I hear this request from Katelee often, lately. Just ten more stories? Just ten more songs? Just ten more shows? Just ten more... I've never given her ten. I make her choose between two or three, because (as we all know, right?) ten is too many and will take too long.
It's been a particularly hectic week in a hectic month in a hectic year. My Christmas piano recital is Thursday night, we are leaving town for 17 days very early Friday morning, I had to get my visiting teaching done, and I've been trying to finalize Christmas preparations. Poor Katelee has dealt with a very busy mom.
So, for some reason tonight, when she asked me to sing her just ten more songs, I said yes. For the first time ever. It didn't matter that it was already late. It didn't matter that I hadn't had dinner yet. It didn't matter that my to-do list for the day still had several items on it. I felt the spirit tell me I needed to sing ten songs. And so I did.
It was wonderful. We curled up together on her bed underneath her jean blanket and I sang songs. Christmas songs, primary songs, love songs to my baby. She grinned and sighed with contentment and got warm and sleepy. I was enjoying it so much that after ten songs I started on number eleven. Katelee stopped me with, "Mom! I don't need twenty songs!" I guess she was keeping track.
"How about just one more?" This statement didn't come from Katelee, as it usually does, but from me instead.
As I sang and cuddled with my girl tonight, I was remembering this conference talk by Elder Ballard. I love this particular story:
Author Anna Quindlen reminds us not to rush past the fleeting moments. She said: “The biggest mistake I made [as a parent] is the one that most of us make. … I did not live in the moment enough. This is particularly clear now that the moment is gone, captured only in photographs. There is one picture of [my three children] sitting in the grass on a quilt in the shadow of the swing set on a summer day, ages six, four, and one. And I wish I could remember what we ate, and what we talked about, and how they sounded, and how they looked when they slept that night. I wish I had not been in such a hurry to get on to the next thing: dinner, bath, book, bed. I wish I had treasured the doing a little more and the getting it done a little less” (Loud and Clear [2004], 10–11).
Oh, if only I could remember this advice! Tonight the desire of my heart is to have more 'in-the-moment' moments with those I love and to stop being in such a hurry.
good for you and thanks for the reminder! Can't wait to see you!!
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