A Mother's Day Epic

This year, Mother's Day started out BAD. And I am not exaggerating. Trent was on call, but taking the kids to church alone is nothing new, so I wasn't worried about it. Besides, Emry had actually memorized her scripture for primary and the kids were going to be singing in sacrament meeting, so I was thinking it would be a good day. Boy oh boy was I wrong.

My first warning should have been the kids' behavior when they woke up...cranky! Strike 1 I thought after a little breakfast they'd be fine. Strike 2, silly Mom. Emry threw the biggest fit ever about getting dressed. It wasn't about the dress, I later found out, she wanted to wear tights, not socks. Once we got that sorted out we were on our way, or so I thought. We were a little late, but primary is first so that was OK. We got there just in time for Emry to say the prayer and her scripture which went off without a hitch, she did great (not that it's a huge surprise, she loved holding that microphone and was a little reluctant to give it up). So I headed out into the foyer to get Carley to go to sleep before sacrament started. Strike 3, she wasn't having any of it. Strike 4, I got a blister on my heel (from shoes that aren't even new! What's up with that?). Strike 5, Emry bolted after primary and I had to chase her down the hallway while carrying Carley (probably a funny sight). Strike 6, you'd think I'd have learned my lesson, but I still wanted to hear my kids sing. When we finally sat down, Luke hauls off and decks Emry in the stomach for sitting in his seat....I didn't realize we had assigned seating in a pew. Strike 7, Carley has now gotten her second wind and is smiling and squealing at the top of her lungs while using me as a johnny jump up. I only call this a strike because it's the catalyst for Strike 8. Luke gets over excited and rough trying to play with Carley, who is now crying and when I reprimand Luke, he seizes the opportunity to kick Emry, thinking I wasn't looking. So now I'm sitting in between Luke and Emry, Carley has calmed down and the asking, begging and pleading begins. "Mom, I'm hungry." "Mom, I need food." "Mom! Mom! Mom!" Then I take a real blow as they announce a baby is to be blessed. Usually my kids are really into this, but the Dad's blessing lasted 4 1/2 minutes (no lie). Strike 9. My sweet little kids, by nature aren't exactly the best whisperers and as luck would have it guess who is sitting right in front of us....yup, the baby's Mom. So at this point I'm just trying to hold things together and keep them quiet so she can enjoy the wonderful blessing that her husband is giving her daughter. After this my kids settled down a little and I thought for a second we were gonna make it. Which leads me to Strike 10...you're out! The primary kids were heading up to the podium to sing and I saw Luke, but no Emry, I started looking over the kids more slowly, b/c she's short and I might have missed her (so, so naive). Then I spotted her up in the chairs the choir sits in behind the podium. So a teacher grabbed her and helped her make her way to the front to be with the other kids her age. The song starts, Emry sings the first two or three words and then just turns and wiggles her way thru the kids until she's once again playing on the chairs at the back of the podium for all to see. Someday I hope I laugh at this, but it was the last straw for this mother, on mother's day....we left as soon as the song was over.

When I got home, Trent was there and I have to say, he truly saved the day! He turned my entire day around! What a good guy. I assumed that he'd already be sleeping since he'd worked all night in the ICU and hadn't gotten any sleep, but he wasn't. Instead of sleeping he listened to me recount the nightmare and then tucked me in for a nap. Better yet, he kept the kids busy so I didn't even have one knock at my door, no interruptions! Then he gave me this card and the best part is that he'd made it before I'd gotten home and told him about my day. It may seem really silly to whoever is reading this epic, but it helped me to put my day into perspective and laugh about it!