What am I teaching you to be? I struggle with this concept a lot. The way I am as a mother - will it lead you in the direction I would want my son to be - the type of man your father is?
I feel like I'm doing a lot of things differently then how my parents raised me - which is what I wanted. Not to say they didn't raise me right or well, there's just differences in things we believe in (not referring to spiritual things necessarily either).
Your dad sometimes tells me I'm being too nice, too lenient. I see it as I'm trying to explain things to you so that you can understand why I do what I do. Of course, there are moments when your cry tugs on that mommy heart string and I cave in to cuddling you and letting you stay up. (None of us ever win when this happens - we're all crabs in the morning :P).
I love how excited you are when bedtime comes to read your bible story. How you get all up close, with your nose in the book. This is how I pray you will always be when it comes to God and your relationship with Him. I love the fact that when we sit to eat (unless you are a starvin' marvin) you automatically bow you head and fold your heads and you get a cute huffy attitude if someone is taking too long to do the same. Even if you're starving and ready to eat, a simple "what do we do first" reminder sets you in place with your head bowed and hands folded. So while I feel like we have the spiritual side down pat - at least for now - I just hope that the rest of my parenting is falling in place.
I feel blessed to be living at the Wagner's house during this time to get the experience of raising your children to know what it means to have a relationship with God. This was never something that was discussed or explained to me growing up - I had to figure this out on my own (not alone, I had a lot of help outside the house though!) And it's not just knowing how to have a relationship with God, but what makes you a godly woman (or in your case, a godly man). The way you search for answers now in your precious toddler life, I hope you continue to have that enthusiasm as you get older. Never stop searching for God in everyday life. Never stop searching for His will in your life. He will always provide an answer, a way, that open door - it just may not be when you expect it to be.
A piece of advice, a reminder more so than anything ...
This life will never be about what you want until all you want is God's desires for you to rise up in your soul.
I love you son,
Mom
