MAMMA, I Need My Pants!

It doesn’t matter how many times I offer my two-year-old daughter a solution, she has to try to figure it out all by her self before coming to the conclusion she needs help! With a little patience on my part, it’s just a matter of time before she asks for the help I am so eager to give her. It’s that innate will to assert her independence. Fortunately, she will grow out of this stage as we all do…or do we? Often, I see my own independent reflection in my two-year-old daughter, Alexa.

Alexa, at one point this morning, took off her pants because they "got sticky" and then remained in only a diaper, a shirt, and socks. When it was time to pick her older brother, Robby, up from school I told her we needed to put her pants back on. She replied, "I don't need my pants." 


I proceeded to try and convince her. "Let's put your pants on first, then we'll put your pretty shoes on." "Oh! My shoes!!" she replied enthusiastically as she darted up the stairs to retrieve her "pretty shoes.” 


She bounced back down and proceeded to wiggle her little toes into the opening of her first shoe. I, once again, encouraged her to let me put her pants on first, then her shoes. "I don't need my pants," she declared as she pressed her heal down into the shoe. 


She successfully weaseled both feet into her shoes. They were on the right feet and they matched her shirt beautifully, just no pants.

Now I'm a believer in natural consequences so, I decided this was not a battle I was going to pick.

"Okay, Alexa, let's put your coat on then."

"I don't need my pants or my coat."

"Okay, let's go." We proceeded out the door.

In a high-pitched shrill Alexa cried, "It's windy."

"Do you need your pants?"

"I need my coat."

We put the coat on. "How about your pants?"

"I don't need my pants."

We proceeded outside again. She made it all the way to the car, stopped and cried in her high-pitched shrill, "It's windy!"

"Do you need your pants?"

"I need my hat."

I went and fetched her hat and put it on her. “How about your pants?"

"I don't need my pants."

She was happy.

Imagine my daughter in 26 degree weather (with the wind-chill) in a coat, hat, socks, shoes, and a diaper. Half-way down the road I hear from behind me, in that high-pitched, drama-girl, shrill…

"MAAAAMA...I need my pants!"

Oh, the lessons I learn from my two-year-old daughter! Like Alexa I, too, can be as stubborn with my Heavenly Father as to say, “No thanks, Lord, I have what I need.” I persist determined to try to figure it out all by myself. Then when a circumstance overwhelms me I, too, cry out in a panic, “Looooord…I need you!” Or maybe just some pants…at any rate, I realize that what I need so desperately in a moments time is something that, just maybe, he’s been offering me all along. Oh, the love and patience of my Heavenly Father when I realize—my way has, once again, fallen short of my needs.

“And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 4:19