause them pain,... their perceptions, their influences, how they process things, their decisions and subsequent actions... and so.much.more. Sigh.

Foolish wishes, yes, I know.

If I’m a shit friend right now, I really am sorry. I guarantee my husband finds my wife engagement pretty crap as well. Truth is, this new season has brought on an even more exhausting and emotional load.

I’ve realized recently when I look around at all my mama friends balancing and juggling and going insane in their own seasons, that elementary life may actually be the sweet spot for mommy freedom.

With babies and toddlers, the responsibility is overwhelming and consuming as hell… ensuring your tot’s straight survival for those first few years.

They enter elementary school, shiny and new, and you suddenly find that your load has shifted.  You find yourself a bit more again… or get yourself back I should say.  Or maybe you construct and refine a new mommy identity.  One where you often get a bit of respite from what were the previous crazy and demanding aspects of raising littles at their littlest.

For me, elementary days seem a million years ago.

Prolly because I’m in the new territory and really, the new trenches, of teenage life.

My god, did I fully and completely underestimate the complexity, heartache and savage soul sucking brutality this season would bring.

What’s even more wild, is in many ways, just how much more my girls need me now.  In ways I never expected.  In ways that confuse me.  In ways that crush me.  In ways that make me feel strong, but mostly in the ways that make me feel weak.  

And isn’t that the way of it…

How quickly and how often we go from feeling confident and proud of our abilities and our connections with our kiddos - to suddenly shift to feeling as the biggest failure, the biggest disappointment.  What worked before no longer. The seemingly impenetrable connection and bond I had now feeling frayed, damaged… mostly just… vulnerable.

I squeeze Penny and think, stuck like glue. For life.

Then I think, I must have felt this way before, right?  With my oldests… when rocking them was something I couldn’t screw up.  When enveloping them in my arms was all it took to make things right.

Things now feel so much harder.

So much bigger.

With such bigger consequences.

With even less I can fix, change or control.

We routinely show up and operate as parents in ways that lead us to believe we can effect the outcome. What if we can't? Or what if we can, but really only so much?

Truth is, I’m likely feeling some ptsd from my early Aspen years.

However, it should be noted that she’s currently, most definitely, rocking.  

In a lot of really, really great ways.   She had a birthday recently.  The big 4!

I set the arbitrary goal to get her to 25 pounds by the time she hit that milestone, buttt… we missed the mark.  Which is honestly just fine.  24 pounds strong is just as wicked.  It's silly for me to set those “goals” any longer.  We did it for so long with our home scale that I’m actually surprised I haven’t already smashed that thing in half.  

I think again, this is just another reflection of me trying to control something.

With so much still unknown about how her development will play out, I look for ways to feel like I can influence an outcome.

The reality is, I’m learning a similar lesson with all 5 of the kiddos under our roof.

There really is only so much we can do. Hell, we can lead, but we can't force them to follow.

Our values, our consistency, our commitment, what we prioritize... all of it, of course, matters.

And yet, our kids, in many ways, will turn out how they turn out. 

I’m no longer sure of much credit or how much failure we can claim.

So I suppose I will keep doing what I can.

And offer all the love, support, guidance, challenge and acceptance I have.

Is that enough?

Maybe?

I’ll be over here cutting off more hair in the meantime.

-B xo