Crepes and General Conference

This week, Coriel has been fascinated with pancakes. She’s been requesting them, usually at massively inconvenient moments. Like when I’m nursing Addra, or in the bathroom, or getting us ready to leave on errands. So I’ve been putting her off. “Maybe we can make some later tonight or tomorrow,” I’d say. And then I’d plan on her forgetting about it.

So today I decided it was about time I actually made her some pancakes. Only… I don’t like pancakes. So we made “thin pancakes” (crepes) instead. Pink, green, blue, and yellow ones.

It was a lovely way to get ready for the rest of our day, which involved watching general conference. General conference is a time when all the members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints join together (virtually) in listening to what our Heavenly Father wants us to learn through our prophets and other leaders. It is an outpouring of counsel and wisdom, and I’m always grateful when I listen because it brings so much power and motivation into my life.

Of course, it’s not always easy to listen. Small children, big meals that make you tired, so many things keep us from really hearing everything. Which means it’s awesome to also get to watch the talks again and read them at lds.org and then also read them in a published magazine in about a month.

I like it best, though, when I get to actually listen the first time around. So this year we prepared. We printed out coloring sheets and paper activities for Coriel. We gave her new markers. We got out her tent, which she hasn’t played in for a long time. We brought out each thing one at a time, only after she got bored by the previous item. It hasn’t been perfect, but it has certainly helped us to see a bit more than usual. Of course, now Addra is old enough to be a bit of a dilemma too, but that’s just one of the delightful complexities of life.

So much of this conference has felt directed at me. I have been struck again and again by what it means to be a mother, to be an influence for good, and to have charity—starting with charity for my children. As Coriel gets older, I have really struggled with how to interact with her. She is getting independent in some ways but still needs so much. Sometimes I’m a bit overwhelmed by all she needs. But listening to these wonderful counsels in conference I feel a greater desire to have charity toward her—not just love, but love that acts.

I’m also not much good at conversing even with adults, and sometimes talking to a three-year-old is just beyond me. By nature I’m sort of a cave troll, hiding out and staring around in a vacant sort of way. She’s much more of a monkey, chittering and jabbering and always on the move. I am often tired just at the thought. Here again, conference had something for me. Brice mentioned a statement from one of the talks he heard last night. It was that in pushing through our tiredness we find greater strength and power.

So today we made pancakes, just like she’d been asking for. A small thing, but something she needed. Tomorrow, who knows?

Yum!

Also yum! (And the crepes are pretty good too.)

As I was working on a crochet project, Coriel wanted to learn how to sew.
So here is her purse that she sewed mostly all by herself!