Lost in the Swamp

“Yuck!” My right foot squelched as I pulled it up out of the mud and tried to take another step. “Yucky, yucky, yucky!” Then I swatted at the mosquitoes buzzing thickly around us.

Carolyn wiped the sweat out of her eyes, leaving a muddy streak on her cheek. “Dang it!” She looked around the swampy field.  “Where are we anyway? Which way is your house?”

The day had started out so great. Carolyn was my church friend. She lived too far away for us to walk or bike to each other’s houses. In fact, at that time in the Minneapolis area there were very few Mormons, none in my neighborhood. One family lived in the same town, but far enough away that we always drove to their house. And they just had very young children.

But yesterday our moms had agreed that Carolyn could come home from church with us. She would sleep over and we could spend the whole summer Monday together. We had great plans.

Right after breakfast of Cheerios and toast, we set off to explore. Mom didn’t mind. After all we were almost 12 and what trouble could we get into in our quiet little suburb? She went down to the basement to sew while we took off outside.

We started by heading down the gully toward the woods. Though houses were built all around, there were big empty spaces that had not been built up yet. I played in the woods with the neighbor kids quite a bit—we had even built a kind of tree house there with scrap lumber and fallen branches, tied together with vines.

The other kids weren’t there that morning, so Carolyn and I played around there for a while, saying we were Robin Hood and Maid Marian and then Tarzan and Jane. Sure, we were getting a little old for playing pretend—but Carolyn and I liked to think that we were creating stories, like authors, not just playing around like kids.

“Let’s see what’s on the other side of woods, Carolyn!”

“Yeah! Maybe we can ambush a rich caravan!” She liked the Robin Hood storyline best.

“Or maybe a man-eating tiger!” I was going for the Tarzan storyline.

We headed off through the woods, using some big sticks to knock aside the thick underbrush. Now we were explorers, hacking our way through the Amazonian jungles. The branches scratched our legs and arms, but that couldn’t slow us down.

At the edge of the woods was a great open field of tall grass, and a tempting ridge on the far side—very much like the ridge we had scrambled down to get to the woods.

“Ah!” Carolyn pointed to the distant ridge. “Yonder lies the castle keep of the dread King John.”

She was back on Robin Hood. No matter. I took up the storyline. “Onward, my merry men! We will approach the castle and sneak in, disguised as wandering minstrels. Soon we will know John’s foul plans.”

So off we started across the field. The tall grass came to our waists, and we whacked our way through with our sticks. The ground began to be wet, and sometimes we had to make our way around big muddy puddles. We had to look down at the grass and our feet rather than at where we were going.

The ground became wetter and wetter, muddier and muddier. The mosquitoes were thick and sweat was running down my armpits. This was no field. It was a swamp.

That’s when we stopped and looked around, ankle deep in mud.

Carolyn shaded her eyes and scanned the horizon, turning slowly in a circle. “Where are we?” she asked again.

I looked all around too. I lived here, but I had never been out in this swamp. It looked the same everywhere I looked—high ridges all around the edges with woods at the bottom and the endless grassy, muddy swamp all around. We had been looking down at our feet and zig zagging all around and now I had no idea of where we had started.

“I don’t know.” I admitted. And I began to feel like neither a brave bandit nor an intrepid explorer. We were hot and muddy and mosquito-bitten and lost.

“I don’t know which way to go.”

“Me neither.” Carolyn sighed. She was looking at her muddy feet and scratching a mosquito bite on her arm.

“What shall we do?” I asked, not so much asking Carolyn as myself, as the universe. I had no idea.

Then Carolyn looked up. She stopped scratching and actually smiled, like, no problem. I’ve got this.

“We need to pray,” she said, very matter-of-fact.

I was startled. I was a church-going girl and came from a church-going family. I said my prayers every night without fail, and as a family we always said a blessing on the food. But somehow I had never thought of prayer as a practical way out of a problem.

