They’re Just Moments

Musings on Life and Beauty

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about moments.

The essence of motherhood is packaged in them.  You know, the moments when you observe your child doing something wonderful and you realize that perhaps, you ARE doing something right after all.  Or the moments (like this one) when you walk around the corner and are stopped dead in your tracks by the sweetness and wonder of your children, and by tears suddenly stinging your eyes.  Yes, they are precious moments.  Payoff moments.

But the kind of moments I’ve had on my mind are the OTHER kind.  The moments when they look like this.


I’ve been thinking about how often my children all explode in the same moment.  Rarely is it just one of them at a time.  Usually the stressful moments are stressful because they’re compounded by multiple things.

Take yesterday, for example.  The two year old picked up a pull toy and, without thinking, swung it around.  The toy smacked the baby, who was standing a few feet away,  in the head.  Baby started screaming and needed an ice pack on her head.  The two year old, realizing she hurt her little sister, began to scream (and just trust me when I say that she has the loudest scream of all my kids; it often reminds me of Boo in Monsters, Inc.).  Because the kids all love her and hate to hear her scream, a sudden argument broke out among them over how to calm the two year old down.  As this was going on, as I was now holding two screaming little ones while trying to keep an ice pack on one head, the carpool arrived for my oldest daughter who had gymnastics.  Panic ensued as she realized that one, she was running late, and then two, she couldn’t find her leotard.  So, with screaming babies and an argument going on, I reminded her that she left it in her soccer bag last week when she went directly from the gym to a game.  The stress built as everyone chimed in to remind her that her ride was outside waiting for her.  In the middle of this, a neighbor arrived with a plate of beautiful peaches from her mother’s tree.  The chaos now moved to the front porch as I greeted my neighbor and went to explain the delay to the waiting mom.  My seven year old asked to hold the still whimpering baby as I gratefully accepted the plate of peaches.  As I stood there holding them, the seven year hold bounced a little to pull the baby back up onto her hip and hit her head on the bottom of the plate in my hand, sending peaches flying.  Right at this moment my oldest son started our little motorcycle for a spin around the yard, adding a new dimension to the noise as we all had to yell to communicate.

Those are the kinds of moments I’ve been pondering.  I have them all the time .  One minute it’s relatively calm and 30 seconds later I have 4 children in tears.  I’ve blogged about a few of them here , here , here , here and here .  I might have more of them because my children are so close in age and because there are 8 of them, but I’m pretty sure that moms everywhere experience moments of intense stress or craziness.

I’ve learned a thing or two about these moments.  This is my conclusion.

They are crazy.  They are stressful.  They’re made up of lots of little things, all minor in their scope and relatively simple to fix, but they happen at the same time.

They all converge to occupy the same 5 minutes of my life.
The time frame affects my ability to respond to each individual thing, making it easy to feel frazzled or overwhelmed.  THAT is what makes it hard.

And then it’s over.  The peaches are picked up, the leotard is found.  The baby’s bump on her head looks ok, the two year old quits screaming.  The roar of the motorcycle moves to the backyard as I finish my conversation with the neighbor and watch the ride to gymnastics depart.  I carry everyone inside and look at the clock.  Wow.  Eight minutes, start to finish.

Sometimes moments leave me with a headache.  Sometimes they leave me wondering what I’m doing wrong.  And sometimes they leave me shaking my head and laughing.  I’ve experienced enough of them that the smile usually tugs at the corners of my mouth in the middle of the fray because I’m thinking “It’s just a moment.  It will pass.”  Another one will come, and likely sooner than I hope, but they always pass.

Wendy Ulrich wrote, “Patience teaches us that this precise moment is tolerable.  As we respond to what this moment requires of us, the future will take care of itself.”

I guess that’s what I’ve realized.  The moments are tolerable.  They do more than illustrate the immediate needs of our little ones; they reveal who we are.  They teach us about ourselves.  Experiencing a “moment” with my young children doesn’t need to make me question what I’m doing wrong unless I fail to handle it well.  If I can get through it with a smile in my eyes and a firm but cheerful voice, then I’m doing just fine.

