Ordinary Mommy

There is no end in sight for the good you can do. Do you know it? You are just simple kids. You are not geniuses. I know that. But the work of the world isn't done by geniuses. It is done by ordinary people who have learned to work in an extraordinary way. (Address given by President Hinckley at the University I attended.)
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My daughter loves ordinary things. Her fondest delights can be found in the kitchen utensils drawer. If placed in front of a singing, juggling plush clown that smells like sugarcane, she will knock it over to get to the pasta spoon every time.

Sometimes I get trapped into thinking that being ordinary is a bad thing. The activities that fill up my days are never the kind recognized by the world. I sing "Wheels On the Bus" so many times, the bus has a blowout. While changing a diaper, I assure Baby that everyone on the bus had cell phones and eventually made it home to their mommies.

After lunch, I read a few books aloud with one word or less per page. Then I give a brief piano lesson on a small, four-key baby piano (play what you feel Darcy). Amazingly, none of these things have me jumping on the bed at the end of the day proclaiming to everyone in the room, "I did it! I am amazing!" (I need to make that happen, I've just decided.)

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Two weeks ago, Darcy and I opted out of the morning news, but we learned just as quickly without it about the devastating earthquake in Japan, the 5th largest recorded earthquake in history. The images flashing at me from a screen made me believe that an entire nation would be working to overcome this disaster. Darcy was sitting on one of her blankies with various assorted kitchen spoons. I decided that I needed to get on my knees and pray next to her.

There we were in our pajamas on the floor, in a particularly sunny spot on the carpet. I poured everything I was feeling upwards. I wasn't hoping God would hear me... I wasn't wishing he would hear me... I knew He would hear me. I prayed for my brother and his wife and good friends in the Bay Area. I prayed for the people in Japan affected by the terrible destruction.

When I closed our prayer, I was overcome with a powerful sense of love and comfort. I've heard a lot of people describe the feeling like a hug. Prayer can literally be like calling your dad when you don't know what else to do, pouring out every concern, transferring significant weight onto another pair of shoulders, then saying, "OK, thanks, talk to you soon."

Darcy and I continued our routine for the day, but I approached it with a whole new outlook. I may be ordinary. But like President Hinckley said, I am learning to work in an extraordinary way by "calling" for help. I am ordinary. And that's OK.

Like her pasta spoons, Darcy likes her mommies that way.