Category: Yearly Goals

Sunday May 1, 2011 Dear Mom, You know how you don’t like it when we make messes in the house, well we don’t like it when you yell at us and say we are going to be grounded.  But one thing, I am not going to be like you when I grow up and am a mom.

Love A.

 

According to this letter from my daughter today, I’m not doing so hot.  Part of the note makes me laugh, and part of it makes me want to cry.  She is sooo sensitive.  Part of me hopes she’s nothing like me; I want her to be so much better than I am.   Much of the time I’m not too thrilled with who I am, either.  And part of me thinks, “just you wait until you grow up and have kids and all the things you promised yourself you would never do when you’re a mom will all happen anyway.”

So here we are at the end of a good but exhausting week and I wish I could say things are better.  I wish I could say I am growing.  We’re just stretched so thin that I see gaping holes all around me.  By the time I get one patched up I turn around and there’s another new hole in a place I thought was tightly woven.  Is life like this for every mother, I wonder, or am I just fundamentally flawed?

I worked hard this week to keep the house looking better.  I also worked hard in the cooking department.  On Friday afternoon when I picked the children up from school most of it was looking pretty good and I felt good about it.  By Saturday afternoon I was back at square one.  The price we pay for soccer season is so high; last night I found myself questioning the value of it, wondering if it’s right to do things this way.  Last night when we put the girls to bed my husband commented on the collection of clothing on their floor.  All I could say was, “I see it too.  Please don’t make me talk about it right now or I’ll just cry.”  So he wisely ignored it, prayed with the girls, and the subject was closed.  Never mind that I’d done 18 loads of laundry on Thursday and Friday.  The bathrooms need attention.  My kitchen cabinets need scrubbing.  My kitchen floor needs mopping.

On Friday night we had two soccer games, one in Sandy and one in West Valley.  I sent my husband to one and took most of the children to the one in West Valley, where we sat in our car and watched my son play in a blizzard.  Just after half time, my 20 month old threw up without warning.  She was sitting on my lap.  She threw up all over me, all over herself, all over my steering wheel, all over the hardback book I was reading, all over my daughter’s backpack.  Awesome.

What can I say?  The trenches are the trenches, and I spend a majority of my time in them.  Somebody said that motherhood is the equivalent of being on the front lines of humanity.  It’s true.  And sometimes the front lines aren’t very pretty, and sometimes the job description isn’t much fun, and sometimes you wonder if you’re all alone.  Sometimes you gain ground; sometimes you fall back.  I’m not in a very glorious stage.  Today my children were ALL monsters in Church.  I wanted to come home and put them all in cages!

The thing about the trenches, the thing about being on the front lines, is that you simply don’t quit .   And you pray.  Right now it’s the only real answer I have.  I don’t know what else to do.  And so we move on, trusting (and rejoicing) in the reality of a Savior who supplies endless second chances.  And you hope you get it right before your children are all grown up and gone.

The End.
Jennifer

Ok, I’ve noticed something about these weekly reports and I’m guessing you’ve noticed it as well.  They’re great summaries of my week peppered with pieces of my heart, but the lack of substantial growth in specific habits is ominously apparent.  That’s not good.

Honestly, I’m in my crazy season.  Yesterday we had 6 games to attend:  5 soccer and one lacrosse.  They began at 9 a.m. and the last one started at 6:30 p.m. at a field an hour away from our home.  In all, the time we spent at sports events to watch our children compete was twelve hours solid, with one 30 minute break when we were all home together.  I spent so many hours outside watching games with my arms crossed to stay warm as the sky drizzled here and there, threatening to dump, that I came home with a sunburn!  Ridiculous.  It’s the time of year when sometimes the very best I can do is simply live through it.  But I’m tired of just surviving, which is why I set my goals in the first place.

Tonight I’m re-committing myself to work hard at the specific little goals that will help our family function better.  I’m going to work harder at my laundry schedule and try to move through the housekeeping faster.   We’ve been so busy that I’ve fallen off my planning routines for meal planning and grocery shopping some.  I’m going to get back on the ball, change gears mentally, and start planning better meals that can be packed up and eaten in parks while we’re on the run.  I need to do a better job of planning in general.

That said, I must also acknowledge my Heavenly Father’s help in so many areas of my life.   I would be such a mess without it.

