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Whose Child is This?
Our daughter has my personality. She is stubborn, strong, independent, fearless, and empathetic. She is also very much her father, cares deeply for others, wants to help everyone, and can make anyone laugh. These wonderful attributes of hers make her a beautiful combination of her parents……however, she is very much her own person. Our little love is fearless, doesn’t always listen well, and currently strips off all of her clothing to run around my house like a naked superhero! What do I do with this? How do I parent a child that has a mind of her own and a deep desire to cause a level of chaos that is unknown to me (and everyone else in my household)? How do I teach and guide a child that makes her own rules and avoid the ones she doesn’t want? Honestly….I pray A LOT! I also get kinda mad, I cry, get annoyed, and sometimes need to take a mental break. This beautiful child of mine is wonderful and imperfect, I see the world in her eyes. I see wonder and excitement, I see God’s greatest gift that I could ever get when I look at my beautiful children. I am so very grateful, even on the hardest days, that I am entrusted with this messy chaos that never leaves me with a shortage of blog posts (and conversations with God)
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Feeling Sheepish
The past couple of weeks at church, we have learned about the comparison in the Bible between humans and sheep. I will admit that before the interactions with our pastor, I knew very little about sheep besides they are cute and loud. What I have learned is that they are not bright animals (thank you, David, for the example video during your teaching). Now, many people would, and maybe should, feel offended by the comparison between ourselves and these smelly unintelligent animals. I did not find any issues with being compared to a sheep for a couple of reasons. First: Sheep need protection (also a David lesson) Second: Sheep are stubborn animals (super stubborn human right here) Third: A final David lesson, sheep only follow their shepherd’s voice because they are in tune with a specific call. Mind blowing……God is my shepherd, and I am a stubborn sheep who needs all the guidance I can get. I have never related to an animal more. In fact, I will gladly refer to myself as a sheep in God’s fold because I need him. I NEED GOD EVERY DAY!!! I need him when my life is at its best and worst. I need him in sickness and health. I need him when I make any decision in my life. I need him in my marriage and when raising our children. I pray that I will be so filled with the Holy Spirit that no one will question who I belong to. So, if you are wondering, I am feeling pretty sheepish today, and I hope you are too!
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Potty Time
Some of you may think this post was meant to be party time……it’s not. We are currently potty training our daughter, and if you have never attempted potty training anything (animal or human), well lucky you lol. Our daughter is clever, which leaves so much room for chaos because she is also independent. Currently, little miss keeps removing her diaper and pants. I have tried so many different tricks, but houdini always ends up bare bunned and running through the house. She hates being dirty. Thus, she will throw a used diaper as far away from her as possible and wipe her butt on the closest thing to her (recently it was her baby brother’s blanket, a couch pillow, and one of my t-shirts). The chaos of potty training culminated into one very exciting moment where our daughter peed in her potty. I never in my life thought I would cheer on a child for peeing, but here we are. It made me really think about the joys and trials of raising these head strong, beautiful, small versions of ourselves. The immense love we feel, the capacity of forgiveness we have for them when someone wipes their butt on your shirt (or you have to throw away a onesie covered in poop). Is this what God feels when he looks at us? Does he smile with pride when we achieve something new? Does he look at us and say that’s my child when we follow what he calls us to do? I believe God looks at us like we look at our children, so full of love and acceptance for us despite our sins and past mistakes. God is our loving father, benevolent Lord, and I pray that I can learn to show grace and love to others like he loves me. As for me and my household, we shall serve the Lord Joshua 24:15 (and potty train on)
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Life Lessons in Messy Moments
I have learned a lot of things over the past thirty-one years of life. One of the hardest has come in recent years that not everyone will like you. Not every person you believe was a friend will be there for you, and people will let you down and hurt your feelings. As a people pleaser, this is one of the hardest lessons that I had to learn, and there are days when it still hurts. The days when you reach out to people and you don’t hear back, spending time over analyzing what you said or did to make them possibly ignore you. These are the days I learned that I’m not perfect and no one else is either. Everyone needs grace, but not everyone gets closure. I will always appreciate the various people who held different positions in my life (both good and bad) because God used them to teach and help me grow along the path of my life. So, to those who are reading this that I loved or who loved me and we lost touch, I am sorry if I made mistakes that hurt your feelings, and I wish you the best. Thank you for holding a place in my life, and I pray you will be abundently blessed.
