The truth: I don't have much time to blog. Well, really any, but I try to squeeze it in. I do it because I'm trying to create a little piece of family history, and I want to record what I love. It makes me happy. Writing it and reading it reminds me of my millions of blessings.
The other truth: Motherhood is not easy, dear Elisabeth. Take this morning. I wake up after a not-enough sleep and immediately realize I promised to make rice pudding for breakfast. Easy enough. Also, Josh did not do his homework last week. At all. Not too hard. So, I get started. My baby wakes up screaming to be fed. Things get interesting. I try to cook while holding screaming baby, and also supervise homework and a preschooler who wants to cook. When things are at the right point, I start nursing in a chair in front of the stove, still supervising homework and cooking. Toddler comes downstairs with an obviously stinky diaper. That will have to wait. When it's time for baby to come up for air, I run to grab Josh's clothes, which I have to dig for because I haven't folded laundry in so long. Supervise food, keep going on homework, take ornament from toddler . . . Baby throws up on me and the kitchen floor. I don't know where it landed because I'm not wearing my glasses, so I put a paper towel under my foot and resume duties. Throw-up resumes as well. Food is finally ready, in a rush to get Josh dressed and out the door, and I look down and notice the baby's pajama leg is full of poo. With the two messy diapers our house doesn't smell like "Christmas Cottage" anymore . . . Don't know how Josh gets to school, but he does, with a kiss on the head even. And that's the first 50 minutes of the day.
Another example. I wrote this last week: I fed my kids no-bake cookies for breakfast this morning. I was soooo tired, I may have hit a new low (Though the oatmeal and peanut butter makes it better than donuts and cinnamon rolls. Totally justified.) I am usually so good at making myself do things even if I don't feel like I can, but, wow. Today I couldn't. Probably a holdover from last night when I was doing various tasks until 12:30, then I was so exhausted I said I was just going to brush my teeth, then fall in bed. I stumbled to the bathroom to grab my toothbrush, and a mouse ran across my foot. YIKES! As if I needed less sleep.
So, why is motherhood so hard if it's so important? Doesn't seem fair sometimes. I don't really know, but I do know a few things.
First, this phase will go by quickly, and I will miss it when it's gone. I already miss toddler Josh, baby Noah, and 1 year old Andrew. I'm never getting them back. So, I have to love up what I've got, because I won't have it for long.
Second, the most difficult roles I have taken on in my life, missionary and mother, have also brought the most joy. When I ran track in high school, my successes were pretty well correlated with the amount of gut-wrenching workouts I put in. I remember thinking it wasn't fair that finding someone to marry was so hard, and that it now the best thing in my life. Making this connection reminds me of one of my favorite articles, called Missionary Work and the Atonement, by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland. While it's not talking about motherhood, there are a lot of things to the following excerpt that connect for me. I won't elaborate on how right now, I'll just leave you to read and ponder.
Anyone who does any kind of missionary work will have occasion to ask, Why is this so hard? Why doesn’t it go better? Why can’t our success be more rapid? Why aren’t there more people joining the Church? It is the truth. We believe in angels. We trust in miracles. Why don’t people just flock to the font? Why isn’t the only risk in missionary work that of pneumonia from being soaking wet all day and all night in the baptismal font?So, maybe it's hard because it is so important . . .
You will have occasion to ask those questions. I have thought about this a great deal. I offer this as my personal feeling. I am convinced that missionary work is not easy because salvation is not a cheap experience.Salvation never was easy. We are The Church of Jesus Christ, this is the truth, and He is our Great Eternal Head. How could we believe it would be easy for us when it was never, ever easy for Him? It seems to me that missionaries and mission leaders have to spend at least a few moments in Gethsemane. Missionaries and mission leaders have to take at least a step or two toward the summit of Calvary.
Now, please don’t misunderstand. I’m not talking about anything anywhere near what Christ experienced. That would be presumptuous and sacrilegious. But I believe that missionaries and investigators, to come to the truth, to come to salvation, to know something of this price that has been paid, will have to pay a token of that same price.
For that reason I don’t believe missionary work has ever been easy, nor that conversion is, nor that retention is, nor that continued faithfulness is. I believe it is supposed to require some effort, something from the depths of our soul.
P.S. These are not the most difficult things to happen ever. Just so happened to have had those experiences last week (I wrote most of this several days ago). And that was before Noah cut a nice shirt with scissors, dropped 5 pounds of honey, and Andrew pulled the front off of a kitchen drawer. Once again, survivable things. But those are easier to write about than worse things, so I do. They're also harder to deal with when you're practically in a coma. :)
6 comments:
It's hard. It really is. Quit expecting more than you can give. No one can doit all and you are way to hard on yourself. You are doing fine. NOt just fine. REally great even. You are a good homemaker and mom and wife. And you are right, maybe that is the great part, it's hard and we learn things we didn't even know were there to learn. I love you.
I'm impressed with everything you are trying to do. Rice pudding for breakfast?!?! My kids eat pop tarts and hot chocolate. I can't imagine how difficult 4 would be. And JG is right, as much as we would like to, we can't do it all. Even though I convince myself occasionally I can... I come to regret it quickly. :) hang in there!
To clarify, I do not usually make breakfast these days. This particular day we didn't have any cereal, because I haven't had the chance to go shopping hardly at all lately, and I already had a huge container of leftover rice, thus making the rice pudding easy to make (just dumping a few things in, I don't measure), and I'd promised to do so the night before. I could have scratched the idea, but then we'd be left with nothing else, so . . . My point is not that I'm trying to do too much - my kids have to eat, they have to wear clothes, they have to go to school, get their diapers changed, do their homework . . . it just happens all at once sometimes. My point is that if I'm being real it's sometimes very challenging, but also very worth it, and the reason why it is challenging is because it is worth it. I stink at writing sometimes.
GREAT post. So true. The morning you described sounded familiar...minus two kids and rice pudding:) But I get it! You ARE good at writing...that's why I love your blog- You always say it so well- and it's funny too.
I don't know how you're managing 4 kids- I'm struggling with 2!
IT IS HARD. Pregnancy stinks. Postpartum is rough. Being a woman is downright poopy sometimes. Someday I'm going to ask Heavenly Father why it had to be so. I like your correlation to missionary work, and while I don't have any words of wisdom I do know that it does get easier. It's those short moments of bliss in between the craziness that make it all worthwhile.
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