Parenting

I think tomato plants must be a lot like parenting.

My tomato plant now has five little tomatoes on it!!

I got so excited (and shouted a little "Yea!!" in excitement. Hopefully if I keep cheering it on, it will keep growing.) and felt a little proud of myself for how it was coming along. Then I remembered that God created tomatoes to grow on their vines - that's what they are supposed to do. God makes them grow, and I don't. But, while God is the only one that can make my tomatoes grow, I could do a lot to kill them. (if I don't water it, or if I hadn't planted it in a sunny spot, etc.)


This seems like parenting because if I'm ever a mom I'll have lots of opportunity to have messed up children (they will have sinful natures, I have a sinful nature) and I'll be tempted to feel proud and take credit when they do something good, but really any good they do will only be because of God's grace.


I think it will be funny to read my thoughts on parenting after having children because I know that right now, I have no clue :) In my pre-baby life though, parenting seems a lot like tomato plants.


Speaking of parenting...I have a mental list of the 472 reasons I don't want to/am not ready to have children. I am particularly afraid of having boys. Reason 472 came last night while David and I were at Chipotle for dinner (we discovered one in York and it has made us so very happy!). We were looking out the window as this boy (maybe 8 years old?) ran out to his mom's SUV and proceeded to climb up on the back tire while holding on to the top of the car and shimmy himself in through the window instead of just opening the door and climbing in. As we watched (with a "wow, that kid is weird" look on my face), I turned to Dave and said, "That is another reason not to have kids!" To which he responded, "Yea, I used to do that when I was a kid." Case in point. That is normal little boy activity and I think it's weird. I just don't know if I could handle it.


After Chipotle we went to Best Buy to walk around (we had a gift card from Christmas we still wanted to use) and as we were going through the aisle of computer games we came upon an old favorite. I decided that since my list of reasons for not wanting kids is so long, I should probably start making a list of reasons to have kids or it might never happen (because I think deep down inside I probably want them, I just have too many fears for it to be a realized desire right now - hence the need for a list to begin the convincing). So today, I'm officially starting my list of reasons to have children.


1. Math Blaster.



David and I both love this game and if we have kids, we'll get to play it too.








2. Kids look cute in pictures.



Hm. Scratch that. Adi looks cute in pictures. I only have to clean her litter box once a week - not 20 million times a day. (All babies do is poop, right?)



Well, one's a start. Gotta love Math Blaster!



jj