Carolyn was confident though. And, looking at her, the heavy scared feeling in my chest began to lighten. Yeah. We would pray!

So there in the middle of that endless muddy field, we two girls folded our arms and prayed. Carolyn spoke the words. I pleaded in my heart. “Please help us, Father. Please. I don’t know how to get home.”

“Amen.” Carolyn lifted her head and looked around again, this time alert and confident. I did too.

“That way!” She pointed with certainty. I looked in the direction she pointed, and felt a warm calmness inside me.

“Yeah.” I said. “Yeah. Let’s go that way.” 

We set off in that direction, noting a tall pine tree at the top of the ridge and using that as our guide. We had to pull our feet out of the sucking mud at each step, but we kept our eyes on the that pine tree and kept moving. We forgot about our story line, but we felt cheerful somehow, squelching along toward that tree. Gradually the ground became firmer.

We reached the wooded edge of the swamp and, with one last look at the tall pine on top of the ridge, we scrambled through the wood and up the hillside.

At the top of the hill, under the tall pine tree, we found smooth green grass and a white house. Someone’s back yard. The lady of the house was outside, watering her daisies. We thought it might as well be heaven. We were saved.

Then she turned around. It was Sister King, our Sunday School teacher! The one other Mormon in the whole town! How did we find her house? How did we end up in this particular backyard? How did we find the one person in the whole town area who knew and loved us? How could this possibly happen?

Sister King dropped the hose and stared. Soon she would hose us down, give us cool drinks and drive us home. But now she hurried to us. “Beth, Carolyn! What in the world! What happened to you?”

We looked up at her, all muddy, scratched, and bitten.  We glanced at each other and grinned.

“Sister King,” I said, “We have just experienced a miracle!”

And we had.

Surviving Summer with Kids

Summer as a retired empty nester is a lot like the rest of the year, except that my husband has more outdoor projects going on and I spend time reading in the hammock instead of in front of the fireplace.

But I remember summers with the five kids home. I was at a young mom’s home the other day and it all came back—the children running in and out, always with needs. “I scraped my knee!” “So-and-so is teasing me!” “Can I have a cookie?” and the most dreaded complaint, “I’m booooored.” Then there was the never-ending maintenance—the toys, shoes, socks, clothes, and towels that piled up on the floor and every other surface. The constant chaos in the kitchen as kids fixed themselves snacks and left out all the dishes and food afterwards. I remember thinking that I did nothing all summer but pick up after children.

I also am reminded of the many efforts I made to keep the children busy and happy, while maintaining my own sanity. Every so often I would try something new—a job chart, fake money to be given for chores, real money to be given for chores—you name it, I probably tried it. As my children grew older they would call these efforts The. New. World. Order. Most of these efforts were too ambitious and complicated and didn’t last.

But some simple ideas did persist and did give me some sanity. I share the ones I remember working here in hopes they might be helpful to moms who are still in the trenches. Take these thoughts for what they are worth--that is, if you care to trust advice from someone who can go lie in a hammock whenever she wants.

Principle 1. Boredom arises when children get to do whatever they want whenever they want to do it. 

If children are forced to do some things they don’t want to do at the beginning of the day, then they enjoy their freedom much more. (And they don’t bother you nearly as much, perhaps because they are afraid you will make them do more chores.)

Therefore, I made my children all get up at a reasonable hour, roughly the same as during the school year, have breakfast together and do morning chores. Then we all gathered around the kitchen table and had “school.” Each child had a minimum list of school work required each day, depending on their age and ability. We had math workbooks, a journal to write in, and reading to practice. To be honest, I enjoyed this time. It was fun to see them learning and laughing. This personal time with me seemed to get the day off to a good start.  

Once their school work was over, they had free time until lunch. Mostly they just exploded out to do the stuff they had been thinking of doing all the time I had made them work. They would play together or go find friends. In those days, a child would just bike around the neighborhood stopping at each child’s house to ask, “Can you play?”

Principle 2. Children need a break during the day, as do moms.

