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Motherhood is for sure a journey that I don’t always feel very well prepared for. But it’s incredible to see first hand how the Lord is teaching me and working in my own heart through this opportunity to love on and teach these little souls.

We have had a very unexpected adventure this week after finding a bat in the nursery - and since we have no idea how long it was in the house or whether or not there was any contact with the kids (even though they were not home when I found the bat), it was advised that we all start the series of rabies vaccine immediately… which meant a family visit to the local ER.

toddler visiting the ER and playing on his tablet

I am constantly in awe of my little boy and watching him grow and shine in how God has created him. He is a little empath - he feels deeply and loudly with his emotions. He often just needs to take a few seconds or minutes to get out a good cry when he is hurt or upset, and given the space to let it out, he can recover fairly quickly. But he continues to process and feel. If he sees others hurt or sad, he whimpers and asks for a snuggle. He feels what others feel.

So knowing this is how he is wired, we talked a lot about how the day was going to go when we had to visit the ER for those shots. I knew he could handle seeing mom and dad gets those shots without freaking out, but that he would need to go before seeing his little sister cry. But I knew he would cry. I knew he would be upset and feel some really big emotions. So we talked about being brave. I told him what I thought it meant to be brave - to do something that we don’t necessarily want to do but we do it because we know it is good for us.

father and son looking at touchscreen tvs in hospital waiting room

baby with a pink and purple stuffed snail

After over 3 hours in the ER and waiting for the vaccines to come down from the pharmacy, we all got our first round of vaccines. We’ll need to go back 3 more times for additional doses. It’s a long process and I’m praying it’s not too traumatizing for our toddler in the long run. But right now it is most certainly a learning experience.

The process happened exactly as I expected it would go. We told the nurses that my husband and I should go first before the kids since we knew they would be upset and need to be consoled. They came back and thought maybe the kids should go first so they didn’t have to see it happen to mom and dad - maybe they weren’t parents, I don’t know, but when we are all in a room together and need to have the same experience happen for all of us, I’m not sure how they expected our kids wouldn’t see it either way. And I knew they needed to go after us.

I went first - I highly dislike needles and shots, but I put on a very brave face for the sake of my kids. Then my husband had his turn. Again - brave face. My husband seemed unphased. But now it was my son’s turn - I knew he wouldn’t like this part. He did so well for the first shot - but then came time for that second. That was far more traumatizing since he already had to experience it once and he really didn’t want to be brave a second time around. It’s so hard to watch your kids in pain and upset. My son had a good long (and loud) cry after that. He had to feel his emotions - his really big emotions. And then he had to watch his little sister and hear her cry. She recovered much quicker than her brother did. He had a second wave of big emotions because his sister was sad and crying. But he slowly came down from those emotions as he saw his sister recover and move on from her crying. Then he was distracted by a new Spider-Man toy that the Child/Family Specialist brought in and gave him to play with and take home. (Amazing.)

Every now and then, sitting on our couch at home, or laying in bed before he sleeps, he casually reminds me that he wasn’t brave. And I have to immediately remind him that he was SO BRAVE. That all of his tears and crying were totally ok - it’s ok to cry, I will say. It’s ok to be sad. But you were still really brave! Being brave is about doing something that we know is good for us even if we don’t really want to do it.