Comedy and chocolate everywhere

I'm thinking a lot about my baby and what I am doing to help her grow. At church this past Sunday, we had a male teacher in our Young Women class, which was the first time I'd ever had this happen to me, in all my years as a girl and a leader in YW. He went around the room and spoke to each girl, made her laugh, asked her name, asked her something interesting about her week. At first, I wanted to signal to the clock and say, okay bro, don't you know we only have twenty minutes left, get to your lesson, but he surprised me. After each person had said their name and highlight of the week, he explained that at church, "in Zion," we often focus on doctrine and repentance and ordinances and scripture. Which are all critical aspects of growing oneself in one's religion. But Zion, he said, is about people, it's about relationships and understanding and compassion and growth. And I realized how meaningful it was to me when a whole room full of people asked and wanted to know how my week was, and listened when I told them something that made me happy. It made me feel loved by my Father and Mother in Heaven. The rest of class we talked about why women are important, what makes women important, and why we each love being a woman. I said I love being a woman because of my great capacity for sacrifice. Which is something I have learned as a mother. Because it seems that everything I've learned in life has happened as a mother, apparently.

There are parts of being a mother that everyone talks about. There are other parts that people don't talk about as much, but not really anymore, since our culture is so willing to bare all. One thing that I always heard about, that people always seemed to be blogging and posting and publishing and reminiscing about, is these little moments that happen. These moments when you just look at your kid and you're so in love with them. I heard about those and thought they seemed nice, prior to becoming a mom. It was impossible for me to internalize them because I had no context, at the time. But now, those moments happen to me. Not all day long, but one or two a day maybe, if I'm paying attention. This morning I was just feeding my daughter and watching her, and we randomly started laughing at each other, and it was like a miracle happened. As I observed her observing me, and understanding the joy of comedy, it was incredible. To anyone else reading this, it probably doesn't make sense, or I am probably not properly recounting the moment. But it was magic and I'll never forget that feeling of "This is exactly why being a mother is divine."

Aaannnnddddd because there seem to be so very many moments where we are kind of in survival mode, here are some photographs of my child the mess. Yes, I stopped and shot some film before hosing her down because ALL good mothers would. Right?





3 comments :

  1. I loved reading this. You are such a good writer, Al! You need to post more!

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  2. Hello, I found your blog randomly and I think it's excellent. I wanted to post and ask, because I have that same ikea high chair, how were you able to get off the sticky residue from the ikea stickers?
    Best,
    Hannah

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  3. Love this and all your new posts! I feel like we all have those messy pictures from our childhoods—I know I do hahaha

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