A moment to Ramble!

Do you ever feel like you can wake up in the morning and conquer everything you need to accomplish all in one day? Then when lunchtime comes around you realize you need about 1 week to do everything you thought you could do in just 1 day? That is how I have felt the past 2 weeks. I really thought that having the kids in school would make my life a little easier. I was very wrong. My problem is that I like to be involved in so many different things. I believe I have gotten that from my parents! It is very hard to sit still at our house and even the kids don't believe that their day is productive if they don't get to play with all of the neighbors. Austin told me over the weekend, "Mom, I just don't like this weekend. I feel like I haven't done anything or gotten anything done. Maybe it's because we've done so much work around the house and I haven't gone out to play outside or be with my friends. I feel like I'm unproductive if I don't play with my friends!" I then replied, "Well, that really means that I didn't give you enough work to do around the house if you feel unproductive. I can find more for you to do!" He didn't like my response all that much.

We survived last week of school, barely! I had piano lessons to teach on Tues, Wed and Thurs and my kids did a pretty good job keeping Mayci occupied and staying out of sight. Don't get me wrong though- they had their moments. A few too many moments. It's amazing how many things can fill up a week even when you don't have your kids signed up for a handful of extra things (like sports and what not).

This past week we had a great church activity for the senior Primary kids. I had full intention of taking pictures of our night but was too in to all of the fun. My wonderful primary secretary took lots of pictures though. We had a challenge thrown out to our Senior Primary kids to memorize the Articles of Faith by the end of August. For each A of F they memorized, it earned them a different item for our ice cream social we had on Thursday night. They didn't know what items belonged to what A of F so it was in their best interest to memorize all 13. Well, Thursday afternoon during piano lessons, Braydon was trying to memorize more since he only had like 1-5 memorized. I heard him in his room crying and so I went in to ask what was wrong. He just starting sobbing telling me that it was too hard to memorize things and he couldn't do it. He didn't want to go to the party and he'd just stay home. I felt bad because I couldn't sit down and help him due to piano lessons going on. I told him to do his best without me and I'd help out once lessons were done. The crying didn't stop during the piano lessons. So, after I was done he hung out in the kitchen with me while I made dinner and we worked on memorizing more. The one he really wanted to memorize was 10 because that one got him a brownie (we did tell the kids that one). Before it was time to go he had memorized 1-10 and gotten 12 learned on the way to the party.

This little incident reminded me of a time I was going to participate in a school spelling bee. I had been studying words for awhile and one night I just felt like I couldn't do it. I just cried and went and told my parents that I hated to spell and didn't want to be in the spelling bee. I remember my mom and dad just laughing (due to how silly I sounded but it wasn't a rude laugh. More a 'I can't believe she is crying over a spelling bee laugh'.) They encouraged me to keep doing what I had been doing and to not give up. I don't remember how I did in the spelling bee but I do remember how much my parents loved me. They always seemed to encourage me in whatever I chose to do. I hope that my kids will be able to remember me as one that encouraged them and not as a mom that told them to work it out on their own. (there are too many moments lately that I feel like I have told them that too often! They'll survive, right?)
Sorry to ramble on but I just wanted to post a few thoughts. I'm sure that no one ever has those crazy out of control days where you feel like you're loosing control of your life with the chaos. If you happen to have those once in awhile, take a minute to stop and look at your kids. They are a complete miracle and they have lots to teach us! Make it a productive day and play outside. Leave the laundry right where it's at and do something you might feel like is insignificant. It might just turn out to be something very important to someone else! Thanks Mom and Dad for your examples!!!