I always made my children come home for lunch at noon. I had a huge dinner bell; I would stand on the front porch and ring it, and they would all come running. We sat down to eat together, even if it was just peanut butter sandwiches. The kids told me about their morning. Sometimes I read to them from a book while they ate—Little House on the Prairie was a big hit one summer.

After lunch came Quiet Time. I admit, this was mainly for me. But I think the children enjoyed the break as much as I did. The rule was, they had to stay on their bed and be quiet for one hour. They could read or nap or color or even play quietly with toys, but they couldn’t talk to each other or to me. The older ones mostly would read. The youngest would nap, which was great because of late summer bedtimes. Once one of my little boys gave himself a haircut during quiet time. Well, it wasn’t all good.

During quiet time, I followed the same rules. I lay on my bed and read or napped. I did not do the dishes or clean house or any of the other chores that needed doing. Why waste good quiet time, I figured.

After quiet time, the kids again were thrilled to go find their playmates and do whatever they were excited to do.

Principle 3. Children like a routine.

Principles 1 and 2 relate to a daily routine. I also tried to have weekly routines. For example, one day of the week was always library day. We would gather up all the books from last week from under couches and behind beds in a big green laundry basket, haul them out to the brown fake-wood-sided station wagon, and pile in the kids. This was before seat belts were mandatory, so the kids piled in the cargo section around the books, sometimes reading as we went. At the library, I let everyone choose 10 books, which were piled back in the basket. On the way home, everyone was quiet as each read their books.

One summer a friend and I got together with our kids every week. One week we would go to her house, the kids would play together, and she and I would work on a household project together, like organizing kitchen cabinets. The next week she would bring her kids to my house and maybe we would can cherries together. This way both the kids and I could look forward to playing with special friends!

A young mom I know has this weekly routine down to a system:

Monday: Library and reading

Tuesday: Water and swimming (either water play at home or a trip to the swimming pool)

Wednesday: Theater (Cinemark Summer Movie Clubhouse—50 cents a ticket, with a picnic in the park afterwards)

Thursday: Friends

Friday: Field trip

I never was that organized, but I wish I had been. Each activity doesn’t take that long, yet it makes each day kind of exciting.

Of course, now summer plans need to include the whole Screen Time Issue. How much is too much? Should the kids earn time? How do you police screen use?

You're on your own here. When my kids were little, screen time meant watching “Brady Bunch” reruns at 4:00 pm.  Good luck!

Anyway, that’s the way I remember getting through summer vacation. And I actually remember feeling a little sad when it was time for school to start. I would love to hear from you how you manage/managed summer with the kids. I’ll look for your comments below.

And probably read them while resting in the hammock. Just remember, someday your children will be all grown up (sooner than you think), and you too will be able to hammock whenever you want!

My Mother’s Day Talk from 1999

My Mom, Leah, happy with her first baby, Richard. 

Before my first child, Anna, was born, I would have nightmares. In these terrifying dreams, I would be trying to diaper the baby or swaddle her in a blanket and have no idea how to do it. The tiny infant would gaze up at me impatiently, and cry out, “Mom, don’t you know how to do anything!”

I would wake up, horrified. How could I possibly be a mother; I didn’t know the first thing about how to do it.

When Anna was born, I still didn’t know anything about taking care of babies. But I instantly knew I loved every bit of her perfect little pink body, from the tiny long toes to her fuzzy miniature round head. I didn’t know how to care for a baby, but I knew how to love, and that is the main thing, I learned. 

With each new baby, I worried and wondered how I would manage with another child. As we walked into the hospital, fully in labor, I would tell Paul I changed my mind. Our family is just right as it is, and anyway, I could barely care for the ones I had.

But then, when that wonderful little being lay in my arms, I was filled again with that great love and I knew this was right. I was blessed to have this child in my life and all the other children too.

There’s joy in being a mom. When the children were little, early morning began with all the children piled around Paul and me on the queen size bed. Here’s an excerpt from my journal when there were just four little children.

