Dishes

When, after four years, I was released as the Primary president, I was put into Young Women as the assistant laurel adviser.  I am now in charge of personal progress for the laurels.  I decided to restart personal progress myself at the beginning of the year, not only so that I would be current with what the girls should be working on, but because personal improvement can never go amiss.

I started in January and quickly realized that personal progress really prepares a young woman for life as an active Latter-day Saint woman.  So much of what the girls are expected to do as they work on and complete value experiences and projects are things I am doing right now as a wife, mother, and member of the Church.  Many of the experiences are designed to help strengthen testimony and prepare for the temple and establish good patterns that will serve the girls well into their adulthood.  Others help develop talents and learn important homemaking skills like cooking, cleaning, and organizing.  I had forgotten how applicable everything is.

Here is an example.  In Good Works, a girl is to help plan family meals, obtain food, and prepare part of the meals for two weeks.  Since January, I have fulfilled this requirement sixteen times.  I plan meals, obtain food, and prepare meals practically every night.  It is something I do every single day.  What a great skill to have a young woman work to develop.  One of the choice and accountability experiences is about budgeting and learning to prioritize needs over wants.  Again, so applicable to what I'm doing right now in my life.

I mention all of this because of a value experience I am working on this month.  I started today.  Good works experience five has you read three verses in D&C 58 about being anxiously engaged in a good cause.  Then, you are to "develop a pattern of service in your life by choosing a family member you can help.  Serve that person for at least a month."  Last night, as Kent and I were cleaning the kitchen, I apologized for once again putting dishes in the sink throughout the day without putting them in the sink, leaving the dishwasher half full, and not filling it up and running it, creating even a larger mess to contend with at the end of the day.  For some reason, I am really not good at just sticking breakfast and lunch dishes in the dishwasher.  I let them pile up and my husband is almost always the one who deals with them at the end of the day.  So last night I committed to him that for the next thirty days, my pattern to develop would be to deal with the dishes immediately and not let them pile up in the sink, thereby choosing him as the family member to serve.  I have put it a little yellow (for good works) piece of paper with GW5 on it, as a reminder to me to do my good works value experience number five and keep the kitchen cleaner.

I am happy to report, at the end of day one, all is well.  I loaded the dishwasher and did all the dishes before I sat down to write this, and I hope to be as diligent throughout the month (and beyond).

Wish me luck for continued resolve.

Real Mom

Tonight, yet again, during an argument with Blythe, she said, "You're not my real mom."  Her implication was that I don't love her.  While logically I know that Blythe doesn't really understand, and I tell myself not to let that particular sentence bother me, when she says it, it's like a knife to the heart.  It wounds me over and over again, because for Blythe, once is never enough.  She doesn't understand the absolutely horrible situation from which she was plucked by DCFS before she came to our home.  She doesn't understand that her "real" mom can't take care of herself much less Blythe and her "birth family" she talks about all the time.  She doesn't understand how unsafe, unhealthy, and unstable her life would be if she was with Key Bug.  She just doesn't understand and I can't and won't explain it to her because she is too young.  But because we have always been open with the children about being adopted, and always answered Blythe's questions honestly, she knows enough to know that there was another possibility for her life.  So when things are not going as she would like, like when I insist she clean her room, or yell at her (which I shouldn't do) for being a brat (which I shouldn't call her) during family home evening, or when she somehow feels life is unfair, she pulls out and plays the very hurtful "You're not my real mom" card.

How will we work through this?  How will I learn to deal with it better?  Blythe is adopted and we can't change that.  I can't tell her to go live with her birth mom if she thinks it would be so much better.  I can't change who she is or where she came from.  I don't want her to draw pictures of her "birth family," a picture with a mom, two daughters, and a son, and then have to say how much I like her artwork.  I don't want to have to accommodate an addict "mom" stopping by when she's having a sober moment for a play date.  I don't want to have my daughter throw it in my face every time she's unhappy with me that I'm not her "real" mom, especially when the person she thinks that is never has to deal with our difficult and headstrong child.  If I have to suffer and struggle through the constant challenge of raising Blythe, I want to at least get billing as "The Mom."

Several months ago I read a book about an adopted daughter.  She is unhappy with her mother but adores her father.  After she leaves for college, she receives a grant to go do research in India where she was born.  While there, she meets and interviews many women about their life experiences.  She comes to see how good her life has been and how fortunate she was to be adopted.  I thought of my Blythe as I read it.  She has no idea what her life could be like, and I don't want her to know.  But I hope that Blythe will come to see that as a parent, I'm not all bad.  I'm not as evil as she thinks I am.  I love her, I'm here for her all the time, I am her real mom.  And I hope it doesn't take until she's left our home for her to figure it out.  But I should probably accept that it will very likely take that long and prepare to have my heart wounded over and over again.