It Gets Better!

FACT: Being a mom is hard!
Also FACT: Some phases are harder than others

Here’s the thing the harder phases are different for every mom. We are all unique with our own strengths and weaknesses as are our children. As moms we try to warn and help other moms on their journeys, we might even feel lied to when one phase or another is harder than anticipated. But this isn’t always as helpful as we might think.

I’ve been “warned” by other moms that what is coming is worse. This happened to me when I was pregnant with my second child. I wrote an entire blog post about it here. Turns out I love the newborn phase 0-6 months is my jam! But being pregnant not so much. I didn't get the baby blues or postpartum depression. However all the “warnings” about what was coming, the “just wait till you have the baby and you don't get any sleep” made the depression I experienced during pregnancy worse.

For some pregnancy will be the hardest part of the 1st 2 or 3 years of your child's life, for others it will be the easiest. If your in a hard spot right now, then heck yes acknowledge how hard it is! And guess what it gets easier! Sure it will get hard again but you'll be stronger and more ready for the next hard thing because you made it through whatever this is right now. If you are struggling with a newborn, know that it gets better! There will always be someone to say “just wait till...fill in the blank”. Again many people said this to me with my 1st toddler. “Just wait till she’s 3, is gets worse.” Guess what it wasn’t worse. 3 was amazing! I’m glad I didn't believe them. I’m glad that I could see they didn't understand. They couldn't see how hard my 2 year old was for me. Yes for some 3 will be worse but for some it will be the best part of motherhood. Telling a struggling mom of a 2 year old that you better not hope for better in a year, is a bit cruel in my opinion.

Why am I writing this now, well because I need to remind myself that just because others say it gets worse, it’s not always true. I also happen to be in one of the better motherhood phases right now and I was “warned” about this phase too.

“Just wait till they are in school you’ll be so busy, I miss the good old days”

If someone says some version of this to you keep in mind two things:

1) They have forgotten some of the hard stuff (I know I forget hard stuff because there is no way I would have 3 kids right now if I remembered how hard pregnancy was every time)

2) Just because it was true for them does not make it true for you

Maybe having all the kids at home was an easier phase of motherhood for some of my friends. I didn’t know them then, I can't see there entire life. But guess what I do know me and I know that I am loving kids in school. The ups out way the downs 100%. This is the 1st week back to school and I already feel the difference. The funny thing is I still have one at home all day and I love the one on one time. I can love it and know i’m going to love when he’s in school too. I know there will be moms that the 1st day of school is a really hard thing but there will also be moms like me who love it, no tears, just pure happiness and most will be somewhere in between.

Today I want to say “STOP IT” to all the moms who keep trying to warn other moms about what's coming. “It gets worse” ...really how could you possibly know, you are not the Mom of my kids. Your strengths are not my strengths.

I am here to say it gets better! Maybe 3 years old is hard guess what it gets better. Maybe kindergarten is hard, guess what it gets better. I love my kids and I love being a mom and I go through really rough patches and it can be so hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel but I keep hoping it is there. And guess what, somehow I always get out of the tunnel. It can get harder to see the light when other moms are warning you of future hard times. So when your struggling as a mom and other moms say enjoy it now because it gets worse, don't believe them. It may have been true for them but its not true for you. They have good times too, and probably there good times happened to be during your hard times. Of course, being a mom is hard. I challenge the phrase “it gets harder as they get older.” Sure it will still be hard but it will also be different. I’m allowed to hope for different even while enjoying them now.

When I’m in a hard time I choose to look forward with hope to the different. I tell moms of teenagers all the time that I'm looking forward to having teenage problems. I also get a lot of pity looks and shaken heads with responses such as “sorry to burst your bubble” or “enjoy your little ones, the bigger they get the bigger the problems get”.

You know what I do enjoy my little ones! I love being a mom! I can enjoy them now and still get excited about when I’ll get to talk about boys with my girls and have more grown up discussions. I have a vision for the kind of mom I want to be when my kids are teenagers and I’m doing what I can now to help that happen. I also know that as they get older I will deal with hard things and big problems and I won't always be the super mom in my head but I still get to hope and dream because that pushes me to try my best now.

