When I wake up every morning I feel disoriented. Reminding myself of some simple facts helps me clear my mind. My name is Chelsey. I am 42 years old. I am married to Brad. I live in the wonderful place I live in. Today is Sunday the 9th of April 2017. I have five children aged 16, 14, 13, 11 and 9. Yes, today is going to be a good day. At this point I get up feeling ready to conquer another day, despite the fact that 42 isn't as good as 40 was and I am scared to death for the future of my children. Why fear? Well, because for so long I could control their every move and now...I have no control and that is a hard thing for a loving parent to accept. It is hard to accept that they have free agency. It is even harder for me to let them have that free agency. As I do slowly and surely let go, because life makes you, I wonder if I am doing it all right. But, at this time of the morning, I've gone through my routine of stating who I am and what I am doing and I am calm, confident and starting the day. It is April 9, 2017.
I love my family….fiercely love my family. However, here are some truths. It is difficult to be a mother of five. At this current
moment in time, I feel extreme dislike mixed with worry for all five of my
children. Really, extreme dislike. This is how my day went: I woke up this morning to the pleasant sound
of my son, Riley, begging me to make biscuits and gravy. No, I say.
I am on a diet. I can’t eat
biscuits and gravy and so I won’t make biscuits and gravy. PLEASE he begs. No, I say.
I am on a diet. I can’t eat
biscuits and gravy. Will you make
pancakes then? No, because I am on a
diet. Jake has now joined us and pipes in, I will make pancakes. No, because you won’t pick up your mess. Yes, they chime together, we promise we will. No.
You won’t pick up your mess. Yes,
we will! Please let Jake make
pancakes. Fine, you can make pancakes
but you must pick up your mess. That is
the condition of you making pancakes.
You have to pick up your mess.
Jake made pancakes and they all ate. Then,
after preparing a roast for after church, I look at the clock and it is
10:25. None of my children are dressed
for church yet and Kenzie isn’t even showered. We leave (or at least attempt to leave) for
church at 10:45. Church starts at 11:00. Kenzie runs upstairs to shower. Jordan follows soon after. I think he is going to get ready, but no, I am wrong. Jordan went upstairs...to lay in my bed under a blanket. Keep in mind, all of this time I am trying to
get ready for church. I am showered and
that is all. Jordan, I say, you must get
out of my bed so you can be ready for church.
He responds, I have five more minutes to lie here Mom. Then I’ll get ready. No, I say, get out of my bed and go get ready
for church. I leave, blow dry my hair
and come back. Jordan is still lying in
my bed. I try to roll him out of his
blanket to move him but he is too heavy for me now to physically move. Jordan, my voice rises, get out of bed and
get ready for church. It is always you
who makes us late for church and I don’t have the time to search for your
church clothes(this is the truth he makes us late because he never knows where
his church clothes are). Get out of my
bed!!!! He lays there. I leave to turn on the iron to iron my
shirt. On my way to the laundry room
where the iron is kept, I encounter Riley and Jake fighting over a white
Sunday shirt. It is Mine! Jake yells as
Riley has it half on his body. That
fight would be solved if they just didn’t wear the same size. But no, Jake, 2 ½ years younger, has
to be a giant and wear the same size as Riley. Your shirt is right there, Riley says buttoning the last button. That
is not mine, Jake says. The
one you have is mine. And on and on it
goes with me pleading with Jake in between to please just wear the one on the floor. They are both the same size anyway, both
white and both long sleeved. Please,
wear the other shirt and stop fighting.
Finally, Jake gives in and I return to my bedroom shirt
on and ironed. Jordan is still lying
there! GET YOUR LAZY BUTT OUT OF MY BED! I find myself irately screaming. At this time he slowly lifts his teenage form off of my bed to
go get ready. He attempts to get in the bathroom
that McKenzie is occupying. It is
locked because she is taking a shower.
He starts banging on her door to be let in because, even though we have
three other bathrooms, all his stuff (toothbrush, razor, etc.) are in that
bathroom and he needs them. McKenzie is refusing
and their two voices are rising. Brad’s
advice to Jordan is to go get a Phillips screw driver and take off the door handle
which Jordan readily takes and begins to disassemble the door. Brad says I better fix the fight or he will
and at this point I’ve had it! I am now
not wanting to go to church myself but something in my traditional personality
forces me to continue curling my hair so that I can be presentable when we
go. At the same time, tears are
streaming down my face because if my children ever did want to go to church
initially they probably don’t now that I have screamed at Jordan at the
top of my lungs and with all the fighting amongst themselves, I am obviously the worst parent ever. *Sigh* and hence, a worry that continually haunts me that none of my children will ever hold religion dear to them (because so many in our country have forsaken religion) returns. I
then imagine divorces and unhappy families because I strongly believe that faith in Christ makes things...not perfect, but better.
