Dear Strong Willed Child,<\/p>\n
Today we had many battles you and I. We had battles in the sun, battles in the sand, battles over popsicles, and a battle while I walked you screaming and kicking back to the house. You were red and fuming, I fought back tears. We’ve had thousands of battles you and I.<\/p>\n
Today our battles were about little kid things, someday they might be about curfew or boys or doing the dishes.<\/p>\n
No matter what, here’s what I want you to know:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
We are not defined by these battles. We are not defined by the storms, we are defined by the times I hold you tight and by the I love you’s and the kisses. \u00a0We aren’t defined by hard days or hard moments, we are defined by the fact that I love you and I will never stop. We are defined by the truth that I will never ever give up on, or grow tired of you. You are mine forever and for always.<\/p>\n
Those moments though they’re hard and unnerving, there’s no where I’d rather be.<\/p>\n
Yes, sometimes inside I’m fuming. I wonder how it is possible we’ve done this this so many times before. I’m embarrassed, I’m tired, and I wonder if I were better at being your mom if we wouldn’t have blow ups like this.<\/p>\n
Sometimes I simply wilt under the disapproving glances of strangers.<\/p>\n
In my heart though? I’d do it all a million times again, my dear. I’d carry you up a hundred more flights of stairs while you’re kicking and screaming and I’d abandon a thousand more carts in Target to take you to the car.<\/p>\n
I choose you, in all your sweaty, screaming, kicking, fuming, glory.<\/p>\n
A lot of the time I’m stuck in now, I just want you to hold my hand to cross the street and say “okay Mama” when I say “no”. Sometimes I’m simply too tired and worn out to remember my joy, but I look at you now perched on the counter eating a slice a bread and I smile.<\/p>\n
I like you; I like your strong will.<\/p>\n
You aren’t the kind to be deterred by one or a million consequences. Your voice is vibrant and sometimes I believe it really can’t be swallowed. That’s okay. Someday you will channel that strength into something that matters deeply to your heart.<\/p>\n
We have all the time in the world to figure that out.<\/p>\n
Some people might call you hard or difficult (I do too sometimes). Some people might wonder where I find my grace every day…but they don’t see what I see. They don’t know that out of sea of well behaved children I’d choose you again and again and again.<\/p>\n
After a tantrum I hold you. We snuggle in your bed and you ask me to sing a song. I breath deep because you smell like sunshine. You’re worth every single battle today, and every single one tomorrow.<\/p>\n
I love you.<\/p>\n
Mama<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
For more articles like this you can follow me here, on Facebook<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Dear Strong Willed Child, Today we had many battles you and I. We had battles in the sun, battles in the sand, battles over popsicles, and a battle while I walked you screaming and kicking back to the house. You were red and fuming, I fought back tears. We’ve had thousands of battles you and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25603,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1600371,2258037,1],"tags":[5309,240865,217161851,244605],"class_list":["post-25430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-letters-to-my-kids","category-strong-willed","category-uncategorized","tag-parenting","tag-raising-kids","tag-strong-willed","tag-tantrums"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/wonderoak.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/fullsizerender-1.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6wz1w-6Ca","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wonderoak.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wonderoak.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wonderoak.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wonderoak.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wonderoak.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25430"}],"version-history":[{"count":25,"href":"https:\/\/wonderoak.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25430\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25802,"href":"https:\/\/wonderoak.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25430\/revisions\/25802"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wonderoak.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wonderoak.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wonderoak.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wonderoak.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}