By Heather Walker

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Walking into church Sean and I congratulated ourselves out loud-

4 pair of panties for little buns-check

8 shoes on-check (oh, except Amelia (1 yr) already had hers off and
Sean was carrying them),

Lots of teeth brushed- check

4 heads of hair combed-check

A serious bag of cheerios- check

Our calling stuff-check

All four children- check
(once in a while someone slips through the cracks and I discover -from the car to the church- some dreaded hole in the tights, a dirty face,
shoes that are not appropriate or worse yet, that they had hid from me all
morning and climbed in the car with bed head…)

But today we had it all together,
We were feeling pretty good… oh yeah.

I have meetings all morning on the second Sunday. Sean gets the
breakfast deed done (usually while I am having yw presidency meeting
in the living room- trying to tune out the kitchen drama ex: Amelia
screaming for more breakfast while Natalie (2 yrs) yells over her
“what’s-a-big-idea”, Emi (5 yrs) exclaiming “what am I chopped liver?”
at her small helping and Olivia (4 yrs) hollering “drink please” to
no one in particular…)

(oh yes, especially funny- Today he was herding them upstairs
trying to get Natalie’s nakie-buns through the room as quickly as
possible to not distract from my meeting too much. Of course everyone
noticed and were giggling quietly until she stopped on the stairs, and
peered over the banister commenting to Sean- “they liken my new
haircut!” to which we all burst out laughing cause with that
distraction no one had noticed the haircut at all.)

Sean washes and blow dries Olivia and Amelia’s hair, rounds up as
many church shoes and tights as he can- and puts Amelia down for a nap. I hand him the keys coming in from ward council and he takes off to Elder’s quorum. I wash and blow dry Emi and Natalie- place all of them in front of a church video (”Finding Faith in Christ” is the best) and
tiptoe around getting their church clothes out of the sleeping baby’s
room.

Then I go through the drama of convincing them these are the dresses
they want to wear (and no, the cowboy boots with the flower skirt and
no undies will NOT do for church, nor will that stained
dress-up-dress)… and getting the knots out of Olivia’s hair as
gingerly as possible to avoid a meltdown. Every time I creep out the
bedroom door to round up more supplies Natalie comes crying loudly
after me to “not leave her…”

You can see why we gloat to ourselves about making it into the soft
seats. Especially when ward council goes over time. We find ourselves
looking over our shoulder at the unfortunate family. The ones sitting
one row behind us on those metal forms of punishment-with a knowing
nod, knowing it could easily be us next week.

This is us, just getting to church. It starts at 1:00pm. Next
year we progress to the 9:00am schedule and new baby (which alone
tacks 40 minutes onto your time for the sure-fire blow out and last
minute feeding.) It’s gonna be interesting. Good thing Sean and I have
testimonies- or it would seem purely ridiculous to go through this
every seven days. Thank goodness Amelia went to nursery for the first
time today and LOVED it (yes a couple weeks early- basically everyone
in the ward (including the nursery workers) think we are crazy and
need all the help we can get, I can’t argue.) Sean and I were able to
really soak in the third hour and it makes it all so worth it.

I love the gospel, I LOVED conference. The inspiring messages
of hope and gentle reminders to BE GRATEFUL were just what the doctor
ordered. Sometimes its just that small reminder that the Lord is
taking care of you that brings you to your knees in gratitude- unable
to stop the feeling from overflowing your heart. (not that you’d want
to.) These are times when I feel so close to understanding what it is
all about. And despite the craziness of our life (don’t let me fool
you-I actually love it most of the time, when I’m not hiking the two
flights of our town home’s stairs to fetch children or shoes at 7
months preggo) its the spontaneity of it all that energizes me. Its
the quite moments when the girls tell me about their church classes
and the things they are learning there. The random snuggle Natalie
calms for or when Mills unexpectedly buries her face in my neck. These
are worth anything. ANYTHING.

Nine months, it passes pretty quick in the grand scheme of
things, even faster in the eternal scheme. Five years- its gone by in
a blink of an eye. I can’t imagine how fast 18 yrs will go, and,
realizing that time accelerates with age, I’m trying to soak it all in
and have as many moments as I can. I’m grateful that we are blessed to
start another 18yr round of hugs/kisses and craziness with this new
little handsome. (Handsome is what Emi has dubbed him until his debut)
and I hope there are more. More random snuggles and funny child
one-liners. More love. ah.

Tags: Faith, Fatherhood, Marriage, Motherhood, Parenthood //