Today we had Stake Conference. This means that, instead of attending our usual meetings with our home ward (congregation), we attended a larger, shorter meeting with several other wards in the area. Several wards together make up a “stake.” Thus: Stake Conference.
Now, here is what Stake Conference really means: I have my husband home. All day long. To myself. Because his responsibilities are more specific to our ward, when the Stake meets, he gets a little break. Not one extra meeting, not a single urgent phone call. Just he, me, and baby makes three (five.) Add to this the fact that we just got a new sectional couch last week and a DVD player that was manufactured after 1994 (unlike our old one), and it equates to only one thing: bliss. Cold, gray, quiet, cozy wintertime bliss.
The December and January rush (moving, Christmas, three birthdays) is over and I’m actually kind of glad that spring is not quite here. I need some more indoor time to finish settling into the house and, of course, to lose some of that extra jiggle that I’ve been blaming on the “stress” of this last year. (At what point do you have to quit calling your jiggle “extra” and just concede to the fact that it’s now a permanent part of your body? Six months? A year? I believe I’m pushing the deadline.) At any rate, I’m ready to have (read: hoping that) things slow down a little.
After a late family lunch this afternoon, while Derrick napped and the other kids were upstairs, Megan and I sat down to eat a few homemade, ooey-gooey oatmeal chocolate chip cookies (see previous pp. re: jiggle). I found that my cookies were tasty but lacked a little something. I crept to the pantry and returned with a brand-new bag of plump chocolate chips.
“This stays between you and me.” I told Megan as I quietly ripped open the bag.
“What are you doing.” she said, rather than asked, me. She knew exactly what I was doing.
“What does it look like.” I said back to (not asked) her.
Without a reply or a smile, she thrust out her upturned palm and calmly waited as I obediently poured a heaping handful of chocolate chips into her tiny, five folded fingers.
We sat side-by-side, pushing solid chocolate chips point-side down into the warmly receptive cookies. We doubled the chocolate-to-cookie ratio and after eating our fair share of this improved concoction, moved on to the undiluted pleasure of eating the aforementioned chips straight out of the bag.
Some things, it would seem, are more important than losing my jiggle. Or at least more fun.
It was a good Sunday.
Ah, the jiggle. Mine is more like gigantic waves, but still, it needs to go. The chocolate chips thing speaks to my heart. What a fun mom. And, I will stop complaining. I get my hub most every Sunday. HP is not quite as busy as other, more high profile, callings. Hope you watched something fun on your new DVD player! 😉