Same Teams

7

My son teaches me things daily. Whether it’s a lesson on patience for myself, unconditional love, or how many sippies full of juice it takes before he needs a potty break. It came as no surprise when he again made me stop and go, “Wow. What a great lesson for life.”

It was a normal day at home. I think Drake, Sophia, and I were upstairs folding laundry and picking up. I left her in her room for a bit while I grabbed another load of laundry to fold, and I heard Drake in there talking to Sophia about something. He has a lot of words… everyday… so I didn’t catch all of it. But as I was walking into the room, I saw him holding her hand, getting real close to her sweet face, and saying,

“We’re same teams, Soph.”

That is a moment I want to savor forever.

There are a few lessons I want my kids to learn from this whole life-with-siblings thing.

One: Empathy.

Same Teams | Des Moines Moms BlogI want them to be able to love others and to love them well. And in order to do that, they must have empathy. To be able to understand and share the feelings of another. As an adult, this has allowed me to enter into their joy, pain, frustration, and love them through it.

Two: Acceptance.

Yes, I know that your sister is the complete opposite of you. Yes, I know she doesn’t “get” our humor sometimes. Yes, I know that she would sing every single phrase like High School Musical if it was socially acceptable. But you know what? We LOVE her. Completely. We accept her silliness and we love her — just like we love you. Always.

Three: Patience.

We have four children. Ages 0-11 years old. We are needed. All the time. And we don’t always have the ability to help everyone at the same time. I used to feel guilty that the number two most popular phrase out of my mouth was, “Just a minute!” But, honestly, it has taught our kids to either chill out and give me a minute or to figure it out themselves.

Four: Selflessness

Like many of these lessons, I feel like this one is a lifelong journey. To serve others, to choose to be there for others first, to give of our things, our time, our abilities. It is against our human nature to not be selfish. I love taking my kids when I drop off meals to a new mom or take medicine to a mama with sick littles. It blesses all of us to be able to serve them.

dmmbsameteamsFive: Same Teams.

No matter what life throws at us, no matter who comes and goes in our life, no matter how someone hurts us, no matter what health concerns come and go, no matter what mistakes we make… we are same teams. We are a family. One unit. That will never change. We back each other up. We stand beside each other. No matter how much we fight, yell, grumble, or ignore each other, at the end of the day, we love each other. And that love wins every argument. I could be so mad at my hubs and not want to talk to him, but if he needed me to back him up on something that day, I’d do it. Because — same teams.

What qualities do you hope your children cling to as they grow up?

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Rachel Verzani
Rachel is the wife to an accountant, the mom to a sweetheart, Cadence (Dec. 2004), a sass-a-frass, Liliana (April 2007), a smiley little guy, Drake (May 2012) and a precious baby sister, Sophia (October 2015). She enjoys her days at home taking care of her babies, setting up play dates, being active in her girls' classrooms, blogging, baking and praying. Check her out at myspoonfulofsugar-rv.blogspot.com and desmoinesmomsblog.com.

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