For women’s hearts, lilacs from my yard and a couple of cute stories I found in my journal the other day.

Jessie at 3 yrs old rescued a bird by braining the cat. She came in sobbing hysterically with that bird clutched in her tiny hands, furious at the cat. We kept that bird in a shoe box–I remember it fluttering around the house, to Jessie’s hysterical little girl voice saying “my bood! my bood!” You know, that bird lived and we let it fly away a few days later.

Once, when Jessie was 12, Bill said the word “hell.” Jessie’s prim comment: “Well, why don’t you just start smoking and drinking, too?”

I went to a Relief Society event one night, leaving Bill sick in bed with a migraine and Jared, age 13, to look after Sarah, age three. I came home to find Sarah sitting on the toilet sobbing her guts out and Jared watching TV in the living room (Bill was moaning in the bedroom and throwing up in a trash can). She’d gone “number 2″ and Jared flat out refused to wipe her bum “no way, I do not love her that much!” I don’t know how long she’d been sitting there while they were in the stand-off, but I think it could have gone on all night.

Sarah praying as a four year old: “Bless Tammy and Autumn………….no, don’t bless Autumn because she was mean to me.”

Sarah began to refer to her tummy as a separate entity “he” as a three year old: “He hungwy, Mommy, he need chocit candy.”

Journals are a good reminder that my mothering days weren’t all bad. Hope you have a good day (I got a gift certificate for a world atlas!)