The rest of Christmas day was mostly uneventful. We went to Dad's side of the family's house. My uncle David and aunt Michele's house and it was nice to see them, and also my aunt Bonnie-Olivia, cousin(s) Dave, and his little boy Christopher. Christopher turned five-years-old on December 23rd. He is a very hyper little boy, and very cute. Although not as well-behaved as he is cute.

There is a song by a Country artist I am fond of, Rodney Atkins, and there is a line in this song that makes me think of little Chris. The song is "My Old Man" and the song is about his parents. He tells about them and how they helped him grow to be the good man he tries to be today.
The line in the songs is this: And there were times I tried to buck, the truthful things they said. But now I'm glad that, more than once, they rattled my stubborn head.
That makes me think of Chris and how he is going to need some stern and swift head-rattling to grow up to be a good man. I know my parents tried their best to parent my younger sisters and myself to grow up to be good and strong women and I know that I definitely bucked their parenting and that now I'm glad for (most of) the head-rattling they gave me. I was just thinking of that song and it felt fitting for Christopher, me and the whole world in general.

I sometimes wonder how I will be as a parent. Right now, I say that I will be a tough parent. In some ways I say that because I have seen people, some of them friends, some of them not, who didn't have parents that parented them in a way I approve (I know, I'm 19, I really probably have no right to say this, but it's just how I feel). Partly it's because I know what the Bible says about parenting and I believe the Bible and want to follow what it says, and partly because I don't want my kids to reach the age of 19 and feel like me.
And that isn't even something I can fully blame on my parents, and I don't want to. I used to blame everything on them. Everything was their fault. My having Bipolar Disorder, and many other mental illnesses', my willful stubbornness, my rebelliousness, everything was their fault. Which is wrong. I remember days where I told my mom that I shouldn't have been born. But those were also days where I couldn't seen past the black cloud surrounding me and when I didn't think I could sink any deeper into the quicksand of depression and anger and hurt.