I’m writing this in a moment where I have recently made it out of a tunnel. So yeah I'm optimistic and excited and feeling like a pretty great mom. You better believe I know the next tunnel isn't far away so I’m writing now so when I am feeling like the worst mom ever and my house is a disaster and I don't have anything to pack in the school lunches I can know that it gets better. If I keep trying I will have a super mom moment again.

It gets better! This is coming from a mom who has been in a spot where she didnt take care of herself, she didn't workout, she didn't have food her kids would eat in the house, the house had sticky honey all over the floors, the children screamed and fought and the mom couldn’t get herself to get up off the couch to fix any of it. Yes I was that mom and the truth is I will probably be that mom again and that is OK because. I’ll know that if I keep trying it gets better, I’ll know that just because a good friend is telling me it gets worse that doesn’t mean it’s true.

There was an hour or more this afternoon with screaming and crying kids. As I solved one problem a new one would appear and no amount of calmly reasoning or helpful suggestions made any difference.

This is one of those good mom moments where I turned to prayer and not locking everyone in a room so I could go outside and have my own break down.

I didn’t have any new amazing ideas and my kids didn’t stop screaming during or after my plea to my Heavenly Father. And yet in those contentious crazy moments I kept my cool, I had the patients to stay, to hug whichever child would let me hug them. I didn’t have answers. I couldn't force my kids to be happy or kind but I could show them I loved them. During this endless cycle of calming one problem to have 2 pop up in its place I decided to text my husband to commiserate. As I did so the thought to turn on primary songs came to my mind so I sent a short text instead of the long winded monologue I’d planned and turned on music.

The next hour went smooth. I was able to hold laundry and my children played and even helped a bit, no big blow ups that needed my meditating or disciplinary skills. Then my son got a hold of my phone and inadvertently stopped the music. Not a big deal. I finished putting away the clothes then got my phone. I saw my husband had text me back, I let him know things had calmed down then had to figure out how to undo the damage my son had done and finally did get the music back on.

During the time the music wasn’t playing all of my kids had all found something to cry or scream about.Throughout these last few hours I have been trying to find a reason why all my kids are so on edge today... lack of sleep… hunger... sickness... all crossed my mind but none seem to fit today. Now we are coming to why I’m writing this experience down. When the primary music came back on I felt the holy ghost put thoughts in my mind. This is the text I sent my husband,

“After I messaged you and was trying to put music back on all of the kids cried for one reason or another. I want to say I guess it's just one of those days but as I type, I realize that maybe Satan is just working really hard on our family today, we need the primary songs to shield us, so the spirit can be in our home”

I think about the battles my kids will fight as teenagers and I’ve thought that all of the teaching I’m doing now is to hopefully help them to guard against the future battles they will have with Satan. But today was the 1st time I thought about the battles my kids and I are currently fighting. Satan isn’t waiting until my children are older he wants them now, and he hasn’t given up on me yet. Today Satan attached my family and I was ready! I’ve been studying the scriptures, I’ve learned how to turn to the lord for strength. Today he answered my prayers in the middle of contention and chaos and I listened to the prompting to turn on primary music and it is shielding us from Satan this very minute. The songs are helping the spirit stay in my home. Words cannot express the joy that has come from my relationship with my Savior today, or the gratitude I feel for an answered prayer.

Home-Centered Study Isn’t a Classroom, It's Just Life

So many thoughts words can’t do justice, at least not my words. So lets see if I can find someone else's word to get me started today.

