Tag Archives: motherhood

Small victories and normal failures: a few days in the life of a [super]mom

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(Let’s just admit up front that the word super has a completely different definition for every kind of mom.  In my case, it means getting 2 or more items done on my to-do list.  For those of you who didn’t know that such a feat propelled you to superhuman status, you’re welcome.)

I went to Women’s Conference last week, but rather than bore you with all the details of everything I learned (I mean right now.  Of course I will bore you with them later.), it suffices to say that I walked away with a strengthened testimony of God’s complete awareness of me, myself, and my needs, AND a greater desire to find more joy in my mission– to love the things God loves.

(THANK you to those of you who met up with me for lunch or dinner while I was there.  It makes me happy to surround myself with good friends leading good lives.  In a world where one can sometimes feel like she’s the lone whackadoodle fighting to do what’s right, there’s a lot of comfort in knowing and being surrounded by like-minded women.)

Maybe my posts would be more readable if they didn’t always have a seven-paragraph introduction/disclaimer/random-thought-dump.  Whatever, I’m sure you’ve figured out how to skim by now.

Anyway.  Guess what?  I started going back to the gym every morning at 6 a.m., and by every, I mean Monday through Friday, but it makes me sound very dedicated if I just say every.  This in and of itself is actually something I’m quite proud of because it helps me to start my day, as opposed to letting my day start me (like when I wake up to the sound of my children spilling oatmeal or other abominations).  I’m not sure, but I think it’s been a little over three weeks now, which almost means I can claim it as a real habit.  I don’t know what the rules are about that, but I feel like I’m close.  So this new gym things is cool, but that’s not what I really wanted to write about.  One thing I hate about the gym is their music video channel that’s always pumped into the gym via two televisions front and center of the exercise room.  It’s their own channel, and it feeds the audio that’s heard throughout the gym.  I’ll make the story short:  It seems like at least 50% of music videos are soft porn (some not-so-soft).  It used to bug me before my I’m-feeling-lazy-and-seasonally-depressed hiatus from the gym, but I noticed it again right away upon my return, so I decided to do something about it.  I complained before and they blew me off saying “it’s a corporate decision, not ours.”  I wrote a letter to the corporate office and explained my complaint in my normal kind and gentle way (like “I don’t see any indication in [your] corporate goal statement that in addition to fueling [your members’] bodies and minds, you’re also trying to collectively fuel their libido..”) and mailed it off.

WELL.  I got a phone call yesterday from the corporate office telling me that they were immediately removing the specific videos that I had mentioned, and that they are working on switching over the entire content to more appropriate material that better promotes their ideals of a healthy lifestyle.  Oh, and apparently they went through the 400 videos they were given from whatever company produces their TV streaming and requested to remove 25% of them– 100 videos!  I thanked them for their acknowledgment and response to my letter.  And then of course I called up one of my girlfriends and bragged about it.  How cool is that?!  I can’t help but think of Sister Elaine Dalton’s claim:

“I truly believe that one virtuous young woman or young man, led by the Spirit, can change the world, but in order to do so, we must return to virtue.”

I tell you this so that you sit at your computer completely flabbergasted by my overwhelming awesomeness realize how easy it is to make a difference.

“[A woman with a mother heart] knows that the influence of righteous, conscientious, persistent, daily mothering is far more lasting, far more powerful, far more influential than any earthly position or institution invented by man.”  (Sister Beck)

Some of you may remember that about a year ago, I started working on a project called the Protecting Innocence Project. I just want to reassure those of you who contributed to the development of it with your research and writing that it IS still under construction and will be forthcoming, hopefully soon.  The content is completely done and I’m just waiting on some of the web development that I can’t do on my own.  I didn’t want you to think I’d let the whole thing fall through the cracks or make you feel like your contribution was a waste.  It WILL happen, I promise.

Well, darn-it, my post already got way too long.  I’ll just save my breath and make you a list of the rest of the victories and failures I was going to mention.  I’m sure you can figure out which is which.

  1. Cashed out our budget this month to MAKE ourselves not overspend.  Hard, but rewarding.  (Today in the grocery checkout line Clark almost asked for something, but stopped himself and said, “I  know, mom, we should buy what we need and not what we want.  If we buy what we want, we won’t have enough money left for the stuff we need.”
  2. I think I’ve already put about 4 pairs of wet or soiled size 4T underwear in the laundry today.  Probably 15 in the last 3 days.  Just when I thought I was done with diapers.
  3. Ants in our kitchen.  Where are they coming from?
  4. I was trying to save up money because preschool in the fall will probably be at least $100/month.  Happened to talk to a friend of a friend of a friend who helped me find a preschool run by the high school child development class that is $65/semester!  If I were my mother, I’d write a long, gushing paragraph about tender mercies.  Short testimony:  I love tithing.
  5. I love your limericks.  I’ll post up my favorites for voting later this week.

Okay.  I’m done now.

GCBC Week 5: Mothers and Daughters

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General Conference Book Club Week 5:


I have a daughter and I sometimes wonder about exactly what our relationship should be.  I was surprised how much Elder Ballard’s talk about the things I should be teaching my daughter actually taught me about myself as a woman.  I love this talk.  You will too.  Tell me about your favorite parts in the comments.

