Patience

"Find your patience", I often tell my four year old when she is whining about wanting to do something 'right now', or when her birthday is still months away and she wants a toy 'now'. Patience: when Mama is talking to Daddy, when learning something new like how to tie a shoe, and it's patience when time is moving slower than molasses pours. "Who is this patience?" my four year old asks me. Where does she dwell? I know it's not always found in this house! Patience is a guest that seems to visit when it conveniences mom, at least, that's what she thinks.

 I remember feeling the same way as a kid. Patience was some annoying visitor in mom's vocabulary that I could not seem to make disappear or remove. In my four-year-old world, everything seemed to move at the speed of light but then every so often PATIENCE put the brakes on. In this high speed Internet, twittering with people around the world, cell phone ringing, gameboy playing, technology filled world nothing seems to have patience. How is it that a word like patience still exists? I laugh when I sense the confusion in my daughter, her world changes in a blink of an eye. 

As an adult we get excited when we learn even one new thing a day-- for children this is common occurrence, they are constantly changing,  constantly learning and soaking up all this world has to offer, like a sponge. I can hear the four year old conversation that goes on in Malia's head, it probably sounds something like this:  I learned a ladybug had wings yesterday, that my nails are bone growing from my fingertips and toes, that I can balance on one foot while blowing bubbles... so... why is it that today I can't carry my sister around--when she is half my size, or put make up on like my mom... or when I ask mom a question, while she is talking to someone she gets upset-- mom is, as you know, the multitasking acrobat of this circus-- how could she not hear me 'and' Dad or whoever is on the end of that phone at the same time? Patience- patience she says... one day, one day... ONE day patience you and I will meet and have words like NOW!


I just know it goes something like that, right? heehee


How do you teach patience? There is not a recipe to follow or formula for success. This does not come in a teachers lesson book (i.e. 20 jumping jacks and students will have patience). I certainly didn't see it on one of those take home pamphlets that they sent home from the hospital when Malia was born.


  "Patience is a virtue" which means it is a moral or a trait that we seek to obtain. This is something we must work on and strive to perfect within us. To me, this means that patience is just one of those wonderful challenges that I signed up for when I became a parent. It is a life long lessons that I am going to have to teach by example and provide my girls ample opportunities to perfect. That is what these first five years is about, right? I am home with my girls now, before they go to school and have outside influences, so that I can provide them with practice runs at life. I am here to set the stage on how our society works, but in the most loving and safe environment that they can successfully learn in. No one in this world is going to be as easy and helpful to my girls as I will-- their mom. There is a war being waged in your life; morals, values, character, self-esteem, and self worth are at stake. My girls are at stake… I am the soldier on the front lines, first one in-- last one out, so when she interrupts me while I am speaking to someone, it is my job to correct her and teach her patience. When she leaves this Big Top and sees that she is no longer the star performer of everyone's show, she is going to need the lessons I taught her to succeed.

How does a word like patience still exists in a fast pace world like today? If we fail to see how it fits in today, than we fail to see how it made way for so many great people. Patience allowed Martin Luther King Jr. to have hope for a better nation, to have a dream, and to have faith that a dream would come to fruition. If I slack off now as a parent and let Malia get away with interrupting she will not learn to wait her turn. If I don't teach her that it takes time to tie shoes she will not learn what it takes to problem solve. If we skip 13 and go right to 30 she will miss so much of life. If I let her put make-up on at four years old it covers up her innocence and takes the progression to life away. She can take what she wants and when she wants it. A small lesson like patience if not groomed and practiced makes for a self-centered person/ self-centered world. 

I believe, that patience leads the way for serenity, serenity makes way for acceptance, and with acceptance one can embrace change! Change that occurs at many different paces in life! Patience maybe a rarely used word but it is the foundation for greatness! 

So hurry, hurry, hurry get your tickets to this Circus cause patience is staring center ring!