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The Struggle is Real!
Today’s post is a little less about our darling babies and more about the mom behind the curtain. Life is a constant race that means I’m chasing my beloved toddler while trying to manage a three month old. It’s continuous moving, teaching, guiding, and I cannot imagine anything else but that’s not to say I’m not tired. That’s not to say that I am not stressed or overwhelmed. I can be blessed, tired, and stressed all at the same time. It’s in the moments where my hair is a mess, I’m covered in spit up, I have a little one tugging at my leg and I find myself giving into the frustration of the day. These are the times that I need my God the most, I call out to my heavenly father and ask for comfort…..guidance…..peace…..grace. I ask my father for his forgiveness (and sometimes I need to ask my children for forgiveness). I take the moments like this, the dancing in the kitchen with our daughter, rocking our son and singing him to sleep. The mess, the stress, all of it is worth it when I look at the faces of my beloved children. Which makes me wonder……is this what God feels when he looks at us? Does he feel that love bursting moment that I do even when I’m frustrated with my children? With that being said, how can I love like God? How can I show my children grace and forgiveness like God does for me? The how is to pray and rely on God’s strength rather than my own. So this mama is stressed but blessed……and the blessings keep coming.
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Pants Before Crocs
I am not a fan of crocs. I feel they are impractical because water can get through them and your feet can get cold. My husband loves crocs and our daughter loves whatever her father does. As a result, she has walked around in her father’s shoes for the past two weeks. Three days ago I broke down and bought her crocs. Her crocs are pink, blue, and purple with sparkles and she LOVES them. In fact, she will literally put her crocs on first before anything else……even pants. Now one would think that this would be the end of walking around in her dad’s shoes but oh no it is not my friend! Actually, our girl places her feet with her little crocs into her dad’s crocs and walks around the house. She desperately wants to be like her father. She wants to experience the world with him and take cues from him (often mimicking his behavior). Her walking in her dad’s shoes and imitating him is how I feel about walking with God. I want to see the world like Jesus does and mimick how he loves the world. But like our daughter walking in her dad’s shoes, I stumble…..I fall….I get back up and try again.
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When the Chief’s Away…..
My husband is a chief in the Navy. He’s also a recruiter……who manages seven offices ranging from fifteen minutes away to three hours and fifteen minutes away. Thus I live in a frozen tundra called the Midwest (send help, snow is cold!!!). With this being said, I am in charge of mini sailors one of which who leads a mutiny every single day of my life. Oh….she’s very cute but she’s strong willed and quite smart. Lucky me right?! My husband has a phrase, when the chief is away the sailors will play (don’t ask its kinda lame I know but it’s better than if you have time to lean you have time to clean). When Chief Kozak is away this almost two year old little sailor leads a mutiny of epic proportions. Have you ever fought a strong will toddler that screams like a dinosaur? I have and my goodness it’s never my finest moment. Today’s fight involved her throwing fruit at the cats. (Creative video game idea right?) The point of this all is that she bucks authority and I am fighting a battle where going down with the ship is a decision that is often made. Her fighting spirit is something she got from me…..and I have paid for a lot of my decisions where I fought for what I wanted and it was not everything I thought it would be. I fought God’s path, his guidance, I wanted to steer my own ship and captain my voyage! (Excuse the navy references but hey recruiter wife life lol). I found, after much heartbreak, that fighting authority……fighting God’s will is a battle that I will lose every time. Wisdom comes with losing battles and from this I’ve learned to choose wisely. Today, I lost many battles, but if my children grow up to love God, honor, and follow him then I will have won the war (with all the glory going to God of course). Tomorrow will be another day, another round with my pirate crew. Tonight……I’ll cuddle them and count my blessings that I’m their mother (and take advantage that the chief is home so he can put his crew back in ship shape).