So, next time you’re dealing with a moment of your own say to yourself, “It’s just a moment. It is tolerable and it will pass.”  Remember that you’re not alone.

You’ll be right.  And you just might find something to chuckle about in the midst of it.

Jennifer

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Number Plates

Dishes, Happy Finds



Other ideas for titles of this post:

1.  My obsession with salad/bread/dessert plates continues 2.  Why I stay out of stores If you don’t go to the store, you never see what’s there.  If you never see what’s there, you don’t know what you’re missing.  If you don’t know what you’re missing, you’ll never know you wanted it.  Generally I do a pretty good job of this.

If you go to the store, you might see it, and really really like it.  And buy it.


The only thing that could make these plates better would be to have the numbers go higher than four.  I’d like them to ten.

It was that hunt for one last back to school item that sent me into Target.  Now that it’s taken care of, I’m done shopping for a long, long time.  This time of year always makes me sick of spending money.

Does it help that I had a gift card in my wallet?

Hopeful Homemaker P.S.  In my local store they were sold individually, but they also sell them online in a set .

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One Step Report #35

One Step

September has arrived.  Sweet, juicy peaches from a local orchard are in my fridge while we await the local apple harvest.  It’s a wonderful time of year.  The days are still warm, but the evenings cool off beautifully.  Darkness settles over the world a little earlier, making bedtime easier.  I drove past a friend’s house a couple of days ago and was shocked to see a fall wreath and pumpkins outside her door.  What?!?  I’m not ready for the change of season yet. No, in my heart it’s not yet fall, only late summer.  I’m still in the full swing of creating habits and routines for the school year.  There’s no way I’m ready for pumpkins right now.  After all, I’ve still got geraniums on my front porch!


Here is my weekly report:  August finished up with a grand total of 382 steps, bringing the year to date count over 2200 steps in all.  Kind of cool!  This week’s total is 78 steps.

Highlights:

1.  We started a new read aloud book with the children.

2.  This week our family finished reading the Book of Mormon together.  Each time we finish it, we plan a family party.

3.  I spent a lot of time on the phone and was able to resolve a school situation for one of my students.  Relief!

4.  I stayed up WAY TOO LATE on Wednesday night in order to completely reorganize a portion of our food storage room.   It’s been on my list of things to do for months and I’m grateful I found a block of time to do it in.


5.  Ran into an old friend at a museum.  It was so great to unexpectedly spend some time with her.

6.  While at the same museum, I saw another friend from college who I haven’t seen in about 13 years.  It was really great to chat for a minute and learn about her family.  I marveled silently to myself at my good fortune in having associated with so many great people over the years.  I’ve been richly blessed.

7.  On Saturday my husband’s best friend from childhood came for lunch.  They live in southern California and drove to town for the BYU football game.   He brought his daughter and his brother with him.  It was really great to have them spend a bit of time with us, and we hope they come again soon (we’ve been begging them for years).  We’re honored that they put us on their short list of stops to make during the trip, and we’re glad that BYU won, too, making their trip a complete success.  I had the camera sitting out for a picture and just forgot to take one!

8.  We got the house clean and jobs done earlier than usual on Saturday.  Hooray!

9.  I think I’ve regained my love for cooking.  I’ve found some new recipes to try and am enjoying time spent in the kitchen once more.  It feels good.  (I mean, if I have to cook for 10 people several times a day, I might as well like it, right?)

10.  Tonight we enjoyed a few hours with my husband’s brother and his family.  My nephew was being ordained a Deacon and we were thrilled to attend.  We enjoyed visiting with them (and their new goats) and letting the cousins play together, something we should do much more often.




I think that wraps up my summary.  I’m grateful for Labor Day tomorrow and the chance it gives to get a few more things done before diving into what promises to be a particularly crazy week.   I’m hoping for an extra hour of sleep to cure the burning in my eyes and the headache I can’t seem to shake.  This is such a busy time, but it’s so much fun.  I love having the opportunity to live the life that is mine.  I’m so far from where I need to be, but grateful for the chance to learn and stretch.

I hope you’re loving your life, too.  Have an awesome week.

Hopeful Homemaker

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