My parenting transcript

Have you ever dreamed that you had a test today and completely forgot to study for it?  This is how I sometimes feel about my job as a parent.  Parenting, to me, is like a series of mini tests.  It starts the day you take the baby home.  Can you dress a baby?  Check.  Can you properly hold a baby?  Check.  Can you make a carseat work like it should?  Check (after several trial and error attempts.)  Every day is filled with these tests. 

I never was one for studying for tests.  I felt pretty confident in my retention of the lessons taught in class.  Problem?  There are no lessons for parenting.  I guess there are if you count the example your parents set for you.  How can I be expected to remember all of that, though?  The big life lessons are pretty cut and dried.  It's the little details that sometimes slip through the cracks.  Suddenly one day, you find yourself realizing you've failed a test.  But wait!  I didn't know that was on the test!!!  Too bad.  It was.  You missed it.  If you're lucky, you'll still have time to go back and retake that section.  Maybe no one else has noticed you skipped it.  I was reminded of just such a test last night when I walked into my bathroom (one of the precious few quiet spots in my home in the evening) and heard the rain on the roof.  For whatever reason, I thought to myself, "It's raining.  It's pouring.  The old man is snoring...hmmm I bet my kids wouldn't have a clue what that means."  This isn't the first time I've been made aware of this little failure of mine.

Several years ago, Robbie was asked to sing "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" for some reason at school.  To my surprise, he didn't know it.  Who was supposed to teach him that?  Why doesn't he know that?  Oh yeah.  That would be me.  I'm the mom.  Oops.  An entire subject failed.  Nursery songs.  It had never occurred to me before.  If Barney hadn't taught him, he didn't know it.  Nursery songs are a childhood right of passage, and I had just forgotten about them.  I knew them.  I don't remember learning them.  I just always knew them.  My mom clearly excelled in this particular section of testing.  Mary Had a Little Lamb.  Ring around the Rosey.  It's raining it's pouring.  Hickory Dickory Dock.  I can sing them all to you.  My kids?  Not a chance!  Is it too late to teach a 13 year old these songs?  Oh, he learned "Row, Row, Row...," but we never quite got around to the rest of the songs.  Maybe I'll just pray he marries a woman whose mom had the foresight to teach her those songs.  There may still be time for Brady. 

Each day as a parent is full of opportunities to succeed or fail.  I just hope I'm succeeding at the most important aspects.  The Golden Rule.  The Bible.  And I pray I don't leave out too many of the details from my raising that I just take for granted.  Nursery songs.  Card games.  Here's the church, here's the steeple.  Wouldn't it be nice if we could peek at our parenting transcript and see where we're failing?  I'm sure there are other tests I've failed without even realizing it was a test.  Maybe we should all keep a mental checklist of the lessons we don't want to let slip through the cracks.  

"Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it."  Proverbs 22:6