What it's like to be a Mormon women

September 26, 2008 · Filed under family · Tagged Add new tag, latter day women, LDS Family, LDS humor, LDS Women, Mormon Family, Mormon Humor, mormon mom, Mormon Women · Edit
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Being a Mormon isn’t that much different from the rest of the world. Let me just give you a little run down of my typical Mormon Mom day.
Today I woke up at about 6:00 and made sure my husband got in the shower and ready for work. After that I laid back down and slept for the ten minutes it takes for him to shower and dress. After he put on his pants, I got out of bed and woke up all of the kids. (six lovely children.) By the time I got all the sleepy bodies assembled on the couches and chairs my husband made a grand entrance, dressed, combed and ready for work. He makes a great Mormon dad.
We then had our morning family prayer. Rob served as the mouth piece. Now, I know that some Mormon families have everyone kneel down in a circle or hold hands. I feel lucky to just get them up and have them cooperate, so I let them stay seated on the couch. After prayer, my husband kissed them and hugged them and tells them goodbye. I get mine too. Mine is usually longer than theirs. (I like my husband.) The three year old goes to the front window and waves goodbye to dad as he pulls out, and then getting ready for school starts.
My seventeen year old daughter is the first heading out to school. She’s a typical LDS teenager/Mormon teenager. She used to put lots of time into getting ready until she had to start leaving at 6:30 in the morning. Sleep then became more important than make-up. That suits me just fine, because she already looks like a Barbie doll without it.
Because her car was diagnosed with a shot head gasket, she now rides the bus. This can be a little humbling for a Sr. in high school. Like a good Mormon mother I smile when a little humility comes to my children. It prepares them for parenthood.
After my Sr. Barbie catches the bus, my third child (also a girl, and a teenager) waits for hers to come at 7:00. She has her backpack and shoes that she can’t run in because the shoe laces aren’t really tied. It may be fashionable, but she had to take them off in order to run for the bus because they were falling off. My third daughter goes through a lot of socks.
At about 7:15 my second child (also a daughter) is picked up by her car pool. She begged me to attend a charter school for high school because she has been struggling with her grades and wanted to see if smaller classes, uniforms and being surrounded by kids who really took education seriously would help her. She said she likes being surrounded by book worms. The high school boys with the Pokimon cards were a little much, but so far she likes it. (What a good little Mormon girl.) I’m still not certain it’s the best answer for her, but she really wanted to try. She also thought getting away from her friends would help her to concentrate. (she has a large group of friends) Four of them followed her there, so it will all be up to her. She looks like a taller version of her older sister. She just talks more. She reminds me of a cartoon. (very animated).
We own an online LDS Store, and the office is at our home. So until my two elementary school kids need to get off to school, I duck in the office, look up e-mails and print off orders for LDS jewelry and gifts. My number four child (my beautiful brown eyed daughter) and my number five child (a boy who looks just like his dad). Eat breakfast with the three year old (a son who looks just like his brother but acts like Dennis the Menace) and get ready. I have to poke my head out of the office periodically to smell their breath and make sure they brushed their teeth and that their clothes don’t have holes in bad places. Being clean is good too.
At 8:00 I step out of the office and we all go downstairs. I don’t like them leaving for school if their rooms are all messy so they have the next half an hour to get them straight and clean the big family room downstairs. I’ve tried to get them to do this when I’m upstiars, but it doesn’t get clean. So I watch and inspect while they straighten and bring dirty laundry upstairs. The day before I had to run my eight year old son to school a half hour late because his room wasn’t clean. I told him if wanted to go to get his scouting Bobcat award it had better be clean. Scouts are supposed to be clean. (nice thought huh)
When it gets close to 8:30 we have to stop and watch for the bus. It stops infront of our house. The bus driver doesn’t honk anymore when we aren’t out there because he had to do it so often. My kids and I have lost track of time a little to much. Today was alright because even though they couldn’t get outside in time to catch the bus (because they were having a hard time unlocking the front door), they were able to cross the street and get it on another stop when the bus came back around. Their three year old brother and I watched them as they drove away in the big yellow thing. Then I chased my son around the front yard trying to get in himside. He laughed til he cried.
I want to remind you that it’s not even 8:45. I get my son situated. He wanted to watch Clifford the Big Red Dog on PBS, so I turned it on and went to the office again. At just after 9:00, my help comes. Amy starts packaging things for the store and getting messages taken care of. She then reminds me that I was supposed to volunteer for my daughter’s fifth grade class today. I showered and got ready quickly. I called the IRS about a question and left for the elementary school. After getting there I found out her class had a suprise assembly so I could come home, but they were expecting me next week.
Amy and I worked together getting customers taken care of and working on the site. I was also doing laundry. I’ve been hanging it out on the deck because my dryer broke. The heating element needs replaced and I’m still deciding on weather to replace it or get it repaired. Spending money makes me cringe, so I haven’t decided yet. In the mean time it’s good weather and the deck cost good money to build so I’m using it. Besides, we live on an acre of land in a semi rural area. Our neighbors don’t care. They’re more concerned with looking out for each other and getting the deer to stop eating their tomatoes.
After 3 loads of laundry and a couple dozen packages, Amy leaves around 1:00. I don’t remember what we had for lunch, but it probably wasn’t that nutrtious. I was out of diet cola so I drank water. It wasn’t that bad. I should have it more often. I won’t let my son have cola or diet drinks. He must have had milk with some fruit or a granola bar.
I tended to him and the business phones until 2:30. Then I loaded him and all of our packages into the Suburban. It was my turn to pick up my number two daughter’s carpool at the charter school. They get out at 2:45 but I didn’t get out of there until after 3:00. We stopped at the post office and dropped off the packages. Picked up another girl at a local jr. high for her mother. Dropped off one girl at her home. I waited for another girl to get a bunch of her things so that she could go to another girl from the carpool’s house. I dropped another package off at the UPS store and then the last of the girls. (not counting my own daughter).
I got home and my oldest daughter called. She was done with her cross country workout and needed me to pick her up at the high school. My husband called me and told me he needed to stay a few hours late at work. When I got home, my third daughter was dressed for soccer practice, but she had parent teacher conference first. We went to parent teacher confrence and then picked my fourth daughter up from the church. Every other Thursday the girls from age 8-11 have achievment days. It’s like girl scouts. They were making baby sitting kits. I picked her up and went back home to drop her off and take my third daughter to her soccer practice. My three oldest daughters are in the LDS Young Women’s organization. It’s volleyball season for them right now. Their game was at 6:00, the same time that my third daughter’s soccer practice started. My number two daughter was doing homework, and that just left my oldest. So, after dropping off number three, I came home and got the oldest so she could play with their team. I got another mom to bring her home so that I could get my oldest son ready for Cub Scout Pack meeting at 7:00.
The whole family is invited to Cub pack meeting. Luckily when I got home, my husband’s car was in the drive. The youngest three kids got ready and we left for the church. While we were at the pack meeting, my oldest daughter called. Her car was out and so she wanted to know if she could borrow one to go the the high school football game. Rob left the pack meeting to run her a set of keys and got back just in time for my third daughter to call and tell me soccer was over and she needed picked up. I brought her back to the church with the others just in time to see my eight year old son receive his Bobcat award. I’m wearing the mother’s pin right now. We got all of us home and then my husband and I went shopping at the store to buy a few things. We’re going camping at a cabin overnight tomorrow. He thinks I need to get away.