I don't know Jacques

CLARIFICATION ALERT!!!!!

In lieu of quite a few email responses recently about the post "My Day", I would like to clarify that it is just my OUTLINE to my day.

Let it be known that there is MUCH teasing, complaining, crying, whining, time-outs, teasing, referee-ing, noise levels up to astronomical heights and a LOT of teasing.

Infact when Brooks got home the other day he said, "How was your day?" and I just walked right into the bathroom, closed the door and started singing one of my favorite church songs, "Where Can I Turn for Peace".

I did it mostly to make him laugh (and it worked) but it illustrated exactly how I felt at the time.

Motherhood is hard.

And very VERY un-glamorous.

It reminds me of an experience I had last fall during fall baseball here.

(Isn't Emerson a cute catcher?)

So I went to a LOT of the games by myself w/ either being 6 kids + 9 months prego, or 6 kids + a VERY NEW newborn. It was tricky.....and I didn't always look/act put-together. I tried and maybe I succeeded, but inside I was pretty exhausted.......like a LOT.

There was one game Brooks was finally able to come to. I had enough time to "get ready", etc. And since I wasn't the only one chasing kids around I decided I would sit down w/ all the other moms and be social and "blend in" more. (I hadn't always gotten the best "vibes" from them before)

It was hard because I couldn't really relate to the "Uh, the nanny dropped him off late for this game!" , "I was in ______  school classroom volunteering every day this week", "I'm so tired, I went straight from work, to get my nails done to here" comments going around. So I looked down at the lady's nails that made the nail-comment and said, "Oh, well, at least your nails look so nice."

She smiled and said, "You don't know Jacques"

When I grew up the phrase, "You don't know Jack" meant you didn't know anything!!! Although I'm sure it applied in my case, I could tell by her look that she didn't mean it like that. So I smiled and looked around and another women said, "Well, I was the first one to discover 'You don't know Jacques'." I looked down at her nails and THEY were the same color too! 

Apparently the color is CALLED "You don't know Jacques". I looked at every ONE of those 6 ladies' nails and they were all that color!!! Without even having to look down, I knew what mine looked like.......not-polished and bitten down really short (I bite my nails in my during-the-night feedings w/ a newborn).

I get constant reminders of how I'm different from most women. That was just another one......

but I couldn't help but think on the way home, that I didn't really CARE if I knew "Jacques" (so to speak).

I DIDN'T want to be just like them. I WANTED to be surrounded by all my little ones. I LOVED how they were out running around and playing instead staying by their mom BEGGING for concessions because they hadn't had dinner yet (due to a nail appt) like my kids had. I love how they had me all day with them, regardless if it was stressful and a lot of teasing going on. And if all of that means that I may have not been as nicely dressed, in the right size of clothing w/ no spit-up running down the front, bags under my eyes, not a fresh highlight/cut and my nails not done.......

you know what? I'll take it.

One of my favorite quotes ever ever EVER:

“I don't want to drive up to the pearly gates in a shiny sports car, wearing beautifully, tailored clothes, my hair expertly coiffed, and with long, perfectly manicured fingernails.
I want to drive up in a station wagon [or the Yeti] that has mud on the wheels from taking kids to scout camp.
I want to be there with a smudge of peanut butter on my shirt from making sandwiches for a sick neighbors children.
I want to be there with a little dirt under my fingernails from helping to weed someone's garden.
I want to be there with children's sticky kisses on my cheeks and the tears of a friend on my shoulder.
I want the Lord to know I was really here and that I really lived.” 
― Marjorie Pay Hinckley