Laugh Or Give Up Or Go Crazy

If you have been around me and my son lately, I would like to apologize for the amount of screaming and death threats you have witnessed. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, I am NOT a big fan of two. People, I am a yoga instructor; my personality is often referred to as “laid back”… Yet no amount of deep breathing or mantra reciting can seem to help me cope with the stress of the tantrums that have been happening around here.

Luckily, we got a bit of respite this weekend and went out to see the movie Date Night. This is supposed to be a funny movie, right? But there was actually a scene that made me cry. I’ll have to paraphrase since I don’t remember exactly, but Tina Fey was detailing her deepest fantasy: “I just want to be alone. Maybe I’m in a hotel room. Maybe with air conditioning. And I get to sit down and eat my lunch in peace. And I have a Diet Sprite. And NO ONE IS TOUCHING ME.”

Amen, sister.

I’ve also been reading this book called The Hair-Raising Boys of Raising Boys by Dave Meurer. It’s no best-seller or anything, but it is light and poignant, a good read for a tired mom. And this weekend I stumbled upon a few pages that really connected with me (about a time in a couple’s life when their teenage son was spending hours in the bathroom: driving them INSANE). For anyone in the same boat (meaning anyone who is a parent), I would like to share these words of wisdom with you. I hope they help. Otherwise, insanity. And that’s never a good option.

From pp. 150-152
…But after a few tense moments, she began laughing.
I wasn’t sure if this was a good or bad sign.
“Dale?” I said gently.
“Smelly natives,” she said. “This is like the smelly natives.”
“Um, let’s go see the doctor,” I advised as she laughed again.
Do you remember that missionary we heard, gosh, fifteen years ago? The one who talked about the phases he went through when he moved to another culture?” she asked.
“Yes. Why?” I asked, completely lost.
“He said it started out by being fascinating, then it became frustrating, then funny, then fruitful.”
“And this has something to do with never being able to use our bathroom?” I asked, truly puzzled.
Dale continued. “He said at first the experience was fascinating-being in a completely new culture and doing a completely different kind of work. Then he said it was frustrating, because he was surrounded by smelly people who were never on time and seemed to never change. It really started to bother him. The he just learned to laugh. It was laugh or give up or go crazy. He just had to accept certain realities–it was laugh or cry. It was at that point that his ministry began to be fruitful. He stopped being mad at the smelly natives. He lightened up. And he started to see results. The kind of results that really mattered. Changes in the heart, even though, really, nothing else changed. He is still surrounded by smelly natives, but it is OK.”
…
“These phases keep happening again and again, and it doesn’t matter whether you are talking about missionary work or parenting. We are in a phase right now.
“Parenthood starts out to be fascinating–wow we are going to have a baby! And then it quickly gets frustrating as the reality sets in–late-night feedings, exhaustion, messes, colic.
“But you eventually have to laugh, even at the frustrating things. Like when Mark was a toddler and learned to climb out of his crib. He used to wake up before our alarm went off, and then run to the refrigerator and you would bolt out of bed to catch him before he started dropping raw eggs on the floor.”
“That was so bizarre,” I mused. “What in the world made him do that? It drove me NUTS! Especially when he aimed for the CARPET.”
But the mere memory made me start to snicker.
“Who knows what he was thinking?” Dale said, laughing hard. “It made me so uptight back then, but it is just funny now.”
We both started to cackle at the memory.
“And look at us now,” Dale said, wiping away a tear of mirth. “Look at what is driving us up the wall. He spends too much time in the bathroom. Yes, it is irritation, but it is a lot better than cleaning up raw eggs. And look at what we aren’t fighting with him about. He isn’t hanging out with a bad crowd, or flunking out of school, or stealing, or doing drugs, or any of a number of things a lot of families are struggling with… We need to be thankful.”
…
“…let’s stop coming so unglued. We are actually in a very fruitful phase of our life as parents and we shouldn’t miss seeing it just because of the bathroom crisis.”