What is a Mormon Mom?

I am a Mormon mom...What is that?!  In my mind, this doesn't just mean that I will have children until I pop, be endlessly incredibly crafty and sing Primary songs all day with my brood.  I do want a lot of children, but that is a personal decision, partially based on my faith.  I do try to keep our house bright and cheerful and occasionally punctuated by my efforts at craft-creation and we sing quite a bit, mostly because I have for many years lived with the belief that, if I can't make time to go be in a musical, I might as well make my life a musical.

But, I mostly believe that being a Mormon mom, means that, as a mother to my children, I need to be a disciple of Jesus Christ.  I need to look at their faces and remember that they are temporary gifts to me and that I could have no greater treasure and no greater joy than to see them find the joy of living according to principles of truth.  I need to remember that when they seem to continuously destroy my efforts at cleanliness and order, or when they seem to resist my efforts to teach them the joy of hard work, they are subject to my strength or weakness at that moment.  I get to choose to respond in a reactionary moment of temporal anger or to swallow, pray really fast and teach them that they are always loved because they are mine and because they are His. 

This morning, I woke to find that much of the progress I had made in my efforts to clean out the basement, in hopes that we can soon complete it, were masterfully dismantled in very little time by my high energy crew.  Fortunately it was early, so I didn't need to worry about the angels watching what I would do.  To my surprise, I genuinely felt love for the rascals and vandals who did the messy deeds and had no foul words to suppress.  The Lord really does give us moments of grace as we try to progress.  But, I also had some angry thoughts and discouragement. 

Being a Mormon mom is looking for the moments of Grace and realizing that those moments are our only Salvation.  We will one day have children in therapy and they will, in those counseling sessions, blame their Mormon mothers.  But, I know that my Savior knows my heart and that he sees that I am trying to be a disciple even to...and especially to my sweet six children.