A post for a post

A friend I super admire wrote this amazing post   (I like it so much, and not just cuz she linked to my blog)


So honest. So true. So funny that we all have the same feelings and yet her post (and our similar feelings) get labeled shame.


I wrote kinda a long comment on hers and thought it'd make a good post. So seeing as I am frantically posting, all the ideas that have been sprouting in my head and patiently waiting for two minutes of peace which I finally have as the recently arrived home Ben takes some time with the kids...
Her post reminded me of a phrase that I stick in my mind and repeat often to myself ( don't even know where I heard it) but  I think about it all the time:

the product of my parenting is ME! 


I think it's so valuable because  if I expect (there's those violated expectations again) to "produce" anything else like for instance a clean house, x number loads of laundry or even in the long term good kids (we all know great parents who's kids didn't "turn out") I'm just gonna end up frustrated. 


It's the old AA  prayer:
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, And wisdom to know the difference.


And in the end, the only thing we really can change is ourselves.I hafta believe it's making me something.



This may seem like a selfish way to think about parenting. And don't get me wrong, I want the absolute world for my kids. But at the end of the day I can't guarantee anything. I can love, and teach and influence, but the only person I can make choices for is me.  


And that realization can be very empowering.


The Lord is making us something through our experience as parents. He, the greatest parent of all is teaching us, and not just theoretically. the Lord believes in practicums:)


I love this Orson F Whitney quote, I've heard it a lot lately, twice in last general conference .
 I "mommy"fied for our purposes, which I realize it is a powerful quote that can comfort through real serious problems, but being a mom on a day to day basis

"No pain that we suffer[or spills cleaned up], no trial that we experience [or two year old we love]]is wasted. It ministers to the development of such qualities as patience, faith, fortitude and humility. All that we suffer [screaming kids, ungrateful kids, seemingly unproductive days and never-ending sleepless nights ] and all that we endure[as hard-working moms], especially when we endure it patiently, builds up our characters, purifies our hearts, expands our souls, and makes us more tender and charitable, more worthy to be called the children of God... and it is through sorrow and suffering, toil and tribulation, that we gain the education that we come here [to motherhood]to acquire"



The things motherhood forces us to do (ie forget ourselves, over and over and over again)


is helping us become a little more like our Heavenly Parents.




And none of it (not one single minute of our sometimes tedious days) is wasted.



 Even if at the end of the night that's exactly how we feel:)