Sundays

The joy/frustration of working in the medical field means that weekends don't mean the same thing for you that they mean for many other people.

Because of this, I often spend Sundays on my own, and try to include Steve in them as best I can through texts and videos.

Thankfully, my ward is generous and gentle with this frazzled mom of four, and my bishop's wife often sits by us without me even asking her to.

This week, the sacrament talk was on faith, and it stuck out to me quite a lot.  Because Sister Frei was holding Calvin, the older kids and I all doodled and took notes on the same picture, and I snapped a shot and sent it to Steve.

After church is usually when things get more difficult for me.  Trying to keep the kids entertained and happy for hours while still doing Sabbath-appropriate things when I'm usually feeling pretty exhausted and fried from getting ready for/sitting through church can be stressful.  This week, I tried to be proactive about it and play in the back yard with the kids for a little while:

I know.  Our back yard is rough, but once summer starts and school is out, we'll have more time for it.  That's what I keep telling myself, anyway.

The thing about being a mom is that your kids LOVE you.  Which is nice.  But if you're not actively doing an activity with them, don't count on them sticking with it very long.  We played for about half an hour before I got tired and went in to take a nap, and within three minutes, all of my bored, delightful children had followed me inside and were asking me for things to do.

Thank goodness for Bible Videos and Mormon Messages.  Those are lifesavers to this tired momma, and hopefully my children will remember less of the mom-sacked-out-on-the-sofa moments and more of the mom-actively-playing-with-them moments.

I'm just grateful for those tender times when the Spirit whispers to me to be gentle with myself.  It's harder to do than it sounds, believe it or not.