That's What Moms Are For

I love the Spring.  I was the teacher that hated teaching in April and May, not because of all the craziness that comes with the end of the school year, but because of the beautiful weather outside.  I'd much rather have school in the summer and winter and be off in the Springtime when you can actually enjoy the outdoors.

Being a religion and reading teacher, I came up with all kinds of outdoor lessons and activities.  We'd grab our books and head outside to read the week's story.  Or grab our rosaries and head outside to pray.  All while enjoying God's beautiful sunshine!  Now that we are homeschooling, we can simply cancel school on beautiful days!  I'd much rather spend the day outside gardening or just sitting on the back patio watching the kids play and listening to the birds.  In a few weeks, we can spend those extremely hot Louisiana days of summer doing schoolwork inside in the air-conditioning.

Yesterday was one of those days that we spent outside.  Our oldest mowed the grass.  I trimmed.  We cleaned and washed off the carport and patios.  Then our oldest daughter and I headed to weed the garden that had been neglected due to all of our mission trip planning and fundraising.  As we worked alongside each other hoeing and pulling weeds, she screamed every two minutes.  Yes, screamed literally every two minutes.  She is deathly afraid of flying insects.  And rightly so.  She's the one that ALWAYS gets stung or bitten!  No matter where we are stinging or biting insects always find her. 

So, I had two choices:  I could send her in and put her on baby duty like she begged me to do and enjoy my peaceful Spring day, or I could make her remain with me and help her overcome her fear.  It was a hard choice especially after she nearly busted my eardrums several times and ran me over trying to escape a bug.  But I chose the more difficult task knowing that she really wanted to garden with me.  So, I became the "worst mom ever" as I demanded that she remain with me pulling weeds.

I'm pretty sure that all the flying insects in the state of Louisiana came to our garden that afternoon.  She cried.  She screamed.  She ran up and down in between the rows.  It was pitiful and yet a little hilarious.  It was like a scene from a movie.   I tried to make her to understand that they chase her when she runs away and that they would leave her alone if she remained calm.  Finally, as something buzzed our way, I grabbed her arm and held her in place.  She squirmed and cried, but I held her firmly in place.  Thankfully, the bug flew off, and she began to "see" what I was talking about.

Several long hours later (probably just an half hour or two, but it seemed like hours), we were sitting under the tree resting in the shade, sipping our water.  I told her how much I enjoyed our gardening together AFTER she stopped screaming.  She shook her head her slowly and replied, "Yeah, but I'm screamin' on the inside!"  We laughed and then got back to work.  I watched as she froze, held her breath, and then smiled at me as the bugs flew away each time.

On our next break under the tree, she sincerely thanked me for helping her to overcome her fear of flying bugs.  I smiled and told her, "That's what Moms are for."