“ President Nelson has acknowledged with gratitude how much is being accomplished as a result of your faithfulness to previous invitations. He and the entire leadership of the Church desire to bring greater gospel joy—to parents, children, youth, singles, the elderly, new converts, and those people the missionaries are teaching” -Cook

You are doing something right, I am doing something right, We are doing so many things right (the prophet says so)

“World conditions increasingly require deepening individual conversion to and strengthening faith in Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and His Atonement. The Lord has prepared us, line upon line, for the perilous times that we now face.” -Cook

We are prepared for the perilous times head (so don’t stress it)

“Young people, God requires hard things of you.” -Brough

“Because of Christ, we too can overcome the world.” -Brough

During October 2018 general conference I picked out 2 themes. 1) LOVE and 2) Plan

I remember thinking I need to love and that is something I can do, I got a bit overwhelmed by the idea of needing to serve others but I could love and that is all the lord needs from me right now. Plan, I had impressions that I needed to plan more family gospel instruction. I thought I needed to put more effort into scheduling, lesson planning for my kids, and put more effort and time into my planner/calendar. Since the conference I have read and marked all the talks from the November Ensign. As part of marking the talks I decided to pull out the 2 themes that had struck me during the conference. So I began to highlight the word love in pink and plan in orange. Turns out I got the, love others thing right on the nose.

Plan however took on a new meaning. Here I thought I needed to plan more and plan how to teach my kids more gospel topics. I was wrong. As I underlined the word plan every single time it was apart of some version of Heavenly Father’s plan. The Lord hadn’t been telling me I needed to plan more he had been telling me I needed to trust his plan more.

What does trusting his plan more look like in my life. Well surprisingly it meant I have been able to embrace my lack of planning and see it as a strength. Planning hour long lessons for my kids to teach them about the Savior is not what the Lord had in mind for me.

No not even close.

I needed to trust the Lord's plan and make scripture study my top priority. The Prophet’s instruction to the sisters to read the Book of Mormon by the end of the year did just this. I know that God has a living prophet on this earth today and my testimony of such as already been tried and tested it is a rock that will not move. So I trusted the prophet when he said “As impossible as that may seem with all you are trying to manage in your life, if you will accept this invitation with full purpose of heart, the Lord will help you find a way to achieve it.”  Having now done something I once thought impossible I can say from personal experience the prophet was right. I didn’t have time to plan when to read my scriptures I only had time to do it. A minute here, or 5 minutes there, with my kids sleeping, with my kids yelling in my face, with every scenario in between. I held to the prophets promise as though I was on the end of a rope hanging over a cliff. And you know what, the Lord pulled me up to safety, I didn't have the strength to climb. Because he did that I was able to help pull on others ropes. And that is far as that imagery goes. I found myself, I found a burden lifted I didn’t realize I was carrying.

Back to not planning lessons. I have learned to open my mouth and keep personal scripture study top of any to do list in fact it’s best to do it before you make time to write a to do list. Yes that means if I haven't read my scriptures yet then you can bet my dishes are still a mile high in the sink. Come follow me and home center study hasn’t been about planning killer family home evenings or Sunday school lessons for me or my family. In fact quite the opposite. It has been about sharing thoughts with family and friends about things I learned or pondered during my personal study. It’s been about regular conversations with my kids. It’s been about helping my kids understand the why of the importance of obeying mom and dad (still working on that one).

Scripture study has stopped being about reading the scriptures and more about learning what’s in them. When telling my 3 yr old the parable of the sower it wasn't about making sure I got the details right or knew the historical context or even understood it myself, it was letting the spirit into the conversation and telling the story of what I remembered reading then sharing it again and letting the 6 yr old tell me what Jesus was trying to say and learning from her insights. Than another day watching a video from the gospel library app about the parable of the sower. Home centered study isn’t a classroom is just life. It’s the unplanned one liners that come to my mind during disciplinary moments. It’s coloring a picture or putting a puzzle together with my kids and having conversations listening to them and trying to see what the world is like for them. It’s sharing with them the moments that are answers to prayers. It’s looking for answers together to all of our questions. It’s apologizing and forgiving and changing and acknowledging that it’s all possible because of Christ. It’s not planned, it’s learning God’s plan. It’s never anything big it’s always small.