Last night we had the adult session of stake conference and my father in law offered to come watch the kids for us. He's never watched the kids solo and isn't too experienced in childcare so we fed the kids before he came and told him to just play with them until we got home and we would just put them to bed ourselves. So they ended up going to sleep over an hour later than usual.
But this morning we all woke up at our usual times. Like our bodies perfectly adjusted. If we didn't "spring forward" I would have been wondering why we were all up so early, but as it was, we lost an hour during the night and I woke up at 8:15, Abigail came downstairs sometime around 8:30, and Brady got up around 9:15. Perfect. But you know what's not perfect?
The afternoon 1-3 session of stake conference. This is why I looooove morning church. I sang in the choir so I had nothing to do with kids during church but apparently Chris and the kids spent the last 30 minutes in the nursery room with a million other kids going wild. While Brady literally just laid on the floor in the middle of it all. He was sooo exhausted and didn't get a nap til 3:30. And woke up at 6:30. Abigail has been extra sleepy lately too (last night when we got home, she was literally almost in tears from being so tired, almost fell asleep on my shoulder when I tried to comfort her, and burst out crying when I told her she had to go potty and brush her teeth before she could go to bed) and I guess all of the extra playing with the kids at church wore her out even more. She was whiny and crying at anything and everything so Christopher asked her if she needed to snuggle. She said yes. Five minutes later, I find Christopher listening to conference talks on super speed (he and two mission friends have made it a goal/race to read every conference since 1970 so he's pretty much listening to talks every spare second he finds) and Abigail is completely passed out. She's such a deep sleeper and Christopher finally had to shake her awake a few hours later. So all three of my loves got in long naps.
My typical self would have snuggled up for a long nap too or to waste time on face book. My currently focused self used he time to sort through papers. Medical papers from the kids (why do I need a million papers about vaccines?! And age appropriate milestones?!) and stuff from trips (I think I brought home every single pamphlet and free travel magazine from every site and city we visited or thought about visiting on our three week trip to Europe in 2008) and the mix of Christmas cards/letters and wedding announcements and ticket stubs and notes from various church meetings. I had so many huge stacks of papers for recycling, I wish I'd taken a picture of them all together. Instead, I was just making a ton of trips to the garage to dump it in the bin. It feels so good to have that clutter gone as well as those phone books that mysteriously show up at my doorstep but never ever get used. Have these people heard of google?
Anyways, I was able to get so much done in just a few hours and it was great. I remember a time when I used to love Sundays. I still do, but probably not as much as I love Mondays. I think sometimes I feel like I need to kind of do nothing on Sunday afternoons because it's a day of rest. But it doesn't feel right to spend the day wasting time or being idle and I know that's not how we're supposed to spend the sabbath so it gets me in a bad mood by the end of the day. Today, I went back and forth a little about if organizing papers was "work" or housework or whatever on a Sunday. I decided to try it out and see for myself. It felt like an appropriate Sunday activity for me today as I was taking action in my goal to achieve a house of order. Today when I was going through things, I felt like I had an extra clear mind and a decisiveness and easy judgement that is not at all characteristic of me. I felt like Heavenly Father was amplifying my efforts. I know that seems silly but getting my house in order is something I literally feel like I am being called to do at this time and that I am being blessed for taking action. I'm the most indecisive person ever and my natural tendency is to always keep something in case I need it and I frequently get bogged down in the details of something to the point that it completely derails the bigger, more important initial project. And to top it off... I lack self discipline. My natural man sits in bed for hours during nap time wasting time online while stuffing my face with junk food and sweets and eventually fall asleep until I absolutely haaaaave to get out of bed. It's not a pretty sight and it's not the person I want to be.
So it was a huge blessing that I was able to get so much done and really make it happen while, miracle of miracles, my whole house slept in peace for a few hours.
Stake conference and a productive afternoon... That's something I can really feel good about. Even if stake conference screwed up naps and meant my kids didn't go to sleep until close to ELEVEN o clock tonight. It was worth it. Daylight savings is a piece of cake... Stake conference though? It's a beast.
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