battleground.

I’m not raising babies any longer.

I was watching Otto rest in our bed last night, Kevin and I lying on either side of him – gazing at his freshly cut mo-hawk.  (His request.  His repeated request, actually.)

He’s so capable.  Been wearing big boy boxers for almost a year.  Sticking his hands in his pockets.  Conversing and sharing his thoughts and ideas.

My days at home have changed.

Oh – and how they’ve changed.

I’m no longer shuffling nap times and scheduling my mornings to be home at a certain time.  No directing of toddler-time activities and monitoring the play dough intake.

There’s not a calendar on my fridge with little notes that read like this: Tried sweet potatoes today.  He loved them!

No charts copied from the back of the BabyWise book where I tracked the number of times my newborn peed or pooped.

The house doesn’t smell like dirty diapers and a pack and play is not permanently a part of our living room furniture landscape.

It’s different now.

The majority of my children can make their own beds, make their own breakfast and write their own names.

Shoot, they can make my bed, cook dinner and write a novella.

And it seems as if this week I have just awakened to this reality somehow.

Maybe not awakened – I know I’ve been here for a while – but maybe I have just spent this week being reminded.

I’m not living in the baby-survival-mode trenches any longer.

I am most certainly out of the trenches.

But what I am in – where I’ve been shoved and carried and pushed  – is not too far away, really, but somehow a completely foreign land.

Out of the trenches and in the battlefield.

I’d almost trade my diaper days for some of this war.

(I said almost.  Don’t be bringing me your poopy pants and sticky fingers.)

This week our battles have been against lying and discontent and anger and harsh words.  Against bitterness and unkindness and selfishness.

Heavy heavy ground, I’m telling you.

I think I’m a little shell-shocked.

One day this week – Tuesday I think – it was battle after battle all day long.

A straight-out lie from my son.  A burst of angry words from my daughter.  Disrespect from another daughter.  Sibling infractions and wounds piled up on each other’s small shoulders – mouthed from one nine year old to the next nearly-nine year old.

I think I’d forgotten about being prepared.

It seemed such a different kind of hard to change ten diapers a day in those early weeks and have two or three in diapers at once and to raise five children under five.  (Looking back – it was hard.  But from here – I know – it’s just a different kind of hard.)

These heart issues boiling up in our home are big.  B. I. G.

And I’m supposed to be so much more than a referee.

So this week I’ve been reminded – I am engaged in battle.

Certainly not against my children.

Certainly not.

But for them.

And with them.

Against all the bad that would wish to win their souls.

The idea we’ve read together this week – that we keep trying to encourage one another with – just a portion of a verse really – is that good can overcome evil.

Bergen reminded Mosely of this truth in the backseat yesterday.

On the drive home when she was highly frustrated with Otto’s complaining and non-seat-sharing ways.

“What’s the very opposite of evil, Mosely?” he asked.

“Good,” she sighed.

Head knowing.  Heart not agreeing.

Good.

We’re up against some battles at our house.

These elementary years are full of it.

So feel free to remind me – remind my children – that good overcomes evil.

Good wins.