Enjoying the Moment

How fast these days go by!! With my 3 kids and all their needs and schedules the day turns into what feels like a few hours in the morning and a few hours at night. The days fly by. I can only imagine what my mom said with 8 of us..."Oh how the years go by" that and "what did I get myself into" and "Kellie you are my favorite child of all"...had to throw that in hee hee. Isn't it funny, as a kid, our sense of time was very different than it is as parents. In elementary, one day off of school felt like spring break . Yet today, a day off for Blake feels like just hours consisting of getting dressed, breakfast, lunch, dinner and getting undressed (oh and wiping bums all day –but cute little bums).As a kid, the upcoming holiday whether it was Christmas, Easter or Halloween never could come fast enough and yet now I say, "It's already Easter?" Well like all of you who can relate, I wanted to share with you this short paragraph from Elder M. Russell Ballard that Mer emailed me. It really hits home.

“What can. . .young mother[s] [do]. . .to reduce the pressure [of raising young children] and enjoy [their families] more?. . . Recognize that the joy of motherhood comes in moments. There will be hard times and frustrating times. But amid the challenges, there are shining moments of joy and satisfaction. Author Anna Quindlen reminds us not to rush past the fleeting moments. She said: ‘The biggest mistake I made [as a parent] is the one that most of us make. . .I did not live in the moment enough. This is particularly clear now that the moment is gone, captured only in photographs. There is one picture of [my three children] sitting in the grass on a quilt in the shadow of the swing set on a summer day, ages six, four, and one.And I wish I could remember what we ate, and what we talked about, and how they sounded, and how they looked when they slept that night.I wish I had not been in such a hurry to get on to the next thing; dinner, bath, book, bed. I wish I had treasured the doing a little more and the getting it done a little less.’

Oh so true!