First three-year-old Mark clambered over Paul, snuggling between us, announcing in his surprisingly deep voice, “I sleep, OK? I have good nap.” Then five-year-old Emily came padding in, eyes scarcely open. She climbed right in beside me, curling into a ball beneath my arm as if she belonged there. Soon baby David started to complain from his crib and Paul brought him in, the baby looking so like a fat sausage stuffed in blue blanket sleepers, we all laughed. In bed with everyone, David commenced climbing over our quilt-covered bodies like mountains, until all of us were wide awake and giggling. Seven-year-old Ann then appeared in the doorway, elegant though rumpled, appraising us all from beneath half-closed eyes before dropping into a ball at the foot of the bed. Before long Mark started begging for pancakes, and we all tumbled out of bed and raced for the kitchen.

The joy of motherhood is full and real. I could go on with stories of Saturday trips –“high adventure” we called them--traveling “wherever the hood ornament took us”; of working together in the yard and then going out for a “workers’ treat” of ice cream; of sitting at the dinner table talking and talking and talking, until David slid from his chair to lie on the carpet and continue the conversation from there.

But motherhood is also hard. There is the work, of course, which is not to be minimized. Though Paul is good to help, and most fathers are, there are always things that only a mother can do, or thinks to do. Henry Ward Beecher said once, “There is no slave out of heaven like a loving woman; and of all loving women, there is no such slave as a mother.” Mothers are up early making lunches, fixing breakfast, finding books, signing notes. They’re up late, tidying the house, helping with school projects, listening to teenagers. And in between, mothers are driving children to soccer games and piano lessons, and shopping for groceries to fill the magically emptying fridge.

And perhaps hardest of all, mothers worry. Mothers are some of the best worriers around. I myself am a world class worrier. I have been known to worry through most of the night because a child hadn’t completed the fourth-grade county report. Before the night was out, I was sure this act foreshadowed juvenile delinquency, drug addiction, lawlessness, and imprisonment. And of course, if these events came to pass, I had no doubt who would be ultimately to blame. Me, the mother, of course. My favorite cartoon shows a pro football player dejectedly heading for the lockers, having just lost a game. From the stand his mother leans over his head calling, “Don’t worry son. You couldn’t help it. It’s all my fault!”

We take a lot of responsibility on ourselves, and that is difficult even when things are going well. When they’re not, that responsibility becomes almost unbearable. One mother told me, despairing over children who had made poor choices, “If I had known it would end here I never would have become a mother.” Another sorrowing mother once asked, “Where did I go wrong? I tried so hard, and yet, look.”

So what do we do to be good moms, to raise our children in righteousness and joy? We can look at Heavenly Father’s example. (Remember that he also has trouble with his children from time to time.) We can never stop loving. In Jeremiah we read, “Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love” (Jeremiah 31:3).

If the mission of the church is to bring souls to Christ, mothers (and fathers too, but more about that in June) are the main missionaries. We are on the front lines as we strive every day to teach these spirits how to live, how to love, how to have faith. Certainly, we mess up. (Don’t ask me to tell you about the time I left David at a bathroom in Wells, Nevada.) And kids mess up too, and make their own choices, as they have every right to do. 

But most of the time we do just fine. We do fine because we love our children, we love them more than we love ourselves, and we show that by the way we act.

So this is our day. Let’s celebrate mothering. Be thankful for your mother, and your mother’s mother, all the way back. Be thankful for the mothers of all the good people that have brought light to the world. Be thankful for all the mothers alive now, trying so hard to do right by their children. Be thankful for the young women who will be the mothers of the future.

And if you happen to be a mother yourself, count your blessings. Be happy now, remember happy times, and think of happy times to come. Tell yourself you’re doing fine. You are. Remember your Heavenly Father and Mother are by your side, supporting your every effort. They are pleased with you, for all your love and caring and trying. With God’s help and your own great love, you are doing great.

Have a happy Mother’s Day.