Be careful for what you wish

As a prior classroom teacher, I occasionally have a nightmare where I am trying to rein in a class that will not comply no matter my efforts. It’s mild anarchy but more so indifference. I am equally frightened and infuriated. The group of middle-sized humans looks at me like I’m a clown that deserves zero respect.  

Thank goodness I always wake up. I walk to the kitchen, make a cup of coffee and begin my morning prayer routine in gratitude that my professional life no longer puts me in a position where this could turn into a reality. And then my boys wake up. 

My children are in the birth order of girl, girl, boy, boy.  For a while, it was just me and my little mini Ellens. All my other mom friends with a boy the same ages would tell me of the charm their sons had over them. They also explained how at times they were hard to parent because they were like these little aliens compared to their experiences with daughters and just being a woman themselves it was hard to understand. 

Their boy children would do some ridiculous things, act like they didn’t hear them, track in half of the backyard’s mud, then have the nerve to come in for the sweetest embrace. It would fog their senses and they couldn’t react.  

I said that wouldn’t happen to me, “Y’all, silly.”  I have taught plenty of boys and I have a brother.  

My maw maw always said not to say something won’t happen to you because when you spit straight up it comes straight down.  

Cher, she was right. I should have kept my mouth closed. What did I do? These two tiny male cuties that the Lord gifted us with are wonders to behold.  The bigger dude does what he feels at that very second. He has a PhD in impulsivity. He wears two different socks inside out, his pants backward and rarely has a shirt on, thankfully, because that won’t be correct either.  

He tries with all his wit and tries to get out of brushing his teeth EVERY DAY, “hangs up” his church clothes by shoving them behind his toys in the closet and will eat chips with the remnants of his latest roly poly search party under his fingernails. I explain how gross it is to eat with those grubby paws and then he cunningly shows me the bouquet of wildflowers and weeds, that I swear Rembrandt would want to paint,  that he picked for me and put in a mason jar that still had some jelly at the bottom. 

Somehow the dirty boy who rarely listens to the first, second, or third thing I ask him to do, this same very stinky fella who only flushes when I remind him earned favor and mercy with dandelions and buttercups. What??  What just happened? I feel dizzy. 

The second tiny bebe is shaping up to be super similar to his big brother.  Is this how the mother of the sons of Zebedee felt raising St. James and St. John? Did she ask why they would eat bread with hands that smelled like tilapia nets? Did they leave their sandals in the middle of the doorway and then she would trip on them when she was carrying a load of food? Did they sneak up while she was on the couch to snuggle and share her blanket and the twisted ankle she got earlier faded away? Is this the unique love that gave her the boldness to ask Jesus to have her sons at his side? 

Oh, I hope so. I pray to be able to see this struggle in a way that will sanctify me and them. Jesus called St. James and St. John the Sons of Thunder. The duo over here are named after St. James and St. John and are both proving to be quite the storm.  

I often get tiny glimpses of that classroom nightmare when I’m trying to parent them through a situation and all I get is blank stares and then they repeat the same incident the next night. What am I doing? What am I not doing? I’m very aware that this is not acute to me but why is my son’s top sheet from his bed on the canned food shelf in the pantry? I know they are “just being boys” but absolutely not … you cannot climb into the drainage pipe to see if there is a new undiscovered minnow species. 

I also know that small boys have small issues and later big boys will have bigger issues but why do they think it’s a fun game to line up red solo cups on the tub’s edge and see how fast they can fill them up with the showerhead and the curtain open?  Come on, bruh. 

Jesus may have called those two apostles the Sons of Thunder but my money is on them learning that passion from their mother courageously trying to raise them right in the eyes of God.  Although I may have had a flashback of a bad dream while cleaning loose frozen blueberries from the ice maker because “it’s like little popsicle balls, Mom” I also have a wonderful dream fulfilled by two sweet, yucky, mischievous, rough and compassionate boys. 

Sons of Thunder – Pray for all of our sons.

Mother of the sons of Zebedee – Pray for all of us mommas.

The columnist is a Catholic mom living in the Diocese of Baton Rouge facing the same challenges all families face.