A Cautionary Tale : The Garden Song...

When we lived in Redwood City we went to the library all the time. Redwood City had the most charming downtown library with the very best children's section. We loved that place! Getting there, picking books, and checking out was an ordeal with three little kids. I had to create a turn system for everything: who got to put the change into the machine to pay for our parking and who got to collect the ticket. Who got to check out books first and who got to pull the receipt out of the checkout kiosk. Everything had to be ordered and turned. It was crazy. Everything about being a parent felt crazy to me at the time.

Every time we went to the library we picked out books and lots of music CDs. We learned silly songs from different children's music bands. We heard instrumental versions of rock songs. We quickly found our favorites and would be repeat patrons for those items: Dan Zane, Tom Chapin, Laurie Berkner, Rock a Bye Baby Cold Play, and others. Somewhere, I found the Garden Song. I loved and hated that song! The words cut right to my worried mother's heart. "Inch by inch, row by row, please bless these seeds I sow, " I thought of my little babies, my kids, that for some reason I had been left in charge of rasing. (Where was the review process for that decision?!) I thought of the world and how scary it could be. I just wanted my kids to be safe and happy and the idea that I was the adult (with Will) who was responsible for keeping them safe and happy didn't seem possible.

Truth be told, I often felt more like my kid's babysitter than their mother. Do all mothers who were babysitters as teenagers feel this way? I don't know. Feelings aside, I was (and am) their mother and they had to make do with the parenting they got from me. I made lots of mistakes and as my kids get older I remember the old mistakes and my kids reveal the mistakes I didn't even know I was making. It is awesome. But my kids still managed to grow: inch by inch. And truely, for the most part, they are OK and I am OK. Someday, I hope we will all look back and feel good about the process but I think the jury is going to be out for a while. There is still a whole lot of growing to go for all of the kids and a whole lot of mistakes I get to make as a parent. Sigh!

Last week, Clare reminded me of the Garden Song. We found it on iTunes and enjoyed several listens. All those feelings of scary wonder at parenting came flooding back to my mind. I still feel like a fraud as a parent. I don't think I'm doing anything right. But my kids keep growing...so I love and hate those words all over again. Someone is blessing these seeds to grow despite my worst efforts. My kids are lucky and so am I.