- I really want to be a better, more patient, more loving mom. The kind that never raises her voice and always gets down eye to eye with her children, even when disciplining them. Always out of love, never out of anger. The kind of mom that shows her children what following Jesus Christ truly looks like.
- My children (esp the younger one) are bent on making the above desire as hard as possible by disobeying whenever possible-lying regularly-and abusing the younger sis (elder child's infractions) or screaming, squalling, kicking, biting, bawling, whining, and just generally being an ornery disagreeable child as often as possible (younger child's infractions). Family Home Evening lessons just don't seem to be sinking in, no matter how many different angles I approach the various problems we are having in our home.
- The desire and the frustrating reality were painfully apparent at the conference as I battled (quite literally with screaming and kicking and hitting and trips out to the foyer about every 5 minutes) with the littles in between snippets of inspiration that were painfully opposite of the juxtaposed reality.
- What can I say more? While being inspired to WANT more joy and peace in my family, I am at the same time so frustrated with the CONSTANT fighting between the kids, the selfishness, and the never-ceasing bawling from the little one, and the subsequently far too frequent bouts of combustion from my own frustration-- that I can't help also feeling like it was a hard chastisement for our lack of spirituality in our home and relationships.
- I am not looking for comments of 'you can do this' or 'this is just a phase--they'll grow out of it'. This isn't a post to glean some obligatory compliments or words of sunshine. What this IS: a frustrated mom who feels like she's insane to want more kids when she can't handle the two she's got, when the pending Mother's Day next week just makes her want to hurl cards and flowers off the deck because what she REALLY wants.... really really... is a happy family with two girls that will love each other, play together, and stop the constant constant constant contention that drives the spirit from our home.
That's what I got from Stake Conference today.
