Tomorrow Will Worry About Itself

It has been a while since I blogged about my kids. They are still top-notch priority around here, even if my mommy-voice is silent amidst the storm of grown-up issues.
But as my son begins his second semester of 7th grade, I cannot keep quiet much longer. There is just....soooo much.
Like, how many times have I thought to myself, "he is just like you were!" And internally groan, regretting that I passed on THAT DNA.
And how often do I hear myself say to him, "Don't talk to me like that!" And my mother seems to be here in spirit...and voice...and I think, "Aaaaah...this is how she felt when I was this age."

Twelve years ago, besides telling my husband "he's yours when he is twelve" out of fear of raising pre-teen boys, I seriously tricked myself into thinking it would be different. We would raise him differently than I was, speak different types of affirmation than I received, never do it the old way but parent the new, improved way.

So what happened?

Part of me feels guilt for the crappy way my husband and I handled this past year. Perhaps that stress tossed all my good intentions out the window, and for the need of survival, we just fell into a miserable pattern of bickering mama and grumpy teen. Did I push him into resenting me? Is my poor effort at keeping everything "peaceful" around here, revving up bitterness in my son?

Yeah, mama guilt is readily available when you have non-parenting-heat contributing to the fire.

But, like I have said before, this is a new year, and I am waving goodbye to all that garbage. And, even though my husband and I have a long ways to go in the figuring-it-out department, I can do something in the parenting department that I keep trying to do in my marriage...

Take it one day at a time.

There is something in me that wants to make a plan that works indefinitely and ends in success at a high school graduation where my son gives the speech and thanks his parents for a job well-done. Ha!
Thank you Hollywood for delusion.

This past year, I have felt the repercussions of such planning (ahem...dreaming)...: It sets you up for a very long and painful fall. Expectations are dashed, and you flounder around wondering how life can ever be the same. Um, life is never suppose to be the same. It is ever-changing. So, my new philosophy of taking it one day at a time seems to fit the bill for raising a pre-teen, too.

God said "Don't worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself."

Ain't that the truth?

I am casting off the mommy-guilt as best as I can. We might have a whole slue of bickering and arguing and ugly words behind us, but they have got to stay in the yesterday so we can work on the present. Tomorrow will be here before I know it, and I can't have anything holding me back!