I asked God for patience, and he gave me plenty of opportunities to practice it. That’s a truism I’ve heard in one variation or another often enough, and for long enough, that I have never, ever asked God for patience. Yet he still gives me plenty of opportunities to practice it. That’s not strictly true. I have asked God for patience at particular moments, in particular situations. I have asked for help not flying off the handle when one or another of my kids has gotten on my last nerve and I am just done. Mostly, it works — although I cannot claim to be a parent who always keeps her temper and never yells. Most recently, I did yell at Teresa when she took advantage of me taking a phone call — a 53-second phone call from a friend looking for an address — to find and open a large container of moisturizing cream, slather it on her face, drop gobs on her clothing and then fall to the floor and use it to make snow angels on the carpet. Ten minutes before we were supposed to leave the house. This, after we had discussed in the previous day or two how she should not touch things that did not belong to her, especially if they were in the nature of soap, shampoo, lotion, hand sanitizer, etc. And if she did happen to have something like that in her hands, she should not rub it into the rug. So she got a scolding while I cleaned her (very soft) face and hands, and then went off to play while I scrubbed the rug. Meanwhile, when Frank told me that he would check the lost and found at school for my bike helmet, which he had because he had lost his helmet ages ago, and then found his, but decided he preferred mine, I just said, “OK. Please remember to look for it and bring it home if you find it.” And when Caroline lost her bus card, I just lent her mine until she could get a new one. Pre-Teresa, both of those things would have bothered me much more than they did. I’ve heard younger kids get away with more because their parents are just too tired to respond to every little thing, and that’s true, but I also think parents with older kids know that all the little-kid misbehavior will pass. A teenager will not rub shampoo on her shirt for fun. What you don’t hear as much about is that parents with little ones are too tired to make a federal case about every little thing with their teens. It forces you to pick your battles. It also makes you wonder what God thinks of us, his children. Does he wonder why we continue to misbehave, why we keep dumping out the lotion, even though he’s made the rules pretty clear? Does he shake his head and ask himself for patience? Probably, he doesn’t have to. But when I laugh at what my kids do, sometimes I hope that we are at least entertaining him.