What's for Dinner?

  How many times as moms are we asked this question?  About 10 billion, especially if you have more than one kid because the first kid who asks NEVER tells anyone else.  Kid #1, "What's for dinner mom?".  You answer sweetly, "Chicken with rice and corn".  5 minutes later kid #2 comes strolling in, "What's for dinner, I'm starving!"  You answer not so sweetly, "Chicken with rice and corn".  Kid #3 comes in about 2 seconds later and you KNOW she heard you answer kid #2 but she asks anyway, "Hey mom!  I'm sooooooo hungry, wha'ts for dinner?"  You respond tersely, "Chicken".  Kid #4 comes in, "Hey!  What's for dinner?"  You scream, "I don't know, what's it look like I'm  cooking??  Huh??  And if you are so hungry, why don't you ask if you can help?"  Now, that poor kid didn't know that 3 other kids had come in and asked the same question but she gets the brunt of all your frustration.  Of course it's funny in hindsight but really, that is just a sinful response to a simple question.  My husband cannot understand why I get so upset when asked the same question over and over.  I don't understand it either, but it certainly gets my blood boiling to be asked the same thing repeatedly.  Maybe because it happens so often during the day and I think the kids should be passing out information.  If I tell one kid what dinner is, I automatically assume the other kids heard and know, kind of like telepathy.  I should know better after 15 years of parenting but I don't. 
  There is a verse, 1 Tim. 2:15, that says a woman is saved through childbearing.  Now, that verse stumped me for years and years and I actually took offence as a teen from it.  I took it to mean that a woman couldn't be a Christian unless she had given birth.  Now, I don't take to be a scholar or a theologian or anything like that and I am going out on my own little limb here by giving my own interpretation of that verse.  I recently read that verse again and took it very differently.  I have 6 kids birthed within 10 years.  I have 2 teenage girls and at least 1 kid in each school in our area, including one still homeschooled.  I have seen alot and experienced alot.  Not as much as some and not as much as I will, but still, a substantial amount.  I read that verse again during my devotion time and it had a totally different meaning to me.  A woman is not physically saved through childbearing but a huge amount of my sanctification has come through being a mom.  I have had to learn to be patient while listening to my daughter's long and annoying dreams, loving when I didn't want to, unselfish when I wanted to be selfish with my dessert, giving up my dreams of going to college, obeying the Lord when I thought He was being unfair, and many many more things.  I am saved by God's wonderful grace and sacrifice, but my character is being shaped by my parenting and how my husband has treated and loved me.
  I was out shopping recently and saw a woman being impatient with her 2 year old.  The little girl was trying to help her mommy take their things out of the buggy and put them on the register belt.  The mom was getting frustrated and finally snapped and told the little girl to stop.  I have been in those shoes and may be again one day (I don't claim to be perfect, just ask my kids) but that day, I felt sad.  The woman felt that she had to be in a hurry because there was a line and she took her anxiousness out on her daughter, who was just trying to be mommy's helper.   How many of us have been there?  I have since learned to speak clearly to my children and who cares if we take a little more time?  Most people understand because they think kids are cute or they have been there done that.  That woman is still being saved through childbearing, just as I am as I experience some new situation or even an old one that I just haven't learned from.  Like the question, "What's for dinner?"
What parenting experience has shaped you?