The Parenting Bubble

It is Farmer’s Market season here again! There is no way I’d rather spend my Saturday morning than waiting in line at our favorite bakery, praying there will be at least one ginormous scone left, grabbing a freshly dripped cup of coffee from a local roaster and then strolling through the booths of fresh spring goodies.

It is also so much fun to see people headed back to their cars with their Farmer’s Market score of the day. Everyone seems so happy already thinking out where they are going to hang those massive flowering baskets, or what on earth they will bake with 5 pounds of fresh rhubarb, or convincing themselves how wise they were to spend $30 on pastries and bread alone.

I find the Farmer’s Market so refreshing! It’s great to get ultra-fresh foods, support local families, be outdoors, and spend time with family.

One of my favorite parts of our Farmer’s Market is the bright orange food truck that serves some of the most creative, fresh, and flavorful food in town. Usually, I visit the food truck at the end of our Farmer’s Market visit to put a few more minutes between the breakfast I’ve already eaten at home, the enormous (I’m sure calorie-free) scone I just downed and whatever I’m about to order and pretend is lunch even though it’s only 10:15am.

Recently as my boys and I were waiting for our food truck treasure, I noticed a mom with her three young children sit down at a nearby bench. Mom left the kids and walked just a few feet to order from the food truck. The kids quickly got up off the bench and started being kids. When mom noticed they had left the bench she yelled at them and all I heard was, “NO, WE ARE NOT CHASING BUTTERFLIES!”

Do you ever find yourself in one of those extremely rare “My kids are being perfect angels today! Best day ever!” bubbles? I was in one of those bubbles at that moment. It was a beautiful sunny day, we scored the last two “candy cookies” (M&M cookies) from the bakery, I was about to indulge in an awesome orange food truck sandwich, and the boys were being awesome! Sweet, precious, happy bubble moment!

So, when this mom yelled, “NO, WE ARE NOT CHASING BUTTERFLIES!” to her kids, I’m not going to lie, I road my happy bubble for a few seconds and was thinking, “Whoa, settle down lady, they are just being kids!” And then I laughed, because I remembered how quickly the happy bubble can pop and how the “No Chasing Butterflies” mom could easily be me in the next minute when my toddlers start being, well, toddlers.

Anyway, this incident reminded me of how easy it is to say crazy things to our kids in the heat of a moment. In reality, I’m sure that mom absolutely wants her children to chase butterflies! I mean, people have entire Pinterest boards filled with images and quotes about how we should chase butterflies and all that jazz.

At mass on Sundays, the priest uses this big brush-like thing (fancy name: aspergillum*) to sprinkle (MONSOON) us with holy water. My boys have really been into recreating this moment at home. They build holy water sprinklers out of tinker toys and then run around the house flicking them at each other and singing the “Come to the Water” song we sing on Sunday. It really melted my heart the first dozen or so times it happened. One day, during the boys’ at home holy water blessing, I realized that they were actually dipping their holy water sprinklers into their milk glass. I came into the kitchen to find milk splattered over the floors and walls and a full cup of milk tipped all over the floor.

This was a bubble pop moment for me. This was my recent, “quit chasing butterflies” moment! It was just so cute until there was milk everywhere. I started mopping up the milk with towels and yelled,“WE. DO. NOT. DIP. Our Holy Water…Thing-ies…IN. OUR. MILK!” Then I gave them each a towel to help me clean up and quietly laughed at the ridiculousness that just came out of my mouth. And later I made a point to look up what those Holy Water thing-ies were actually called; see above*).

Have you had a bubble pop moment?

Here are the lessons I was reminded of at those times:

• If we don’t cry over spilled milk, then we don’t yell over spilled milk either, Momma!
• Words and the tone of our words are so powerful, especially to our children!
• We need to encourage our children (and ourselves) to chase MORE butterflies.
• Don’t judge other moms, because it could be you in the next minute (or second)!
• Enjoy the happy bubble moments and laugh more when they pop.

Former jet-setter and business woman, Natasha Hanneman is currently rocking out motherhood to twin 3-year-old boys, wifey-hood to a great hubby, and is trying to wait patiently for her next little one through adoption. She blogs about family and adoption at Giggle Giggle Toot Roar.