Parenting through the rough patches

I sometimes think find myself feeling smug, like such an experienced parent with all the answers.  Then I realize that, really, I am just getting started and that each phase is like starting over in so many ways and I have so far to go and so much more to learn.  Parenting, I am convinced, is the best way to humble a person.  

I am sitting in bed next to a sleeping Luke after a week of parenting four (very active) little boys while my husband logged 55 hours at his primary job and a least another dozen teaching and preparing for the night classes he has been teaching.  I have decided that I can consider it a success that all the kids are still alive, mostly thriving and that I have managed to keep the house standing.  The dog is also still alive.  I have been at this long enough to know that there are patches of parenting and family life that are just about survival.

I am grateful, as I go through this transition,  for the lessons that I learned during the first (rough) transition from one to two children.  Luke was a hard, hard two and a half year old, full of unchanelled energy and very quick to challenge my authority as his mother.  Noah was a delight of a baby until about six p.m. at which point he fussed and whined and nursed until he finally settled down to sleep late in the evening.  I had yet to learn some very important parenting lessons, the first being that nearly everything is a phase.  All I saw at the time were endless days of constant demands and needs with no way to meet them all.  I also hadn't learned that one shouldn't assign much meaning to a two year old's behavior.  Chances are you don't have a brat-- you just have a two year old.  I was also under the (mistaken) impression that parenting was neat and tidy like some sort of a math equation and that if I, as the parent, added a+b it would result in c, the desired behavior.  I was convinced that all those other parents were just doing it wrong.  I had read all the books, had a degree in education and many years of working with children under my belt.  There was a right way to do it and I knew what it was.  Then Luke happened and I saw just how wrong I was.

I vividly remember laying in bed with Luke while he fell asleep at night.  He would only fall asleep if I let him twirl my hair for hours on end.  I would lay there nursing Noah while Luke played with my hair and I would pray and pray for the strength to get through the next day.  I read parenting book after parenting book looking for answers and 

That first time around I was impressed to set clearer boundaries, carve out time to take care of myself, and let go a little bit more.  This time around I think the answer is to find more time to connect.