Finding Balance

I've been feeling off balance lately. Do you know that feeling? Like there aren't enough hours in the day for me to do everything that I've committed to do, or everything that's expected of me. It's kind of the same feeling I get when Bryan, Peter, and Cooper are all talking to me at once, with Phoebe singing or babbling in the background, and each of them expecting me to be able to comprehend what they're saying and answer intelligently. (Well, maybe Phoebe doesn't expect that.) My brain simply cannot go in that many directions at once.

At least one of those things is something that I should be doing. Our Bishop has asked each of the adults in our ward to have an "Hour of Power." That means he wants each of us to study the gospel (scriptures, lessons for Sunday, General Conference talks, church magazines) for an hour everyday. I told him I thought that was a wonderful thing, but I had one question.

How?

Where was that hour going to come from? Which child was I going to ignore in order to have an hour to focus on the scriptures? He talked about reading fewer blogs, watching less TV, and maybe giving up some sleep. I actually laughed out loud when he said the part about sleep, then quickly covered my mouth and apologized.

See, I'm pretty much maxed out as far as how much sleep I can give up. Any less and I won't be functional. And I don't really watch TV as it is, just a few things when I'm up in the middle of the night feeding Phoebe and too bleary eyed to read. And I've trimmed the blogs that I read.

But I want to be obedient, so the hour has been coming from other places. I realized early on that I can't do sixty minutes all in a row, it's simply not feasible. So I catch a few minutes here and there wherever I can. I read my scriptures on my phone because I can carry them with me and read while I tidy up or while I'm playing with the boys.

It's still been really stressful trying to get that hour done though. Isn't that awful? Shouldn't reading Gospel materials for so long each day bring me an added measure of peace? Actually, I'm sure it would if I weren't so focused on the clock. And it would be nice if I had time to read other books, but I don't. Nope, apparently I can only eek out one hour a day to read, and that is all.

Today Peter had a computer day. He only gets to use it once or twice a week. As he played games on pbskids, I sat and fed Phoebe (Cooper was napping) and tried to read my scriptures. I got twenty-six minutes in before she was done eating and wanted to play.

I'm always amazed at children that don't want their parents' constant attention. Sure, mine can go for stretches without saying "Mommy, look!" but it's only a few minutes at a time. And I do love playing with them, and Phoebe is so sweet and such a happy smiley baby, I love looking into her sparkly blue eyes and doing things to make her laugh. But I feel like I can't spend all of my time playing, that I need to clean and cook and keep the boys from throwing toys at the other one's head. Yeah, this is definitely another aspect of feeling off balance.

I had the thought that maybe lds.org had audio versions of the articles from the Ensign. Turns out they do. I spent the remainder of my hour listening to these articles, and laughing and talking to and playing with Phoebe. I would pause the recording when Peter had questions, then start it back up.

It was an answer to prayer.

There are other areas that I'm still off-kilter on. Lots of areas. But, at least for today, I found a happy balance between being a good mom and being spiritually fed.