Picnic Blanket on Thursday

You know how sometimes you wake up in the morning eager to face the day and ready to attack your "to do" list? But then the day slips away from you and you haven't been able to tick off as many accomplishments as you'd hoped? That's how every day this week went. We can blame it on the fact that I've had 3-4 kids sick each day this week (Sam missed school every day this week due to some bull headed fever that wouldn't go away).

By Thursday the "to do" list had been mounting. All I wanted to do was fold my laundry, but there were kids to feed, and noses to wipe, motrin to administer, AND doctors to visit. Laundry untouched. By three o'clock when the unsick kids walked through the door to join me, (and the baby and the sick kids I'd taken care of all day), I was frankly at the end of my kid-rope. And we quickly learned amid complaints of "this hurts" and "that aches" and "I think I'm gonna throw ups" that the "unsick" kid at school really wasn't healthy either.

I slipped off to my bedroom just so I could think for a second and found myself praying. Heavenly Father, please help me to be a good mom and to not get mad with all these sick kids. Help me to be the kind of mom I want to be instead of who I seem to be right now.

The impression came to embrace the sick and onrey kids. Give them a back rub.

Okay, I can do that [and I did].

So I left my room and on my way to find an onrey kid (should be easy--there's six of them in the house), I remembered Elder Ballard quoting Anna Quindlen about not rushing past the fleeting moments. Something about a picnic blanket? A blanket. That's what we need. The weather is beautiful outside and we've been cooped up all day.

The dishes, laundry (oh, that mounting pile of laundry!) and dinner will have to wait.

We went outside. It was perfect. Everyone joined me.

Here's Ms Quindlen's quote: “The biggest mistake I made [as a parent] is the one that most of us make. . . . I did not live in the moment enough. This is particularly clear now that the moment is gone, captured only in photographs. There is one picture of [my three children] sitting in the grass on a quilt in the shadow of the swing set on a summer day, ages six, four, and one. And I wish I could remember what we ate, and what we talked about, and how they sounded, and how they looked when they slept that night. I wish I had not been in such a hurry to get on to the next thing: dinner, bath, book, bed. I wish I had treasured the doing a little more and the getting it done a little less”(Loud and Clear [2004], 10–11).

Ate saltine crackers,
let the wind dance a little jig in our hair.
No hurries.
Best thing I did all week.
Laundry doesn't care one bit about being neglected.