Accepting the Things I Cannot Change

Lately, I was reminded of the serenity prayer: God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

Trite? Probably. Helpful when applied? Yes.

I know I have things I should probably accept and stop worrying about, but lately I've been thinking about how awesome it is that I'm not worrying about something.

Nathaniel is better than I am at most things.

A sampling: Nathaniel placed much higher than I did in the Moot Court competition. He gets better grades. He is more organized. He speaks Russian better than I speak Romanian or Spanish. He is better and more consistent at cleaning. He folds clothes better than I do.

And my favorite: He does Summer's hair better than I do. Yes, try as I might, I can't do my daughter's hair very well.

I always thought that when I had a girl I would just learn to do her hair and I would make it beautiful every day. I didn't anticipate a wiggly toddler with a low threshold for pain and me as a mother with little patience for learning to do hair.

Maybe this is something I could change. Maybe I should add a line: "Help me start with the most important changes." Sometimes I cringe when I see Summer's bad haircut (yes, I cut her hair) and accompanying lack of bows or clips or flowers or ponytails, but most of the time I just see pretty, straight, strong brown hair. Actually, when I look at Summer, what I usually see are her eyes - full of mischief or questioning or happiness or love or pain or excitement. And sometimes a blank stare. But no matter what her hair looks like, I think she's beautiful and I'd rather show her maps in our atlas and tell her stories of ships sailing across the sea than wrestle with elastic bands. And let's face it, I should probably get organized before I worry about pigtails.

I think it's wonderful that Nathaniel is so good at so many things. I'm not going to let that fact make me feel superfluous, because I'm not. If it weren't for me, Nathaniel would starve.