I have a love-hate relationship with Conference. I love to hear it, but hate trying to stay awake or struggling with children to do so. Today turned out to be extra fun with 500 things to juggle around Conference. Those things included a baptism (which Dan was fabulous enough to take Joshua and Marian to), and a birthday party for twins in Callie's preschool class. I realized at 11pm last night that I had not even thought about a present. I also realized about that time that I had promised Kera something for her baby and had not mailed it. Since she delivered her baby on Friday morning, I thought perhaps a stop by the post office was in order. So the craziness commenced this morning. I gave up both sleeping in and exercising this morning to get things done and we were able to watch both sessions of Conference. Whoo-hoo!
Again with the love-hate relationship. I love to hear the messages and I love the way I feel when I hear it. I feel like I CAN do this, and I CAN be better, and I'm all motivated to be a better person and to start doing the things I know I need to do. And that leads to the hate part. I feel like there are so many things I should be doing and I'm not sure how I am going to do them. Then I feel inadequate, and I hate that. I wonder how my mom did all these things. She had more kids than me, and we were all spaced closer in age, so how come she could do it and I am whining that I can't?!!
I have decided I AM going to do it! Yes, that is what I have decided. I mean, we do a good job with a lot of things. We have family scripture reading and prayer every night. We read one full page of the BoM, and recently I have decided the kids can darn well sit reverently for it. Previously we have run the gamut- some days they sit well, and other days we just make sure they are in the same room. After last week's irreverence in Sacrament meeting, I think the whole 10 minutes we spend reading each night needs to be a practice for being reverent on Sundays. So I have become more strict on that. Oh, we also do really well with FHE. And I mean we do really well on consistently having it. The quality of it could improve, but currently, I am content with 10 minutes from beginning to end! I figure we are establishing the pattern and we can get better and do more as the kids get older.
Now, on to my new goals. I am writing this down so I will hold myself accountable. I like to be motivated and make grand goals and then never actually DO them. So, I am telling you that I am going to do this and that way I'll be more motivated to follow through, and I hopefully won't feel like an idiot saying that I never did it.
What do I plan to do? Well, today after the morning session, I decided we need to have morning devotional. That's what my mom called it when I had to suffer through it. She made us get up early and we had to learn a hymn and then we read scriptures and we had to work on memorizing a poem. It was so tortuous and horrid. I hated it and I recall fighting her at every turn. Somehow, she doesn't have the same recollections that I do. Good thing, I guess! So, believe it or not, I learned a lot of hymns and I can still recite the first stanza of "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere", and in a recent Conference, President Monson recited one of the poems I had memorized as a kid. I felt sooooo cool then!
For our family, I think we will keep the evening scripture reading and will add scripture stories for the kids. I'm not sure they know the stories, and sometimes it is hard to make reading the scriptures something the kids understand. So I think I will use the picture scriptures and I think we will work on memorizing the Articles of Faith. I admit that I have an ulterior motive for the Articles of Faith! See, when a kid passes off all 13, our fantastic Primary President brings them a cake. Yep, a cake. And I like cake! So if I get all 3 older kids to pass 'em off, that's 3 cakes! heh heh heh.
I think I have rambled sufficiently from my main point. That main point would be that I AM going to do this. I have decided it is so. I can get up 30 minutes earlier to make it happen. I can give up those 15 minutes I spend lying in bed trying to wake myself up (after a night of getting up every hour for Rylee). I can ask the Lord for the extra energy and enthusiasm to do this. And I will either get sufficient energy, or I will have to make Rylee suffer (meaning, no love, no food, and more tears for her in the middle of the night till she can learn to self soothe and go back to sleep instead of crying till I come and help her).
My problem is that I keep planning to do things later. Later when they are older. Later when Rylee sleeps through the night. Later when I feel like I have a handle on my life and think I can make a routine. I have come to the realization that those things may never happen. And the older the kids get, the less likely they are to fall happily in line with the changes. So, I am going to do this. I am going to do this now. And I mean it. Ask me how its going in a week!
