Messy Diapers

Dear Readers,
I'm revising some old posts to correct just some of the many errors and typos. This is one of them.




Our oldest daughter lived for a time in the Pacific Northwest, far from her family in the desert.
She had graduated from college and was starting to build a career with a large company near Seattle.

Then she met her eternal companion at a singles ward volleyball game and they married, somewhat late in life by Mormon standards. Both were anxious to have children and build a home for them that would last forever.
Our family was especially grateful when they found each other. We hoped it would stop the nightly phone calls.
You see, before they met, Larry and I vividly remember frequent long distance wailings from this daughter about ticking biological clocks and how age 29 was the end of all possibility for marriage and a posterity. Whenever the phone rang at our house in the evening Larry would say “Is it whining in Seattle?”

Well, our child got her heart’s desire, and then some, concerning that marriage and posterity thing.
Twins came close on the heels of a son and a daughter.

She then assumed that all her troubles were over now that she'd been blessed with what she'd wanted for such a long time.
But it turned out that life was still quite a challenge in those early days of motherhood.
To say the least.

It seems that being pregnant with twins while caring for a husband and two young children is hard. Who knew?
While she was carrying the twins we did what we could to help at truly desperate times. We were 1,800 miles away, after all, but we flew in an eighteen year old sister for a few weeks in the summer, for example, when "Whining" was too baby-big even to bend over to clean the bathtub.
According to this visiting sibling, people actually pointed and stared at pregnant sister when she went out in public.
“Look at that lady’s stomach!” someone once cried out before they could remember their manners.
One day, a kind woman came up to say knowingly, “Twins, Dear? Hang in there.”

Well, they were blessed with healthy girls.
We all went to give aid and comfort right after the twins were born, but soon had to leave them on their own to care for themselves and four children under the age of five.

Yes, heartfelt prayers had been answered, and the dream came true. But life still turned out to be a challenge.
Isn't that always just the way?

One day our daughter was feeling particularly overwhelmed.
Her existence seemed to be an endless round of dirty diapers and preschooler tantrums.
She began to question the choices she’d made.
Whatever happened to the career she had been educated for?
What happened to her body in such a short time?
What about her hair? Why did it look like this?
Where were her real clothes like high heels and designer suits?
Who were all these little people and why didn’t they speak English?
You get the picture.

It so happened that right in the midst of all this angst she began to think of the Relief Society lesson she had heard on the previous Sunday. At least what she could remember hearing of it while juggling babies on both knees.
The lesson was about the second coming of Christ.
The questions asked were about personal readiness for that great future event.
The teacher wanted the sisters to think about their lives and how they spent their time. “If the Savior came back today, what would He find you doing?” she asked. “If He walked in on you today, unannounced, would you be okay with that?”

As she was thinking about this she gazed around her messy house.
There were kids’ toys everywhere, graham cracker crumbs scattered from the front door to the back, and two babies sitting in their rockers suddenly beginning to smell suspicious.
She went to them to check the situation and found that both had apparently had too much apple juice, resulting in a diaper mess of such gigantic proportions that it spilled out onto the rockers, up their backs and into their hair!
She decided to think later.

These babies needed an entire bath right now, even though she’d just bathed them that morning. Diaper wipes would not be anywhere near adequate for this situation.
So she carted the rockers into the bathroom, knelt down by the tub and began to bathe the babies. Her three year old followed hot on her heels to watch the show.

Tears of frustration began to well up in her eyes as she knelt there.
The three year old began hopping back and forth over her legs while singing.
She began thinking again……“My house is a mess! My kids are a mess! I’m a mess!
I was supposed to be doing great things with my life by now! If the Savior came back today He’d find me and my college degree in a messy house on my knees next to a bathtub washing two poopy babies with a three year old hopping back and forth over my legs singing “Mommy’s gross…Mommy’s gross!”

As she soaped the squirming twins the truth came to her, of course, and she began to cry in earnest.
(I didn’t raise stupid kids you know.)

She realized that what she was doing with her life at that exact moment would be acceptable to the Savior.

She was trying to build an eternal home and family.

She decided that the Son of God might even possibly say something to her that was distinctly positive….like… “Well done, thou good and faithful servant.”
Feeling much better about many things she said a silent thank you prayer for the Relief Society lesson.

As she finished with the last baby she turned her attention to her three year old son. “Honey, why are you singing Mommy’s gross? That’s not very nice.”
“Because you are gross, Mommy, he replied. “Look at your feet!”
She looked.
Both feet, clad in white tennis shoes were resting right in the middle of a dirty diaper.

Now she needed a bath.