An offer of help

It’s 12:15 on Saturday night. I should be sleeping . . . everyone else in my family is. But, there is something delicious about the silence and the peace in my house right now. I don’t want to sleep. I want to savor the quiet, the darkness, the stillness. Three very rare occurrences in our home these days!

The only light in the house is the computer screen (and, of course, the nightlights in the kids rooms) so I can’t even see or feel guilty about the clutter of toys littering my living room floor, and the only sound in the house is the tapping of the computer keys and the soft whirring of the computer. Amazing. Sometimes I think I forget what silence is. No kids yelling or running or crying. No television or radio in the background. Nothing. I didn’t know how much I was needing the silence until I got out of bed tonight and came out to sit in my rocking chair and think for a few minutes.

It’s been a rough couple of days--so if this post is disjointed or rambling or generally unreadable--don't give up on me, maybe the next one will be better!

Jeffrey is teething (his first top tooth-third tooth total) and let’s just say he isn’t one of those easy teethers. Noah is also having some kind of struggle, I keep wondering if he’s getting his first tooth, or maybe he’s had a tummy ache or maybe just overtired. Who knows—certainly not me. He just hasn’t been our normal sunny, sweet-tempered little guy. He has been crying all day today. If he wasn’t sleeping he was fussing or crying.

Tough week overall. But, in the middle of the week something happened. Elder Bednar would call it a “tender mercy.” I went to Relief Society this Thursday. I didn’t want to go. I was exhausted, wasn’t interested in the topic, had too much to do at home blah blah blah blah . . . I ended up going anyway. And after the meeting was over I was standing around talking with a friend and an older sister from my ward came up to me and showed a genuine interest in my life and my family and we talked for a few minutes and then she turned to me and out of the blue she said, “I would be glad to hold your baby for you during church.” I laughed and said that was sweet and kind of brushed her off, but she looked me in the eyes and said, “I really would be glad to help hold him.” And she meant it. She didn’t just say, “Let me know if there is anything I can do to help (I hear that a lot, but that still means I have to come and ask for help). She offered to meet a specific need, and wasn’t asking me for anything in return.

This may sound silly, but her sweet, sincere offer of help made me just want to break down and cry. I have seldom in my life been in such need of help. Having five kids under the age of seven is not easy. It is a lot of fun, and I love my babies and I certainly wouldn’t change them or trade them for anything. But it’s not easy. And I am having so much trouble asking for help. I guess I feel like “I chose this” and now it’s my job to deal with it. Plus, I’m a little afraid that if I ask for help people will think I can’t handle it or that we shouldn’t be choosing to adopt Jeffrey, or that we just have too many kids. I don’t want people to judge me or my family. Especially since we are choosing to adopt in addition to the four we already have. I want everyone to think our family is perfect and that Jeffrey is lucky to be part of it. As opposed to “that crazy lady what’s she think she’s doing . . . she can’t even handle the four she has, and she wants to adopt another one?” I know it shouldn’t matter to me what other people think. I know that what we are doing is right and that we are supposed to make Jeffrey a part of our family, and that should be enough. But it does matter what other people think. So, I try to prove to everyone that we are doing just fine and don’t need help. Which, as a general rule is true. But I have to say, some days a little help would be very nice.

Anyway, after talking with this sister, I just feel like we don’t have to go it alone. Even if it’s just for one hour or even five minutes on a Sunday—there is someone who will help. With Jerry in the Elders Quorum presidency and me in the Primary Presidency and two babies who are not yet in nursery, a helping hand sounds pretty good right about now.