Laughter and Tears

I had this written down in my notes from General Conference this past October. I ran across them the other night and it made me laugh again.

Let me set the scene...Our family was watching General Conference on the computer in the family room. We had been watching for over an hour and the boys were growing restless and had to be asked to quiet down repeatedly. Our Prophet, President Thomas S. Monson was about to address us as boys began to wrestle each other all over the floor. I yelled for everyone to "SIT DOWN AND COOL IT!!!" as I motioned for each boy to find a seat on different ends of the couches and love seat. I began pointing and snarling, "You, there! You over there...no, no, that's too close...at the end of that couch. You, opposite couch." Then after sighing mightily, I turned to Mike and muttered how I had just ruined the Spirit that was felt during the previous talks. The irony did not escape me that I was yelling at my kids so we could feel the love of our Prophet.

It kind of made me laugh at myself...yelling my head off at my kids as our prophet was about to speak. Well, it made me chuckle and then cry as I listened to his words of his talk entitled, "Finding Joy in the Journey".

As President Monson said, "Rather than dwelling on the past, we should make the most of today, of the here and now, doing all we can to provide pleasant memories for the future." (note: I scrabbled down his words but I looked them up in the talk to quote them verbatim...I am not that efficient of a note taker)

It was at this point in the talk that I began to cry and apologize to the boys and blow them kisses as they sat separated on the couches.

Then President Monson went on to say, "If you are still in the process of raising children, be aware the the tiny fingerprints that show up on almost every newly cleaned surface, the toys scattered about about the house, the piles and piles of laundry to be tackled will disappear all too soon and that you will - to your surprise -miss them profoundly."

My tears really began to flow at this point and I wailed, "I'm sorry, boys!!"

Evan said smirking, "See Mom, the laundry will disappear!! (I love the way Evan uses humor to calm me...he gets that from his father.)

.

Me: *sniffle*

Adam: "Yeah, Mom...the laundry will disappear!"

Brian to Adam: "Where will it dis-peer to?"

Adam shrugging: "I dunno."

I began to laugh and cry at this point. I am so grateful for the words of our Prophet. I am grateful for the sweetness of my boys. And I was grateful that day to hear that our Prophet understands seemingly insurmountable, yet mundane tasks like cleaning fingerprints off of every surface the eye can see, and keeping up with the laundry.

The boys last December at, Lights of the South.

In the picture, Evan (10 years and 5 months old), Adam (7 years and 5 months old) and Brian (4 years and 7 months old)