Older and wiser. I'm growing up.

It's true, I am growing up... well, growing older anyway.

I remember I had a few mums that, years ago, I would go to for help on things that I knew they had experienced because their family dynamic was similar to ours, just that little bit further ahead than ours. The conversation usually started like this... "I've got a problem and I'm wondering if you've been through this before... "

Honestly, I still feel out of my depth a lot of the time with this parenting thing, I think Ben does too. The problem is, nothing is static. The kids just keep growing and forcing us to learn new stuff and hitting new stages and doing things we haven't had any experience with before.

I still ask questions.

I ask my mum, my sister, my friends, the internet... it's still kind of a village experience going into raising a child, kind of, the village has just changed it's borders and looks a little different.

So it came as a surprise one day recently, when I was struggling to keep my head above water, when a friend came to me... "I've got a problem and I'm wondering if you've been through this before..."

How did I end up as the "older and wiser" one?

Well, I have had some fantastic godly examples of how to offer advice though I can only answer from my small research experience of my own 4 kids. I feel like I am far less coherent in my answers than they were in their answers to me... but that's just generally me, in everything. Sometimes when I'm writing I amaze myself with how coherent it is, my speech rarely comes out in a fluid sense making way. (yeah, that < right there, I'm all over this coherent sense making thing).

But of course, I'm still struggling with those new experiences too and will always be asking my "older and wiser" friends. I mean my kid just put a lion shaped castanet in my coffee... anyone experienced that before?