We’ve had a special Easter week around here.  Good things happened.  I worked hard to make the holiday a special one for my family.  (We celebrate the Easter Bunny version of the holiday on Friday night/Saturday morning and save Sunday for a holy day to celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.)  I feel like our family has grown and spent sacred time together.  I hope my children remember it.

Once again, the habit of seeing God’s arm revealed in our lives continues to grow.  I am so thankful He loves me, one of the least of his daughters, enough to work in my life.  I am a decidedly unfinished project and I appreciate the time and attention He gives to my growth and development.

Do you want to hear the latest addition to our miracle box ?  We had a hot water pipe in our basement that was somehow punctured and leaking.  I discovered the leak late on a Saturday night so we put a bucket under it and waited to call a professional until Monday morning.  Miraculously, the hole healed itself.  No more leak.  We can’t find the punctured spot.  Once again we were reminded that He knows us, He hears our prayers, and loves to help us.

I woke up this morning with a hymn in my heart.    He is Risen!  My heart is full.  I am so, so grateful for my Savior.

Hope your week is great (and sunny)!
Jennifer

How can it be that we’re fifteen weeks into 2011?  For some reason that number seems large today.


It’s Sunday evening.  Most of my children sit nearby, absorbed in books of their choice.  My husband naps on the couch as I relish the sound of birds singing outside our open windows.  Could it be that spring, at last, is here?

My tulips are beginning to bloom.  At first I was disappointed that they didn’t all burst into color at once for a big display of color.  Instead they’re opening first in the back while the flower beds in front hold back.  Now I’m grateful for the staggered growth; the beauty will last longer.  It’s funny how we want so many things to be a certain way, only to discover that the way it all works out instead is best.

We’ve had a wonderful week.  No bells or whistles or fancy trips.  We’ve had a week of good, old fashioned childhood: a week of forts built in remote corners of our property, running through sprinklers, naps on the lawn, playing with brothers and sisters and neighbors.  It’s been a week of prayer, fresh worries and lots of love felt in behalf of my 90 year old Grandpa who had a severe stroke at the beginning of the week.  It’s been a week of peanut butter sandwiches and sliced apples, muddy shoes, lazy mornings, swing sets squeaking, laughter and imagination.  Even I sat outside yesterday in the warm sun while the children played and simply read a book.  (This is a partial answer to my question , that yes, some things get easier when your baby is old enough to play without putting everything in her mouth.)  I know my older ones may be disappointed when they go back to school tomorrow and hear reports of cruises and trips to Disneyland, but I’m confident we got what we needed.  Once again, our daily bread.

Perhaps the only real habit I’m developing so far this year is an improvement in recognizing the Lord’s hand in our lives, in seeing Him give us what we NEED regardless of anything we might not have.   I sincerely worked at changing gears this week, trying to shelve the things I’m worried about and live in the moment.  I had a few lapses but made inroads as well.

I admit this is a Sunday evening I didn’t want to come.  School resumes tomorrow and we’re back in the thick of things for seven more weeks.  It sounds so long but I know it will be a whirlwind of activity and suddenly we’ll drop into summer with a sigh of relief.

I remember nights like tonight.  As a child I remember the anxiety that gripped my heart the night before school started.  I felt it every Sunday night, the worry of performing well enough, wondering if I could do it.  It was magnified exponentially on the last night of any sort of break.  You’d think I would have grown out of it by now, but I haven’t.  I loved school as a girl, and would happily go back now for another degree if that was the plan for my life.  Yet here I sit, gripped by the same anxiety, and I’m not one of the people who will shoulder a backpack in the morning and march back to the classroom.  I’m the mom, and I find myself asking the same question I asked years ago:  Will I be good enough?

The thing I know now, much better than I knew as a child, is that I’m not good enough.   It gives me a stomach ache just to look at all the soccer schedules, list the piano and violin pieces that need to be memorized ASAP, consider the homework we need to fit in, and wonder how to make dinner and clean the bathrooms all the while.  But I also know this:  Motherhood matters.  I’m not doing this alone.  I have prayer, and if I’m humble enough things usually work out.  I have to remind myself a lot, but it’s still true.  I’m not good enough, but Jesus Christ is .  So I’ll do my best and look forward to summer.

So I take a deep breath, look around and marvel at the beauty of my family on this perfect Sabbath day, and look ahead to the week.  My notebook contains a list of things to do in celebration of Easter, some fun and many reverent.  I hope I can pull it off.  It’s going to be a great week.

Jennifer