Be Still, Saturday

Saturdays are hard. Saturdays started being hard shortly after motherhood happened. Four kids into this motherhood gig, and Saturday has become my least favorite day simply because of what it USED to be but no longer is: a free day. Gone is the weekend routine I had followed since preschool: a later-than-usual Friday bedtime in celebration of a week well-worked, the Saturday morning sleep-in, and then the purposeful attack or laid-back puttering of whatever project I felt like using that day for, followed by the quiet calm of sundown marking the coming of the Sabbath that turned my satisfied heart to reverent things. Saturday was a beautifully graceful end parenthesis for the week.

Now Saturday is just another day of the same routine/same chores/same words that I follow/do/say every other day. Instead of a closing parenthesis, the weeks mash together like run-on sentences with barely a breath of air gulped during the children's naptime on Sundays. And yet, I doggedly continue to think of it as a free day. I make plans for what I'm going to do with my Saturday, imagining the hours of free time stretching before me, and at the end of each Saturday instead of feeling like I have earned the respite of the coming Sabbath, I wonder how there can be so much work left at the end of the week and I'm still out of breath. What do I have to show for all this busyness?

This was one of those rough Saturdays where, because half of my offspring were to be gone for most of the day, I was going to be productive, dagnabbit. I was going to dig some holes for the fruit trees I want to plant (Did you catch that? SOME holes. HA!) I was going to organize a couple of closets, swapping out clothes for the seasons (mid-February is basically spring in Texas). I was going to finish sewing together the top of the quilt I've been working on for a month. And yet, it was not to be. All I managed to accomplish was to hold my fussy children, load the dishwasher, and glue our Valentine banner together while I watched The Importance of Being Earnest. I didn't even finish the movie efficiently; between all the interruptions an infant and a toddler can create, it took three hours to watch what is essentially a very short movie.

At least there is still the Sabbath. Our Relief Society's motto this year is "Be still, and know that I am God" from Psalms 46:10. I may feel this frustrated dissatisfaction with my productive capacity for many years yet. But each Sunday I get a reminder of that one thing that is needful. What a wise Heavenly Father to release us from the need to be productive for one entire day. Thank goodness for the command to Be Still so that we may Know God. And, as a corollary to that, I need to Be Still so that I may know my children and they me. So this week we are going to stuff those cute little mailboxes full of heart-shaped love notes to each other and spend a little more time being still and knowing God. For that is what is most needful. :)

 

I recently quit my job. It was a perfect stay-at-home mom job, requiring only a couple of hours of work on my computer during nap time or after bedtime. I liked it much. I liked the work itself, I liked the little paycheck at the end of the month, and I really liked being able to say "I'm a stay-at-home mom, but I also have a job." (Because a well-rounded woman is supposed to have it all, do it all, be it all, right?)

However, I found myself twisting about in this ever-tightening straitjacket of the kids and the job, unable to ever find a comfortable balance. What's worse, I was becoming Angry Woman and felt like I actually needed a straitjacket, if you catch my drift.

Nevertheless, it was very hard for me to finally burn that bridge and let go. My husband went overseas shortly thereafter for a several-month-long work trip, and I was left alone with four children, three of whom were under the age of three, one of whom was a newborn. The elements had combined against me, and I got into a "funk." (This is Mom's euphemism for situational or seasonal depression; my six year old characterizes it as "being Eeyore," although in addition to the mopey, poor-me tendencies Eeyore's got going I also become high-strung and snipey, like Rabbit.)

But all good funks must come to an end, and when they do life feels even sweeter than before.

In celebration, I am noticing and documenting happy things. I've started a Family Joy Book. It's a plain little composition notebook with the words "Family Joy Book" inscribed very plainly in pen. The entries seem mundane enough:

"The little boys like to swing on their tummies. Luke can twist his swing around several times to make himself spin around."

This simple description lets me remember this moment as I happened upon it, both of them swinging on their tummies, side by side, heads and arms hanging low.

The joy is in the noticing and the documenting; it is not intended to entertain people with dazzling adjectives or pretty scrapbook worthy layouts. I intend to keep both the book and the descriptions plain and simple as a sort of metaphor that there is actually a lot of wonder and truth in the plain and simple.