Where is My Owner's Manual???

When you buy something...just about anything, you generally get an owner's manual, right? For instance, a new dishwasher, washer and dryer, a new car and even a remote control; they all come with owner's manuals. Right? Can someone please explain to me how it is that children don't come with an owner's manual??? How can the most important little things that come into our lives be given to us with no instructions? Why didn't God give us a book?
(Which by the way, if He did give us a book I would guess that it would be WAY to long for anyone to even attempt to look at let alone read the whole things so we would pretty much do what we want to do anyway.)

But I digress.

God has decided that it would be a good idea to give us, their parents, these precious, tiny, little, NEW people to raise and mold into big people...without instructions! Does He really think this is wise? Some of us had a hard time keeping ourselves alive and on the right path in our early years and now we are given the responsibility of doing that for another person...or people (if you have more than one child). Recently this thought has begun to scare the complete crap out of me. I am responsible for these little people to grow up and become good people. I don't mean good people like doctors or lawyers or anything that has to do with money. I mean GOOD people. The kind of people that care about others. The kind of people that have empathy and are willing to help someone in need.. Not only are we in charge of that but we have to make sure we don't screw them up along the way. Don't spoil them. Don't coddle them. Don't get them involved in too many things but don't let them be lazy either. Don't let them spend too much time on the computer but don't let them grow up and not know how to turn on a computer/iPad/iPod/whatever else is out there. Feed them, but only what is good for them. Don't be a helicopter parent but don't be an absentee parent.

Please, Please, Please, someone give me some instructions on how to do all of this the right way!

I worry so much about whether or not I am a good mom and if I am doing the right things for my girls. But what exactly are the "right" things? What does that even mean? Are these pressures that I am putting on myself? Am I not a good mom if there are days when I want to run out my front door just screaming and yelling at the top of my lungs? Luckily, I don't have those days every day (sometimes it just feels like it).

Then, I look at my girls. I mean REALLY look at my girls. Sometimes they will be playing with their youngest sister in the way only a big sister can, or they will be reading by themselves just because they want to, or they will ask to help with the dishes without being asked, or when they are sleeping (because let's be quite honest, kids are almost always the most beautiful and angelic when they are asleep). And I know, or at least I am putting my faith in the fact, that God wouldn't have given us these little people to raise and mold into big people if He didn't believe in us. For some reason, unknown to anyone down here, He believes that we can make their lives exactly what they are supposed to be. So in my times of confusion, exasperation, exhaustion and sometimes sheer desperation, I am going to try really, really hard to remember His belief in us. The fact that He brought me such an amazing husband to share this crazy journey with makes me feel much better about the whole thing because I know that when I fall apart, and I do fall apart, my partner in life will be there to not only pick up the pieces I have left behind but to help me put everything back together too.

So onward we will march through this crazy life we are creating, with no instructions or directions, just our faith that all will be as it should be.

My partner in crime ; )

Our little people...

My amazing family