Parenting is nothing if not a seesaw of bodily fluids and a constant realization that you are not in control.

Along the way, though, parenting can offer lessons about life, children and yourself that Miss-Lou parents say is a valuable education in self-awareness and what really matters in life.

At 9 months old, Audrey Burns is already teaching her father John Michael Burns what is important in life.

Along with a newfound appreciation for quiet time, Burns said he has developed an immunity to bodily fluids he never thought he would have. Burns points to a weekend morning when an endearing gesture by Audrey turned into a bit of a gross-out moment.

“We woke up and were laying down, and she had a little bit of a cold and must have sneezed during the night and wiped her nose, because she had boogers and snot from her nostrils to her belly button,” Burns recalls, laughing. “I didn’t realize it, and she leans over to lay her head against me, (it) would have been the cutest thing … and then she just smears boogers all over me, all around my neck.

“I’ve just become totally immune to boogers and snot and poop and pee. Before, I never used to handle that stuff well. Now, you just let that kind of stuff roll off your back.”

Having four children has taught Alex Lawson just how laid back parents have to be sometimes.

“I really realized how Type A I was before I had kids once I had them,” Lawson said.

With 9-year-old Sophia Villarreal, 8-year-old Spencer Villarreal, 4-year-old Savannah Lawson and 7-month-old Samantha Lawson, Lawson and her husband Kenny have their hands full.

Lawson said she has lowered her expectations for what constitutes an emergency and how picky she can actually be with four children with different, but all colorful, personalities.

“Things like matching socks, do matching socks really matter?” Lawson said. “At the end of the day, they don’t.”

That moment of clarity really came with the birth of her third child.

“I think it happens with the third, because with two, you have two hands, but when you get to three, you don’t have another hand,” she said.

If there’s one thing Glen McGlothin has learned as a parent, it’s just how much he doesn’t know.

Glen has three adult daughters who “always seemed to be much smarter than me.”

But Glen said his know-nothingness became most apparent after the birth of his son Bryce.

“He’s 10, and I’m 68,” Glen said. “I’ve really learned I don’t know everything.”

Especially when it comes to homework.

“I tried to help him with his new Common Core work, and I realized I don’t know anything about math anymore. You know, we had reading, writing and arithmetic … I’ve forgotten how I made it out of that.”

Bryce has no trouble handling school, though, Glen said.

“He’s a really smart kid, but he must have gotten it from someone else besides me,” Glen said, laughing. “I just got by trying to be a big mouth and the class clown.”

Glen’s wife Elizabeth Atkins McGlothin is the so-called “drill sergeant” of the house, Glen says.

“I have to be with those two,” Elizabeth said. “Every day I wake up, and I don’t know what kind of silliness they’re going to get into.”

While she’s grounded in motherhood now, Elizabeth used to be rather carefree, constantly taking trips and enjoying independence. That all stopped when she became pregnant with Bryce, and as he’s grown, she’s realized a quality about herself she always knew was there.

“I guess I always knew I would be the disciplinarian, but having a child really brings out those things in yourself,” Elizabeth said. “And with Glen and Bryce, it’s just an adventure every day.”

It’s an adventure Glen says requires a great deal of energy for a 68-year-old father to a 10-year-old.

“I don’t know how I keep up most days,” he said.

Deloris Wilson knows all about the energy it takes to keep up with small children.

She has no children of her own, but has helped raise children of relatives, including her great-nephew and ball of energy, 4-year-old Caleb Logan.

It doesn’t take long to see that anyone would need a great deal of energy to keep up with Caleb, who leaps around cracking jokes and peers over his glasses to make silly faces.

“I just made 50 recently, and I’ll tell you, I didn’t know I had it in me,” Wilson says. “I didn’t think I still had the energy to wake up in the morning with him and go nonstop.”

Much of that energy Wilson says she has discovered she has is fueled by laughter.

“He’s such a jokester,” she said. “And he loves to mimic people, he’ll come home doing an impression of his teacher or come home and mimic our preacher.”

One particular bit of Caleb’s impression humor Wilson enjoys is Caleb’s take on their preacher’s “dry bones” sermon.

“He came home from church, and he loves music, he has a harmonica and drums, and he was playing on his ‘kiano,’ as he calls his piano, and just started playing the keys and singing, ‘Dry bones. I’m talking about those dry bones. Gonna puts some rice and gravy on those dry bones,’” Wilson says, talking through her laughter. “He will have me cracking up all day.”

Parenting is exhausting, Wilson says, but Caleb has a way of keeping her energized.

“I think kids do that for you,” she said. “You don’t know how you’re going to make it, and then you realize, (Caleb) makes me realize I have a real reason to live. He’s my energy.”