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I Live in a House of Koalas
Everything in my house is clingy! Our toddler clings to me lately like a koala bear to a tree, our son wraps his hand in my hair or shirt to avoid being put down. Even the cats are clingy! Our female black cat will honestly rub her head against my hands if I am not petting her enough. Sometimes I am touched out, it is so exhausting being needed all the time. I was complaining a little bit about this the other day when my mother-in-love (mother-in-law is literally the most incorrect word for her since she treats me as her own and puts up with ALL of me and my shenanigans) was helping me. She pointed out something, very obvious and true, about me. I AM CLINGY. I cling to the people I feel secure with. I have a tendency to be a bit needy and full of emotions. I used to think this was a fault. I thought I didn’t need to need anyone. I didn’t want anyone to hold that much power over me…. over my heart. When I started to let people be close to me, when we broke down walls built up from pain and rejection, I allowed myself to lower my guard and learned that it’s okay to need someone. This quality in my children is not a fault, it is a strength because I know that they trust and love me. They know that I am their comfort and will be there for all the things they need. It is okay to cling to others, it is what we were designed to do. BUT….we were also built to cling to God. To go to him with all of our needs…. the desires of our hearts…. for our strength. God wants us to cling to him in the way my children cling to me. What a good reminder my little koalas are to cling to my heavenly father.
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Things I Tell a Toddler
I have two children. Our little girl is 20 months and our son is 2 months. Yes, they are 18 months apart (well technically 18 months 1 hour and 12 minutes but who’s counting right?) Every day here is an adventure. Our girl is strong, determined, smart, and trying to have her first concussion prior to the age of two I think. On a daily basis there are things I must say out loud to this beautiful human that I never expected. Some of our favorites are currently:
- Don’t force feed the dog pancakes (she prefers waffles!)
- Do not climb on the counter…..or the table…..or a bookshelf…..in fact don’t climb on anything
- Don’t dive off the couch and body slam the floor (maybe she has a future in the WWE?)
- Don’t feed the cats (however, I now know one likes bacon for breakfast)
- Please stop trying to injure yourself
The point of this all is that I talk a lot…..she listens…..she does what she wants anyways. I know her stubbornness will benefit her in the long run and her intelligence will too, but I pray that she will learn when to be still and listen. That has always been my worst ability. God has helped me realize that I cannot just strong arm my way through life, I need to yield and follow his lead versus always fighting for the path I think I want. Just as I know better for my children, he knows better for his. With that being said, wish me luck, she figured out how to take off/put on clothes so streaking through the house is sometimes a thing!
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Early Morning Wakeups
Content note: This post includes discussion of infertility and pregnancy loss.
It’s been an early morning in the Kozak household. Our smoke alarm decided its batteries wanted to die at 5am providing a beautiful song of waning double a batteries. I imagine this must be the gusto with which the band on Titanic played as it went down. Our beloved smallest human was singing the songs of his people, requesting milk and cuddles. I was happy to oblige but alas the milk was not up to par (or he enjoyed a bit too much) and projectile spit up occurred. One bath later (one angry child later) we are all cleaned up but the bassinet liner needs to be washed. To the living room we go and he is wide awake and plays in his bouncy while mommy does laundry, makes a pot of coffee, and takes care of dad’s lunch (because I’m a fabulous wife, if you haven’t noticed before
)I would really like to claim that my first thought wasn’t negative. I want to pretend I did all of this with grace and a smile, but I didn’t. I was grumpy at first, I am tired…..I wanted sleep. BUT….I remembered, while looking at my baby’s sweet face, the sting of month after month having negative tests. I remember the losses and tests, wondering if we would ever have a baby. I remember the fear of carrying children and wondering if I could lose my pregnancy at any stage. I remember the nights of full sleep and a quiet home, I know now how much I don’t miss it. Although I am grateful, not every day is wonderful and motherhood is messy. I’m not saying that I’m perfect and I don’t yell or cry, but I also laugh at the absurdity of a toddler who strips naked and pees on her floor or the racing down the hall to meet her daddy at the door. Even in the mess and the stress of motherhood, I know that God gave me these children to love and guide to the best of my ability. God granted me the desire of my heart and the family I wanted so badly. Often times I feel guilty about being angry or frustrated, for raising my voice at my strong willed girl. It’s at those moments I know I need less of me and more of God. I need to put aside my plans and what I think should be and ask God to guide me, not only as a mother but as a wife and person as a whole.
So for anyone else who’s up at 6:30 am…….I pray your coffee is strong and your day is blessed
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Anchored Where We Grow
Faith, marriage, family, and military life—rooted in grace and grounded in real life.
I’m Sharon Kozak: Christian wife, mom, military spouse, marriage educator and coach, advocate, and Marriage & Family Therapy student.
Stay anchored. Tend the roots. Turn toward the Light. Make room to grow.
