I was going to write the following…”My life is so full of good things that I think I am going to burst. ” Lest that is too sickening sweet for you and you feel like gagging, rest assured that I am no longer going to write that because then today happened. It was a day where I felt like LaDawn Jacob’s poem where the husband comes home. The house is quiet and very clean, dinner is cooking, and the wife is radiant. He asks her where the children are and she says, “Gone dear. I sold them today.” This was a day when I felt like selling some of my children. The morning went horribly with two children bursting into tears and had tantrums when I asked them to either, 1. redo some math problems (this is one who is practicing at being a scholar) and 2. pick up her dolls. I also had a child who “forgot” what he was supposed to be doing for school and started playing with Legos right after he was done with kitchen clean-up. . I think I will close that Headgate and give those Legos away, or at least hide them for awhile. The baby would not settle down for a morning nap. He’s a year now and I can only hope that he is not outgrowing his morning snooze. He cried and cried but would not nurse, and then would not be happy while I had him in the sling so I could fix lunch and he would not be happy just playing. Finally my daughter got him to be happy with some frozen apricots. We think he must be teething. The bright spot: my oldest son was being a scholar during all of this and watching/listening to his Williamsburg Academy classes via the Internet (http://wacademy.org during all of this yelling and crying. Thank goodness none of it showed up on the audio or video feed. It was not a happy homeschool day.
Another bright spot was that the previous week was so wonderful. A week ago on Saturday my niece got baptized and I got to visit with my aunt who was in town to buy an RV with her husband. She lives in the hometown where my mom grew up which I dream about moving to because it seems like Mayberry. It has been corrupted by the presence of a McDonalds, I noticed on my last visit, but it still doesn’t even have a stoplight yet. We had a great visit. She shared that she has been listening to Cleon Skousen’s talk on the Meaning of the Atonement. That reminded me that I never did finish listening to it and it’s time to go back and finish. I found it as a download at http://www.latterdayconservative.com/downloads/w-cleon-skousen
I found this quote by Elder John Widtsoe that I love.
“In our preexistent state, in the day of the great council, we made a[n]
… agreement with the Almighty. The Lord proposed a plan. … We
accepted it. Since the plan is intended for all men, we became
parties to the salvation of every person under that plan. We agreed,
right then and there, to be not only saviors for ourselves but …
saviors for the whole human family. We went into a partnership with
the Lord. The working out of the plan became then not merely the
Father’s work, and the Savior’s work, but also our work. The
least of us, the humblest, is in partnership with the Almighty in
achieving the purpose of the eternal plan of salvation…That places
us in a very responsible attitude towards the human race. By that
doctrine, with the Lord at the head, we become saviors on Mount Zion,
all committed to the great plan of offering salvation to the untold
numbers of spirits. To do this is the Lord’s self-imposed duty,
this great labor his highest glory. Likewise, it is man’s duty,
self-imposed, his pleasure and joy, his labor, and ultimately his
glory.”
Then in sacrament meeting on Sunday one of the speakers from the stake Sunday School presidency said a similar thing. He said that we can each act as saviors in others’ lives by what we do and say. We don’t save other people from eternal death, like the Savior does, but we can help save others from bad things. We can each do something for somebody else that nobody else can do, like the Savior does.
So I’ve been thinking about that somewhat this week, because I had two “saviors” come into my life. Last week I was going to get to go to southern Utah to take my son and some of his classmates to his week of Elevation. This is a camping expedition with his Williamsburg Academy, an online TJED-based private high school. They do it for fun and also to help fulfill the P.E. requirement because it involves rock-climbing and stuff that I guess James Ure figures he didn’t get enough of in Scouts. You can find pictures of it on Facebook by typing in “Williamsburg Academy.”
The trouble was that I have eight seats in my van, and I would have to take my baby because I don’t believe in leaving babies a long time without their moms when they are still nursing. With my son and his five classmates, that left no room for any of my other children. the prospect of driving with my baby and no helpers for five hours to come back home after I dropped my son and his friends off was positively terrifying. I love going down to TJED Land, especially so I can see my sister-in-law, but that’s if I have people (my other kids) to help me in the car with my baby. I was seriously thinking of breaking my “no portable DVD player in the car” rule and breaking out the Signing Time DVDs. He does take naps but not for five hours. One of the moms of the five other youth was willing to drive one of the ways, so that left me for the other way.
But, then another mom stepped forward and said she could do the other trip. Hooray! Now I could stay home, actually, not stay home, but go to another homeschool-based activity, the Knights of Freedom Summit Final Battle, and not have a screaming baby in the car for two hours, just for three-quarters of one while we drove home from the Summit Feast. The Knights of Freedom Summit was so fun for my two boys and my husband, who served as a squire. I have never seen so many grown men and boys have so much fun together for so long.
I am very grateful to Tammie and Kim for doing the driving last week. If I had gone, I know I would have had fun once I got there, visiting with my sister-in-law, but it would have wiped out at least two days. Because Tammie and Kim drove, that allowed me to focus on cleaning out my family room and homeschooling study room, along with the closet, for all of last week. This is something that I have been meaning to do all summer but it just never happened with all of the other summer’s goings-on. Back to school time left me feeling guilty that I didn’t have a clean study room.
I skipped exercising and made sure we had enough food the week before so I wouldn’t have to go shopping. I made a lot of progress. I got rid of some books we never use and even threw away a few bags of stuff. I’ve mentioned before how much of a pack rat tendency I am over coming. I finally am ready to depart with on old search-a word puzzle book I found from when I was eight years old and pages and pages of non whole foods recipes I clipped from the newspaper when I was in high school. Now I am feeling somewhat ready to start another year of school. I have also been listening to the Closet Webinar by homes school coach Mary Ann Johnson, the fairy godmother of homeschooling. After 12 years of homeschooling, sometimes I need all the inspiration I can get. That’s another topic for another day!
Tree of Life Mothering 