Unsung Heroes Living the Dream

I sat down the other night at 9:15 p.m. It was the first time I had sat down all day. I glanced over at the four pair of shoes sitting next to the shoe basket and sighed.

"Why can't the kids put their shoes in the shoe basket. That's what a shoe basket is for!" It felt good to complain even if it was only to myself.

"Tired?" My husband asked as he handed me a red, wooden rocket. "Here. Hold this," he said.

It was my son's Space Derby Rocket for the next night's pack meeting. Surprisingly, it was light as a feather, yet, it took every ounce in me to stay focused and hold it straight while my husband put tape around it. I was really that tired. But why? What I had done with the last twelve hours of my life that brought me to the brink of exhaustion? It certainly wasn't anything worth writing about. Or, was it?

Well, let's see. It started at 6:30 that morning. Breakfast for the three oldest kids. At 6:45 a.m. I made sure my oldest daughter was up and getting ready for school. I then started packing lunches for the two youngest kids. Then I woke up kids #2 and #3. We had family scriptures at 7:00 a.m. followed by a quick run to the bus stop to drop off daughter #1. I then helped my son with his hair and inspected his spelling sentences, signed my daughter's permission slip and helped her find her shoes (which by the way were NOT in the shoe basket). By this time daughter #3 was up and ready to eat her cereal. I poured the cereal and milk in the bowl and then said goodbye to the two older kids, who left out the front door for their carpool. And wall-ah! It was 7:55 a.m. I headed into the laundry room to start a load of whites and the phone rang at 8:01 a.m. Wouldn't you know it, it was daughter #2. She was calling from a friend's cell phone to tell me she had forgotten her glasses.

"I'll get dressed and bring them to school," I told her.

I dressed my youngest daughter . Splashed on some mascara and lip gloss. Pulled my hair back in a pony. Got in the car. Drove to school. Dropped off the glasses. And from there decided to run to two stores to use up some coupons that were about to expire. Hmmmm. Not a life brimming with excitement, right?

The rest of the day was much the same. Housework, laundry, and changing shavings in the hamster cage. I whipped up a quick batch of brownie pops for the PTA's Family Reading night. While they were in the oven, I made a phone call to arrange a play date for my youngest daughter. My husband was working from home that day and needed some cough drops and sandpaper to finish off my son's Space Derby rocket. So, I got back in the car and headed to Wal-mart. While I was there, I picked up a frozen pizza for dinner and a Hershey chocolate bar. (For sanity.)

Once the kids got home from school, it was off to dance lessons for daughter #2 and the store (AGAIN) for daughter #1, who needed something green for St. Patrick's day. We got home just in time to heat up the pizza and head back over to the school for Family Reading Night. For the next hour and half, there I was, dressed up like a witch, reading to the kids from one of my favorite children's storybooks. We returned home at 8:45 p.m—time to get kids ready for bed, which brings us up to speed to where I was sitting on the couch staring at the red, wooden rocket in my hand, wondering why I was so tired.

I looked at my husband. His fingers were stained with red and black paint. His hair had traces of saw dust in it. And it got me thinking. My husband is a bright man. He makes financial decisions everyday that affect a company's bottom line. And, yet, at 9:15 p.m. on a Monday evening, the most important job he has is touching up paint on his son's Space Derby rocket. Not necessarily Nobel Peace Prize material. But had you seen the reaction of our son who, upon seeing the finished rocket, leaped into his father's arms yelling, "Dad! You're the coolest!" you'd have thought otherwise.

That night before bed, I read this quote from Max Lucado's book "Facing Your Giants."

"Quiet heroes dot the landscape of our society. They don't wear ribbons or kiss trophies; they wear spit-up and kiss boo-boos. They don't make the headlines, but they do sew the hemlines and check the outlines and stand on the sidelines. You won't find their names on the Nobel Prize short list, but you will find their names on the homeroom, carpool, and Bible teacher lists.  They are the parents, both by blood and deed, name and calendar. Heroes. News programs don't call them. But that's okay. Because their kids do…They call them Mom. They call them Dad. And these moms and dads, more valuable than all the executives and lawmakers west of the Mississippi, quietly hold the world together. "

"Be numbered among them. Read books to your kids. Play ball while you can and they want you to. Make it your aim to watch every game they play, read every story they write, hear every recital in which they perform."  

"Love the one who wears your ring and cherish the children who share your name. Succeed at home first." 

Rewind the calendar twenty years. I was a hopeful soon-to-be college graduate; the recipient of a Poynter Institute Fellowship for journalists, one of 12 graduating seniors nationwide. I was lucky enough to rub shoulders with some of the finest journalists in the country, dreaming of a career that would take me to far off places. Fast forward 20 years, and, well, some days the farthest I go is the elementary school. One could look at my life and say, "She gave up on the dream." Or, one could say, "She just traded in one dream for another."

Instead of covering news in war-torn countries, I'm teaching my four children how wars start and how we can avoid them. Rather than covering a story about the growing homeless population in a downtown park, my kids and I tie fleece blankets and deliver them to the shelter. It's not what headlines are made of on the nightly news, but maybe our world would be nicer, kinder, and happier if the stories we saw were about mom's making cookies for the PTA bake sale and father's building space rockets for pack meetings.

(Side note:  Just now my two youngest children ran through the living room with underwear on the heads screaming and laughing. I guess you can count that as a commercial break.)

Hat's off to moms and dads, the unsung heroes living the dream. Oh, and to Mrs. Jensen—a grandmother whom I met at my kids' school. She's "doing it all over again" meaning she's raising her grandchildren. You, dear lady, are the true heroine!

"Motherhood is the greatest potential influence either for good or ill in human life. The mother's image is the first that stamps itself on the unwritten page of the young child's mind. It is her caress that first awakens a sense of security; her kiss, the first realization of affection; her sympathy and tenderness, the first assurance that there is love in the world."  
--David O. McKay

QUESTION OF THE DAY: What do you love about being a mom?