Life as a Mom. . .

We spent the entire weekend deep cleaning all of the carpet upstairs and downstairs in our house. We borrowed the big machine from Tom’s work to do it. It is almost an understatement to say it was a huge job, especially by the time you move all of the furniture, vacuum, including the edges and then use the cleaner. But we got them done and I was just so happy since I’ve wanted to do it for a long time. Fast forward to today. Caleb and I went to Wal-Mart. That boy has got high amounts of energy and shopping with him consists of many near misses of taking out fellow shoppers and knocking over displays. Patience is hard to come by in those situations, but I managed a fair amount today. (Just an example of what that boy does . . .we got all of the groceries loaded in the van and I asked him to return the cart. We were just kiddy corner from the cart holder thingy, but a direct path was not possible because of a snow pile. Against my wishes, he tried to trek over anyway, barely catching the sliding cart from hitting another car. You can all picture this very vividly, I’m sure!) Unfortunately we didn’t leave the energy at Wal-Mart. We got home and Cache had a clay project all over the counter so the boys unloaded the groceries on the floor. As I was clearing things up so I could start putting the groceries away, Caleb comes bounding in and lands on one of the bags. The bag just so happened to have yogurt in it. You can see where I’m going with this. Yes, it did rupture, squirting yogurt all over my nice clean carpet. And unfortunately, I must have left my patience at Wal-Mart. 6 jobs were promised and a mini-lecture ensued. When I sat down for a bite to eat, my scriptures were opened on the table to 3 Nephi 12. And what jumped out at me? You guessed again: “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.” Well. I had to apologize and reduce the punishment to a “Tell me what you learned from this” and one job (besides the clean up). After all, 20 years from now another yogurt stain will not matter, but that I apologized will. They don’t call those things called patience and mercy virtues for nothing!!!!