Raising_Kids

                A wise person once said, “Raising children is like being pecked to death by chickens.”  I never fully understood that statement until I had three children of my own.  Now please do not get me wrong, I love my children with all my heart, and I can not thank God enough for blessing me with such great kids.  But, there are the times when you feel like you are being attacked from every direction.                    I have three children Elijah is 6, Micah is 4, and Acacia is 3.  Elijah or Eli as we call him is probably the best about following the rules.  Micah is by far the best at not following the rules, and Acacia is the best at being sneaky around the rules.  My wife and I have been married for 10 years now, and I have to say to all of you that are married with no kids, or DINK (Dual Income No Kids) as we call it.  Live your life now; buy what you want now, because as soon as you have kids the free life style is over!                   I still remember the day that Eli was born.  I was working in the maintenance department of a local factory.  It was around 8:00 am and I received a call from my wife.  She stated that she was getting ready for work, and while she was in the shower she thought her water broke.  Now remember we are new parents we have never done this before.  I asked if she was sure her water broke, or did the water from the shower hit her funny.  Now lets stop right here and examine what I said.  I am not a woman, I have not been carrying this child for the last nine months, but I am questioning my wife’s ability to tell whether her water broke or not.  So anyhow, she says yes I am sure, and I think we need to go to the hospital.  I tell her I need to check with my boss.  She in turn informs me that my boss does not live with her, and that my life could easily become a living hell if I did not come and take her to the hospital.  Needless to say, twenty minutes later I am loading her into the car to go to the hospital.  Now, she is having contractions, and in a lot of pain.  Therefore I felt that gave me the ability to drive like I was in the Indy 500.  We are rushing to the hospital and I kid you not we hit every stoplight red.  Finally I decided that I am not stopping at any more stoplights, we are getting to the hospital because this baby is coming out now.  Well we made it to the hospital about 9:00 am.  I was so glad to be there because I sat thru the birthing classes, and I knew that this baby was going to be born, and be born now.  Well we sat there all day, and this baby that I rushed to the hospital so he could be born at 9:00 am was born at 8:08 pm.  That right there should have been a big flashing light that informed me that my controlling the family was over, there is a new boss in town.  The new boss weighed 8 lbs, how could an 8 lb. cute little baby control what my wife and I do'  Well we took this child home, and all our friends sent us cards, flowers, and gifts.  It was so nice having such wonderful friends.  We soon found out that our so-called friends with no kids did not think it was cool hanging out with people with kids.  We could not go anywhere, or sleep anymore.  My wife did such a great job as a new mom.  She would be up all hours of the night fussing with this wonderful baby.  Eli had a problem in that he would not eat, and he had this special time every night for two hours that we termed “fussy time”.  You could have set your watch by fussy time.  Looking back on it now, I thank God that it happened in the evening and not during the middle of the night.  Eli was born at the beginning of February.  For anyone that has never been to Indiana in February, it is cold, and it stays cold until late April.  Therefore you have to stay inside.  Now we Hoosiers tell ourselves that it starts getting warmer at the end of February, but in the real world it is cold until April.  Anyhow, Every night from 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm I would hold and rock little Eli while he cried.  At first we felt sorry for the little guy, but then the crying became annoying.  We stilled rocked him, and he stilled cried.  This went on for two months.  Finally one evening it was warm enough to go outside.  So I prepared for fussy time.  I had the rocking chair on the front porch, a blanket in case little man got cold, and a book and a drink for me.  I figured that if he is going to cry, I might as well be outside watching the sunset.  Well some miracle happened that night.  6:00 pm came and he started crying, so I gave my wife a kiss, told her to be strong and that he can not do this his whole life, and I set out to the porch for a fun evening of crying and rocking.  Eli was crying and I opened the front door to go out, and the crying stopped.  It was incredible, he was not crying.  Oh what great joy filled my wife’s and my hearts that night.  We found a cure for fussy time.  He stopped crying and fussy time never happened again.  I never figured out why just taking him outside one time cured fussy time until now.  This is a way in which children control you.  He cried until he got what he wanted.  Even at that little age, he knew the game and I had no clue we were even playing.