Looking for those moments

Lately I’ve been a little discouraged about being a stay-at-home mom. Not that there is anything else I really wish I was doing (although I’ll have you know that I had a lot of potential as the editor-in-chief of the famous, or infamous Daily Universe!), but still sometimes the higher purpose of motherhood gets forgotten in the midst of the mundane.

So today, I decided to reread a talk I heard a few years ago about motherhood. It helped a lot. Jeffrey R. Holland said, “recognize that the joy of motherhood comes in moments. There will be hard times and frustrating times. But amid the challenges, there are shining moments of joy and satisfaction.”

I’m going to look for these “shining moments” more. Like today at lunch, Graham was sitting at the table, arms crossed tightly, refusing to eat because he was mad about something or other (I ask you, when is Graham NOT mad about something!). Instead of threats or time-outs I went over and put my face near his and started doing some silly faces. He tried valiantly to stay mad, but his lips were quivering with the effort of suppressing his smile. Finally he gave in and started laughing with me. We hugged and I said in a growly voice, “Now, eat that hot dog before I do!” It worked. It doesn’t always work that easily, but this time it worked. And I was glad to have that moment.

I think what I need to realize is not every second of every day is supposed to be super fun and rewarding. It’s just life to have a whole lot of frustrating and mundane moments in between the few wonderful, thought-provoking moments. In fact, we wouldn’t recognize the amazing moments if we didn’t have the not-so-amazing ones.

To show that I am serious about this I will now put the nagging thoughts of cleaning up the lunch dishes (yes, I know that lunch was two hours ago) and folding the laundry out of my head for a while. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a Lego tower to build!