Go here to find the media versions of the talk (audio, video, mp3, etc.).  If this is your first visit to the General Conference Book Club,  click here to learn more about it.

GCBC Week 2: Priesthood and Handmaidens

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General Conference Book Club Week 2:



It’s time to get this party started. In an effort to simplify my life a little bit, we’re going to go through the talks this time in order, from Saturday morning session all the way through to Sunday afternoon session.  (As much as it pains me to skip them, we’ll leave out the Priesthood session and the Young Women’s Broadcast –which was SO great– so please make time to study them on your own.  You won’t regret it.)  I’m actually starting off this round with two talks.  It’s only because there will not be enough weeks to fit in every single talk by the next General Conference in October, and it seemed fitting to begin with a little extra “umph” while we’re still riding high off of our Conference momentum.  Plus these two talks fit so harmoniously together– each focuses on the potential power that men and women have as they fulfill their individual roles with righteousness.  I loved both of these talks, and many of you mentioned in the comments how touched you were by Sister Beck’s message.  Hers is a fantastic talk for mothers.  So come on, everyone.  Grab your testimony by its britches and study and ponder these talks this week.  Share your thoughts, insights, questions, and testimony below.

Go here to find the media versions of the talks (audio, video, mp3, etc.).  If this is your first visit to the General Conference Book Club, you’re just in time.  Click here to learn how it works, and welcome.

My defining moment. No, really.

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Just the other day, my blog got featured as the best of “hot off the press” on the homepage of WordPress.com.  I have no idea how it happened, but it created an insane influx of traffic to Diapers and Divinity.  By 8:00 a.m., I had well over 500 hits, and finished out the day at unprecedented numbers.  I felt temporarily famous, and it was pretty cool.  Most of the feedback was positive, but at 11:00 a.m., I received this comment in my Inbox.  I’m assuming the writer had perused the blog and my profile and such.  (I edited out one phrase for the sake of decency.)

So you ended up being just a mother.

Just another mother, like a chimp, a cow, an elephant, a whale, just another mother, like an insect, or an octopus, or a worm.  Just another mother.

Your kids will not thank you, your husband will not like you, your own mother will pity you for making her own same mistake.

Just another mother.

For a moment of frenzy, of uterine voracity, irrational and irreversible, you destroyed your body, your beauty, and your own intellect.

Parental-brain-atrophy-syndrome, where your brain biologically adjusts to the need of your infants, descending at their own subhuman level, with just one dimension, food, or perhaps two dimensions, food and feces. Continue reading →

‘Twas the night before motherhood

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Today I dug through a trunk full of memories looking for a few specific things I’d promised to lend out.  You can’t look through a memory box without taking a journey far and deep.  I saw an autograph book from the 7th grade, photos of my grandparents in their twilight years, quotes saved from college Sunday school lessons, and a recipe box I made in Young Women.  Wrinkled in the corner, I found a folded piece of paper that had my handwriting on the outside:  A poem for Matt.  love, Stephanie

I figured it might be some cheesy love poem which I have no memory of ever writing.  I used to write quite a bit of poetry growing up.  After I served my mission and fell in love with the Spanish language, I wrote a lot of Spanish poetry.  I was pretty darn good at it, too, for a gringa— I even had several of them published in literary journals.  But I’ve written very little poetry since then, in any language.  So I was curious what had inspired me to write Matt a poem.  I opened the wrinkled paper.  It was dated Jan 7, 2003:  Four years since we met and just a few days before the birth of our first child.

Future’s Eve

Here we sit in the twilight of all our yesterdays,
still warm from the brightest rays, and full of memories.
The evening dews of destiny begin to fall,
beautiful and mysterious.
The tomorrows will be different days;
I am curious, but not afraid.
Thank you for harboring me in your friendship
and bearing me in your love.
In a magical way, that love defines our past
and will now somehow redefine our future.
We will be more than two, and yet, more at one.
The morning sun begins to break slowly through the unguessed dawn,
and the beams, like Spirit, fall gently upon us.
We go enhanced to the next day.

When Matt left for work this morning, I was having a moment of self-pity because Grant had almost missed the bus and Natalie was mid-meltdown.  “This will be my day,” I sighed as I looked at the small, weeping preschooler flopping and thrashing on the stairs.  He made some comment about how my life was so horrible and tortured, but he didn’t mean it and that’s not what I meant either, so I got annoyed.  I don’t think it’s an accident that I read this line today about how I had once anticipated parenthood to be:  “We will be more than two, and yet, more at one.”  Oh, how we need each other, but how easy it is to be selfish!

Children can draw a couple together in deeper ways than they ever thought possible.  I remember the days that Grant spent in the Pediatric ICU after unexplained seizures, and how Matt and I clung to each other and needed each others’ support so much.  And yet, when we are not careful, we can let their whims come between us, like a morning where a temper tantrum makes me pathetically dread the day rather than share a a goodbye hug with my husband and remind him how much I love him and still need him.

Every morning in parenthood is an “unguessed dawn;” We never know what it will bring, but we need each other and we definitely need the Lord.  When we let our selfish wish-lists go, and turn to the Lord to help us fill our unmet needs rather than demanding that someone else read our minds, heal our wounds, and solve our problems, I think the Spirit can work wonders.  And then, both individually and as partners, “We go enhanced to the next day.”