Oatmeal in Your Hair

My mother-in-law came to visit us a couple of weeks ago, and in the course of laughing about all of the craziness that comes with kids, she told about a speaker she heard long ago. Apparently the speaker jokingly told the women (more or less) that the most important part of motherhood is to make sure that, before you walk out the door, you check to make sure you don't have oatmeal in your hair.

In the past week, this has become much more meaningful to me.

First, there was one day when I was cleaning up lunch and realized that I had sat in the same chair my toddler had used for breakfast, but I guess I failed to notice the oatmeal he had spilled on his chair, because I found it all over the seat of my pants. But not in my hair. And I didn't actually walk out the door that way.

Then came Sunday.

This past Sunday my husband woke up early and went to his leadership meetings at the church. I woke up with him, began my personal scripture study, and refreshed myself on the Sunday School lesson I would be teaching that day. When I was finished reading, I put my head down -- just for a minute, I thought -- but promptly fell asleep and woke up much too late to be able to make it to church on time with five kids.

We scurried around getting everyone ready, and made it there about five minutes late. There were no seats left near the back, so we ended up having to walk all the way up to the second row, dead center, where there was a row with enough room for all of us.

We hadn't been there five minutes when the baby started crying, so I took her out, again walking past everyone in the entire congregation.

I sat down in the mother's room, where there was already one other mom caring for her baby. She looked over at me and remarked, "You know, you have a band-aid on your skirt." I looked down, and sure enough, there was my son's used band-aid, stuck to my red skirt, not camouflaged at all.

So, um, yeah -- I went to church with a band-aid stuck to my skirt. I think I might have been better off with oatmeal in my hair.