love and other wonders: Ahh, the Gommy you thought you knew...and a sprinkling of Job!

This was originally part of my Lenten post, but upon reflection, I thought I'd like to separate the two.
I went on a field trip today...well I guess now that would be yesterday ;o)...with Montgomery. It was my kind of field trip. No sloshing through muddy fields in too brisk cold for up-close looks at odiforous (my word) not-so-clean farm animals, while holding hands with and/or running after several pre-schoolers who are not my own...can you tell I've been on one-too-many farm field trips in my past 17.5 years of parenting! (Now that I've said all of that, I'm almost too ashamed to post my wonderful photos from the Gommy girl's fall pumpkin farm field trip...almost...the pictures are just too cute and begging to be shared, so I'm sure they'll find their way onto the blog sometime.)

Back to today (well, yesterday), this was a calm, pleasant less-than-two-hour junket to nearby Goucher College to sit in a comfortable temperature-controlled, spacious auditorium to see a cute four-person musical of "Harry the Dirty Dog." It was interesting, lively-enough to keep the pre-Kindergarteners engaged, and short enough to not require any mental preparation on my part prior to attending. ;-) We boarded the big yellow school bus (always a big highlight for the Gommy Girl!)...

...rode the ten minutes or so to Goucher, got off right in front of the auditorium doors, filed inside to our reserved row of seats, watched the starting-right-on-time show with interested delight...

...waited comfortably in our seats when the show was over until our bus pulled right back up at the door, filed back onto the bus, and arrived back at the school. True, the bus noise level was intense, but only for the ten-minute drive time. Yes indeed, my kind of field trip.

The only surprise wrench in this otherwise pleasant outing was that Montgomery was not feeling particularly like cooperating after the show was over. She was in one of her highly-challenging obstinate moods, doing things like sitting on the backs of the seats in front of us (invoking Mommy heart-failure), attempting to wander the aisle and flat-out..and I mean bold-faced... refusing to come back my way (invoking Mommy ominous eye-twitching...and not-so-pleasant whispered potential consequences)...thus the photos you see of her (the girl who lives for the flash of a camera) refusing to look my way for a picture...

Things improved a bit when her school ace Isabella (who our family will love forever!...more on that in a future post) sat with her on the ride back to school.

They had the best time chatting in great detail about their favorite episodes of The Bubble Guppies...

...and laughing at all the wonderful silly things 4-year-old girlfriends laugh about...

So sweet and endearing...until I realized Isabella herself was also in an obstinate mood and refusing to follow basic safety instructions like "sit down while the bus is moving" and "stop playing in the hair of the child in front of you"...to the point that I actually whipped out my cell phone to call her mother (whom I personally know doesn't play that) and let them have a little chat. Fortunately, something distracted her attention and we didn't actually have to get to that point, but I found it rather amusing how very similar she and Gommy are in temperament! My sweet little stubborn Montgomery will practically "run the car into the ditch" rather than follow someone else's "driving instructions." She will see the catastrophe coming and choose -- and I do mean make an actual choice (you can see the moment in her eyes) -- to meet it head-on rather than acknowledge her error. And I saw that tenacity (albeit sorely misguided, yes) in her little buddy Isabella today...for the first time. Interesting...and yes, this dual-combination does make for a highly volatile, yet passionately fierce little friendship. But I really don't think either one of them would have it any other way.

My personal belief is that all of that raw personality and temperament material is deposited there, by God, for very specific purpose. Our job (challenging...yes!!) as parents, is not to change it or break it, but rather to help our little people hone and mold and prune and learn to use all that great "stuff" productively and passionately, but responsibly and measuredly. It's all in there for a reason...we've gotta help them figure out why...and what to do with it all. I believe it'll completely be worth the journey...but it sure does put miles and miles of wear on our "cars" in the meantime! ;-)

Later that evening at home, to Craig's question of "How was your field trip today, Gommy?" Montgomery apparently experienced some thoughtful moments of reflective remorse and asked me, "Mommy, would you take my picture now?"

What's a mother to do? Well, I suppose we must take our cue from God...sometimes we spend a lot of life-time refusing to look His way, but when we come to ourselves, thankfully He lovingly says...

"Sure, baby, I'd love to."