What Family Night Means To Me

Monday was one of those days.  We all have them.  The perfect storm.  Any number of variables can contribute to those days; variables that usually aren't a huge deal.  Not a huge deal at all when they arrive one, two or three at a time--but when they come in all on one day they can just be too much.  By the time dinner arrives there is nothing you'd like more than to just put out bowls of cereal and go crawl under the blankets of your bed...if only it weren't so hot, making blankets just sound awful, and you didn't actually have to be responsible for your children for the rest of the night.

These were Monday's variables in my perfect storm:

• Tired and a little stressed out from a very fun, but busy weekend.
• Physically exhausted from the training for Labor Day.  One day of rest is no longer enough it seems!
• Feeling a little overwhelmed by all that is ahead: moderate confidence, then tears, build back up the confidence, then tears.
• Bored kids ready to start school and getting on each other's nerves, as well as mine.
• Bored kids hopping from activity to activity without cleaning up afterward, leaving every room in the house looking like the Warner Brothers' Tasmanian Devil has visited our home.
• Same said kids, who on this particular Monday decided that helping one another, and me, was not a worthwhile practice.
• The second week in-a-row of Adam traveling for work just ahead.
• A lot of tantrums...from the 4-year-old.  Happily, none from the 21-month-old.  Although, at least from him they are expected and age appropriate, unlike for a 4-year-old.
• Back and forth thoughts on what to do for the 4-year-old for school next year: could he benefit from a non-mom teacher as he gets ready for Kindergarten?  How about at a school that understands his sensory issues?  Even if it turns out to be really expensive?  Yes!  No!  Maybe?  Arrrghhhh!
• Realizing my TWO (must be used separately) $20 for $45 worth of Blurb blog-to-book product coupons were going to expire on the 3rd, NOT the 15th as I had thought until the "countdown to expiration" arrived in my email inbox...and I only had half of one book done, oh dear!
• A baby who seems to think toys are for dummies, and will only play with the telephone, the Wii remotes, the sunscreen bottles on the counter, the shampoo from the swim bag, the dirty cups in the sink, {insert any other inappropriate non-toy for a toddler here}.
• Dirty dishes in the sink I am trying to ignore because easy-to-clean-after sandwiches are no longer an appropriate lunch choice according to bored boys, instead macaroni shells and cheese is the meal of choice, which leaves cheese-covered spoons, bowls, sauce pot and colander to wash.
• A sty in one eye, a swollen bug bite just below the other that I can see bulging in front of the eye it is below. 

Dinner did get served eventually.  It was pretty good too.  Not cereal.  Although I love cereal for dinner on hot days when Adam is out of town...hmmmm...maybe tomorrow night. 

And then it was time for Family Home Evening.  Ug.  I was in no mood for it, even though I had a fantastic talk from General Conference that I wanted to focus on for our lesson.  It was from last October's Conference Priesthood Session and I had read it earlier in the week, loved it, and immediately decided it needed to be used for the next possible FHE.  The stories in it I was sure would be interesting to the boys too.  So we settled in for our lesson that I had been so excited about.  No, "settled" is the wrong word.  No one was settled.  The kids were all over the place, only half listening, up and down in their seats, and once they would finally sit after long pauses in the lesson and significant looks that said, "Park it," Tommy would start with his cute (but not at that moment) Tommy-shouting and become a complete distraction.  So I was a little down-hearted after that.

We prepared to set out for our activity, a night of swimming at the Y.  Which was craziness, but after a lot of effort everyone and everything was in the car ready to go, minus Luke's shoes.  As I helped hunt for Luke's missing Croc-- for 10 minutes--while the boys loudly waited, buckled into their seats in the car, I found myself repeating the mantra, "I love my family.  I love my family," just to keep from canceling the entire event. I was not into it at all.  I was completely distracted by my own thoughts and irritations from the day and evening.

But we got in that warm pool water and started to play...and all of the stuff of the day, my stresses, my frustrations just seemed to melt off of me into the water as my family and I began having fun, swimming, splashing and laughing together.

After some tag and volleyball, they turned the water slide on, so Zac and Ben both headed to the big pool to slide.  Tommy and Luke both had on water wings so Adam and I felt relaxed.  Luke has become so brave in the water, putting his face in, letting me throw him and allowing his head to go under.  And Tommy was so funny in his water wings.  He had completely figured out how to control his body to float with the wings.  He could keep himself balanced and his head above the water, but dunked himself on purpose a number of times by rolling his body weight backward and then forward again.  He loves water!  He is a total water baby.

Then Josh decided it was the time for him to take the swim test to move from the "yellow band" (a swimmer who needs a parent close by in the pool area) to a "green band" (a swimmer who can enter the pool area and swim without an adult).  Josh's swimming is not pretty, he always looks kind of like he's in distress even though he's totally fine and not in distress at all.  His form is just bad.  But he did an amazing job on the test and passed with flying colors!  Adam said he did great.  I had to watch with Tommy from the small pool, so I could see but couldn't hear what was going on, but Josh gave me a big thumbs up through the window as he followed the lifeguard to go change out his band and have his name recorded in the swimmer book.  No more child watch for him!  And he could now do the water slide!  We were all so excited for him, especially his brothers.  Josh felt like a million dollars.

So Family Night made all the difference for my day, and probably for my week.  The kids' behavior during the lesson wasn't sparkling, I don't know if they'd even remember what we talked about without prompting today, two days later.  But the time together doing something we all loved, cheering on Josh together, was healing, a cure for what ailed me.  So this Monday, what Family Night meant to me was a clear head, a full heart and a little perspective.  I was once again shown that Family Night isn't about the perfect lesson or how much is learned from it, it is about family.  Family. God's greatest gift.