Hard gig I signed up for

Ugh. This parenting gig is no joke. Little kids come with their own challenges, but it feels like I'm always going to struggle with my oldest. He's closer to 5 than 4 now and I know parents of truly big kids will laugh at me, but it seems somehow do much bigger than 4. Four I feel like I can mostly handle, 4.5 has rocked my world upside down somedays. Maybe it's just because I'm like that and struggle with the new, the unknown every time. Maybe it's that I'm parenting a brazen, talkative choleric who in some big ways is just like me. I so love him, but he challenges me daily and honestly, it's hard and some days I wish I could just give up.
However, I realize these same days, usually a little later than I should, how he was given to me for a reason. God knows what he is doing, even if I struggle to see the forest for the trees most days.
Each day, if I really think about it and am not tired from a rough sleep patch from the baby, I learn something about him. For instance, Benjamin does his best in a non group setting. He flourishes when he's taught one on one. To take him into something where he cannot have autonomy right now, well, bad things will happen. And its not to say we can't do some group setting things, it's just maybe they need to have their limitations for the time being.
I think the one thing that's really hard for me right now is that I feel like, and maybe put too much stock in it, that his behavior becomes a reflection of who I am. I realize more and more that this little person is not someone I can control. It's a falsity to think I can do so. To offer guidance and direction, that I can do. To give a reasonable consequence for his ill behavior I can do. But I can't control him. I feel like this is a big lesson for me to try to work on because with that NFJ it becomes easy to be a meddler. But that's when my strength becomes my downfall, when it's taken too far. So, today, today I'm thankful for a new day so I can try and learn and love some more.