Joy: Day 14 (or Good Enough)

I just put my extremely grumpy toddler in bed.  He'd been crying at me for at least 30 minutes.  Which means I waited too long to put him to bed.  (But, there is a little whisper in the back of my mind is saying something about maybe 2-year molars having something to do with it...)

While he was grumping at me, my girls were having some kind of argument over something they were playing with.

My husband, after his long day of work, went straight to the dry pack cannery, (where he still is), to do his part and also increase our food storage supplies.

And, the miracle of today is that even after the crazy day I had, I still had energy to put the children to bed.  By myself.  Without throwing up.

This morning, I woke up planning to take the entire morning to finish Kallie's costume for the Halloween birthday party she was to attend at 10:30.  I figured it would be an apt plan, since I was waiting for someone to show up to tend to our misbehaving furnace during the 9-11 a.m. window.  At 8:40, it suddenly dawned on me that I had neglected to pick up a gift for my daughter to take to said party.  Life got a lot more hurried (and complicated) at that moment. 

I rushed to sew feather boa pieces to the wrists of her shirt and ankles of her pants.  The tails and ears that were to complete her poodle costume were just going to have to wait until closer to Halloween.  I decided that, for today, it was going to have to be good enough.

I rushed through a quick shower at 9:15, dressed myself and Clayton, and left the house, (gift bags in assorted sizes and Kallie's handmade card in tow), by 9:55 a.m.  On the way to the store, I prayed that the furnace people would be delayed and not show up in the 30 minutes I was going to be gone.

We rushed through the aisles and found what we (meaning Kallie and myself) both deemed an appropriate gift and were on our way to the party by 10:23.  I got the children all buckled and hopped in the car as Kallie was struggling to insert the gift into the largest gift bag we had brought.  Then I realized I hadn't brought (nor bought) tissue paper to stuff in the top of the bag.  The gift was slightly too large for the bag, but oh well.  I opened the card, (grateful my daughter had used a piece of plain paper to draw on), and arranged it over the top of the gift and called it good enough. 

As I was pulling out, my cell rang--it was the furnace people.  They apologized because they had been delayed and weren't going to be able to make until between 11-11:30.  I wasn't sure if they were religious people, so instead of saying, "YOU JUST ANSWERED MY HURRIED PRAYER!," I told them that was perfect because something unexpected had some up and I wasn't home at the moment anyway.  The girl on the other end laughed.  I'm sure they don't often have people telling them thank you for not showing up on time.

Upon arriving at the party, I quickly drew a puppy nose on Kallie with a few well-placed freckles on her cheeks so people wouldn't ask if she happened to be a girl wearing fur-trimmed pajamas for Halloween.  I was quite relieved when the first person to see her realized that she was a dog.  Again--good enough!

By the time we got home, I was ready for lunch--even though it wasn't 11 yet.  I turned on a Netflix movie for my children and sat down to eat and wait for the furnace people to show.  They arrived about 11:20(ish) and I snuggled with my son while they were clanging around my furnace.  Twenty minutes later, they were gone with a diagnosis of bad flame sensor--and instructions to leave the furnace off until they could get the part, which could be any time from a few days to a week.  I hoped the sweaters, footie jammies, space heater, and fireplace that doesn't put out much in the way of useful heat would be good enough to get us through the chillier days we've been having until that part comes in.

I picked Kallie up at 12:30, came home, and put Clayton to bed, read one chapter to Whitney, (we usually read two, but one was going to have to be good enough today), and then started working on a spiritual thought for a Young Women's meeting I had coming up at 2 p.m. 

My babysitter arrived at 1:55 and the counselor over me picked me up right about the same time.  We had a great meeting.  There are a lot of challenges associated with teaching the Young Women, but there are also a lot of amazing and incredible blessings that come from having this opportunity.  I love being in Young Women's right now!

On the way home, my cute babysitter called.  Upon going out back to blow bubbles with my oldest daughter, (the other 2 kids were napping in the house), she discovered that the door, while unlocked from the inside, was locked from the outside.  Since she is a responsible babysitter, she had locked the front door after I left and was, therefore, locked out of the house.  Unfortunately, she had also locked her cell phone inside the house.  Not knowing what else to do, she ran (with Kallie) to her house (a 3 minute walk away) to have her mom call me.  Turns out her mom doesn't have my number, so she called the YW President, whose home I was at, but the phone wasn't answered.  She ran back to my house, then across the street to see if the neighbors across the street knew my phone number or knew how to get a hold of the neighbors who DO have my number.  No luck in either situation.  In the end, Whitney finally woke up from her nap, came downstairs, and unlocked the door.  When she finally got to her phone to call me, I was blissfully on my way home from my meeting.  I can only imagine how stressed out my poor babysitter must have been knowing that there were two children inside she was supposed to be caring for, yet not being able to get to them and not knowing exactly what to do to change the situation.  When all was said and done, I think she certainly did good enough.

After I got home, my kids were out back blowing bubbles.  I started making dinner while they were otherwise occupied.  A few minutes later, Clayton came in the house with bubble solution all over his arms.  I stopped stirring my white sauce, (on its way to becoming macaroni and cheese), just long enough to give Clayton a quick wash down.  It was going to have to be good enough--I had to get back to the white sauce. 

I sent him back outside...only to have him return less than 5 minutes later with bubble solution dumped from the top of his forehead down his face and dripping onto his onesie shirt.  (Did I mention this was from a non-spill bubble tumbler?)  Again, I left the now cheese sauce and plopped Clayton in the kitchen sink.  I rinsed bubbles out of his eyes and mouth, stripped down his bubbly clothes, and instructed him to stay in the sink--while I asked his sister to PLEASE bring me jammies and a towel for her brother.  He sat in the sink, in only his diaper, without turning the water on, for a full ten minutes while I was finishing up dinner.  I was actually quite impressed that he stayed there--and the entire situation just made me laugh!

Finally, once the mac and cheese was ready, I removed Clayton from the sink, changed his diaper, put jammies on and got the kids settled down to eat.  By this point, I was feeling pretty DONE from the day--but knew that I still had bedtime to conquer before my evening was over.  But, at the moment, the kids were alive and not hungry and that was good enough.

Now the kids are in all in bed, (not without some drama, of course), and my husband just arrived home.  Whew!  In spite of the craziness of the day, my joys are found in being good enough today.  I take comfort in the fact that I don't have to be perfect.  My children don't have to be perfect.  And my life doesn't have to be perfect.  When I do the best I can, I have to recognize that it's good enough--and then just let it be.