Accountability

What the blog says is true - the beans are growing. And one of those little beans is getting quite good at remembering. While this probably thrills people she knows - Uncles, Aunts, Mimis - that she will remember exciting experiences and time spent with them - it sometimes causes me to do that thing where I start to stress sweat. Do you know about stress sweating? It immediately follows heart racing and face blushing in situations that you don't know how to handle.

I've been terrified of this for a while now. I say stupid things to Zoe all the time - only before, no one could hear them, remember them, be haunted by them. But the more she remembers the more I am held accountable.

We slap her hand to discipline her - we've been doing that since she was old enough to get that look in her eye that said, "I don't care what you want - I want something different." It is mostly effective. Only time will tell. Anyways... sometimes before doing it I give her a warning. "Zoe, if you don't x-y-z I'm going to slap your hand." That doesn't sound so bad, does it?

Once, when she wasn't listening to me at. all. I turned to her and said, "Zoe if you don't -whatever it was- right now, I'm going to hit you." What I -meant- was slap her hand, but it came out "hit." As soon as I said it I felt regret and disgust. What if years from now the only thing Zoe remembers from her childhood is that time in Mimi's kitchen when I told her I would hit her!? It's too stressful to think about.

Furthermore - she is around me all day, every day (for the most part.) When I lose my patience, she sees it. When I want to kick Matt in the shins, she sees it. When I "secretly" eat chocolate at 9:30am, she isn't supposed to, but does, see it. This level of scrutiny is un nerving.

I try to combat these fears with honesty with my two year old daughter. "I shouldn't have said what I did." "I'm sorry I lost my patience with you, I shouldn't have done that." "Momma shouldn't eat all of Daddy's peanut butter and chippies, please don't tell him I did that."

I am daily reminded of this accountability when we drive past a homeless person. Where we live, there are lots of people who live on the streets. They stand at numerous street corners and stare at you with dark, usually a little sunken, burning - or sometimes empty - eyes. I know none of their stories. I have cared for one of them in the hospital when I was in nursing school, so while I am privvy to his medical history - I know less of his emotional journey to end up where he is today. Where he is, everyday.

Zoe has and will continue to hear me talk to her about Jesus. She will probably hear me talk about Haiti . And so, I am greatly convicted about how she sees me treat the poor in my own backyard. Granted, caring about God's judgement on how I treat them should be more important - but for right now, Zoe is the one who sits in the back and watches me acknowledge them, give to them or ignore them. She gets confused sometimes if I roll down the window and talk to a man she doesn't know. I then have to explain how he sleeps outside, doesn't have a home and he asks people to give him money. Then I try to explain what Jesus said we should do for the one who asks and for the poor and all the verses that I don't understand and that make me feel uncomfotable but they are in there so I figure I ought not ignore them. I think that she also, for the most part, sees everything I purchase and will eventually put my spending habits together with my giving habits and I don't want to be found wanting.

And so this little green-eyed girl with pink toes and an obsession with her belly button undoes me and makes me ask big, scary, cosmic questions about myself and the world around me and the association between the two.

Parenting = more intense than I ever dreamed in mostly unexpected ways.