As Willow is getting older (all 8 weeks of her) and I've been doing a little bit more reading and perusing of parenting books and websites, I've come across so many labels and how-to methods and parenting styles. If you do xy&z, then you're doing it this way, if you do ab&c, then you're this style, but if you only do p&q and add a little ab, then you're doing this and probably messing your kid up for life.  

Okay, so maybe it's not quite so rigid, but I feel it's a bit excessive and almost insulting at times. Some of the so called methods eliminate any room for God given parenting instinct, or they seem just plain common sense and silly that someone actually put a name to it and called it a "style". As I've skimmed blogs of other Moms who write mostly about their adventures in motherhood and homemaking, I began to feel like I was supposed to be subscribing to one of these methods, that I had to pick a name for how I was going to parent in the event that some playground  Mom turns to me and asks "...and what style are you using to parent Willow?".

How about the "Fly by the Seat of My Pants" style??? Just kidding.

But really, as I considered parenting and who the original parent is, I drew the correlation to what I've been doing, and think I'll continue to do as Willow grows, with how the Father parents us as his children. I thought about being a brand spankin' new christian and what is so crucial during that infant stage. I think so much of our God parent-child relationship is rooted in believing, trusting and accepting and receiving His love for us. REALLY accepting.  And I think often times we don't. What if that's all we did in the beginning, if we spent the first year as a believer just soaking up His love and not wanting to get out of His lap, just being cooed over and not feeling driven to go and do, or join this ministry team or follow this 25 step guide to Christian living, but just let Him sing over us as a new parent and all we do is drink it up as we learn how to trust and dwell in that relationship? And then, what if when we move into toddlerhood, we are so secure with our parent, we don't doubt His love, His wisdom, we are safe to venture out and make choices, receive discipline, respond with obedience out of that love-relationship and desire to please our parent. What if, when we make a toddler mistake and we exercise our free-will and test our independence and we are lovingly, firmly corrected, what if we don't dwell on it or wallow in it, but safely go back to the lap and are content to rest and receive.

Maybe my interpretation is itself infantile or misdirected, but I do hope Willow grows to operate out of trust and security in our love-relationship.