We finally make it to church (I don’t know how that miracle
happens) twenty minutes late. Yes,
twenty. The bishop has texted Jordan to
ask him where he is which I see because it is no technology Sunday for him and I have his phone. The priest quorum
advisor sees Jordan in the hall and asks him if he has his lesson prepared for
priests to which Jordan responds, what lesson?
His teacher responds the lesson you were assigned. The lesson you would know about if you
attended our planning meeting today.
Which response arises a very human “mother bear” defense of my son, perhaps because I feel that possibly I have ruined any desire for him to want to attend church with my pushiness. I just can't bear one more harassment for not attending a meeting, or
setting up a volleyball net . I do not
want him to feel guilty when he can’t set up the volleyball net for a young men’s
activity because he is spending time with his Dad and brother dirtbiking
together. So, of course, I tell his priest
quorum advisor that everyone needs to lay off Jordan a little bit about his “duties”
and appreciate that he is here, thinking in my head they should really just
appreciate that I am here because I almost didn’t come today. Brad says I am a little harsh with the
priests advisor. To which I respond, I
wasn’t harsh, I like him…if he tells the other leaders it will be better coming
from him, not me. While this
conversation is going on Jake is pulling leaves off of the fake tree and
Jordan is sitting on him and they are being extremely loud. Jake then moves and sits on the
floor. Get up off the floor I tell him
and he doesn’t. So, instead I lift him
by his shirt collar (because I can still move him physically because he is 9)
and make him stand. As I am lifting him he fakes a loud choking sound (he is a very talented actor) which arouses some suspicious glances my way and so I let him go. He then leaves my
side and starts turning on and off the hall lights in the church. When he started doing that those who gave me the suspicious glances probably wished I had him in the choke hold by his collar again. I then chased Jake outside to sit
and told him to remain there until he could come in and worship properly.
When I step back inside, I find Jordan and Ben wrestling in the
foyer and they too, are promptly excused from the church. Ben, because he was the loudest, was sent out to sit in the truck. I have to have a long conversation with
Ben about the importance of worship and what that means. I feel like crying all over again.
We get through the last two hours of church relatively easy (ha, ha that's probably because they were not with me in class). Upon arriving home, however, I am upstairs in my room and Jordan and McKenzie decide they want their cell phones back. Knowing that is no technology Sunday and this is not allowed, they grab their phones and text a few people making me pry the wretched devices out of their grips. Exhausted after winning that battle, I place both phones on my dresser and walk away. McKenzie sneakily grabs her phone again. She wasn't sneaky enough to fool Jordan though. I soon hear, MOM! McKenzie has her phone in the bathroom. I immediately walk into the bathroom interrupting whatever privacy she had and ask her to hand over the phone politely. I don't have it. McKenzie, I know you have it. I don't have it. You do. And then, amazingly, she is able to "find" the phone on her person and hands it over. I locked both phones in the safe. I come downstairs and guess what hasn't been picked up? Yes, you are right, the pancake mess. Add to that the lunch mess that everyone made after we returned from church and the kitchen is quite the disaster. I ask McKenzie to pick it up but she has logged on to the computer to watch something funny she is unable to watch on her phone and appears to be ignoring me. Really, please clean I say. She slumps in a corner. Reading her mood, I say, okay don't clean, but how about you go outside to get some sunshine. Sunshine will be good for you. She slumps further. So, determined to get her outside, but trying to figure out a way to do it other than literally kicking her out the door, I grab her enormously large t-shirt that she has on and drag her inch by inch to the doorstep. All the while she is laughing finding this hilariously funny. In the end, she ended up outside and I ended up exhausted from the effort to get her there. I locked the door quickly just to assure she stayed there after all my effort. Unfortunately, I didn't get to the other doors quick enough and soon she found a way back in through the garage.
And so yes, today started calmly. I am Chelsey. I am 42. I am married to Brad. I live in __________. It is April 9, 2017. I have five children ages 16, 14, 13, 11 and 9. Now, I am aggravated, not enjoying this feeling of dislike. Although, as I have written this all down, the dislike has disseminated to doubt, doubt that I am doing this parenting thing right. This doubt and insecurity remind me of just how much I love these stinkers. And yes, stinkers they are. Parenting is hard. Maybe tomorrow will be better. I've got to go clean the pancake mess.
