Thursday was Nana’s birthday!! It seemed so appropriate that the night before her birthday, my mom let Mary have a “sleepover” on her bedroom floor. She is so kind, compassionate, and loving. When Abe and I are at our wits’ end (especially with Mary these days), my mom works magic, calms Mary down, and gives in to her craziest whims.
My mom is the unsung hero of the house. She is constantly serving everyone. She tidies, cleans, bandages ALL of the kids’ boo-boos, never loses her patience, waits on the kids non-stop, plays with Ammon, and provides a sanctuary for the girls, especially when they are bored, sad, or hurt. They know they can always go to her room and do fun activities, talk–and be listened to!!–, get stickers, read kids’ magazines, and play games.
When Mary is sad, she always cries for Nana. And Nana is the only one who can calm her down. Ammon called my mom “Mama” up until a couple weeks ago, and Lydia adores Nana, as evidenced in the pictures at the bottom of this post.
Sometimes people ask Abe if it is hard to live with his mother-in-law. He always responds that if they knew his mother-in-law, they would know it isn’t hard at all. If it weren’t for the kids’ tantrums and my yelling at the kids in response to their tantrums, we would have a perfectly peaceful, harmonious house.
In addition to doing all of that for us, my mom also works every day on her family history, goes to the temple a lot, exercises regularly, reads her scriptures for hours each morning, volunteers at the family history center, and visits one of her mentally ill visiting teachees daily. She has friends innumerable who call her for comfort with their problems, and she always answers the phone and responds with love and kindness. She is currently in charge of emergency prep for our entire ward, and because she is so persistent and thorough, people are actually getting prepared. Oh, and she does all this with some pretty challenging health issues. She’s amazing.
It’s kind of hard living up to her wonderful example. In fact, I have stopped trying. I mean, my mom NEVER loses her temper, NEVER says unkind things, and NEVER is anything less than charitable and kind. It’s too far out of my league to attempt to follow in her footsteps, but I am so, so grateful she is my mom and leads the way for all of us, every day.
Mary slept through Nana’s birthday celebration. Maybe the excitement of the sleepover the night before did her in.
