It was a good day

The other day I was home with Brigham and Hudson, and it was one of those glorious fall days - sunny and temps in the 60's. Brigham and I were working in our yard, trying to plant grass seed (he was helping me with the dirt). Right before lunch the three of us decided to go on a walk to the small park a block away. As we started down the sidewalk, Hudson said "hand" and reached up to take my hand. We walked by a tree that was a brilliant orange/salmon color, and we all picked a leaf to keep. As we got to the park, Brigham pointed out a huge pile of leaves. We spent a few minutes racing and jumping into the pile. Even Hudson joined in, saying "go" and falling into the pile. We threw leaves on each other for awhile, then decided to head home for lunch. We walked home with leaf bits stuck to our shirts and shoelaces, and I wished I had brought the camera. This whole experience was probably 45 minutes, but the whole time I felt so very very grateful that I have chosen to be home with my kids, especially while they're young. I've discovered that once they start school and other activities, experiences like the one I had with Brigham and Hudson are so few and far between.

Later I thought that I needed to record this so I wouldn't forget it, and I realized that in my attempt to not have a falsely rosy blog, I probably dwell too much on the things that go wrong in our family, and not enough on the truly rewarding parts of being a stay-at-home mom.

Now, I don't always feel like I did that day - I often feel overwhelmed and irritated with my kids. I also feel underappreciated much of the time. I don't blame my kids; I know I didn't appreciate my mom nearly enough, except for the time she took up a part time job for a few months. Two days of the week she wasn't home when my brother and I got home from school, and I hated it. Anyway, I don't know that anyone can truly appreciate what their parents do until they are parents themselves.

I also wanted to record this because I recently read a post from my sister-in-law describing a typical day with her 19 month old. She was feeling frustrated with the fact that she ran around doing things all day, but then felt like nothing was accomplished by the end of the day. In Elder Ballard's April 2008 conference talk, he said, " . . . the joy of motherhood comes in moments. There will be hard and frustrating times. But amid the challenges there are shining moments of joy and satisfaction." I love that, and it helped me realize that I really don't appreciate those moments enough, and I could probably do more to create those moments. It truly is remarkable that as a stay-at-home mom, I have the ability to create the kinds of days I want for my kids. Now I'm not naive enough to think that things always go according to plan (and I know that you're not naive enough to believe it even if I said they did). Before Annie was born I used to dream about the wonderful days we would have together, baking cookies, snuggling on the couch and reading books, going on educational walks where we would gather items from nature, then go home and create lovely collages from those items. Reality hit as soon as she was born, and has continued to hit as we've added 3 boys to the mix.

I hope I'm not babbling too much, and I hope I'm getting my intended message across. I guess what I'm trying to say is that being a stay-at-home mom can be frustrating, and mundane, and unfulfilling at times, but I wouldn't want to do anything else. The experiences that I have like the one described above make it all worth it.