When Master I gets home from school I feel like I need or maybe want to do so much with him.  More than can be done.  

In my ears I hear doctors that warn of childhood obesity and so I want him to get exercise and run around and play.   I hear mental health professionals and grandparents warning me that play is a child's work and that children need unstructured time to be a child.  So I want him to play.

 I have in my mind the words from the letter home to the parents from school about how successful children need a structure time and place to do homework every night, but that it shouldn't be right after school because they need a break.  The teacher also warns that children are expected to read every night for at least 30 minutes in addition to homework.  That suggestion is echoed in any educational literature sent to the home.  I remember listening to Sister Beck share how much she wanted to nurture reading so she let her children read in bed as long as they wanted.

But another need tugs on my heart. the image of an exhausted boy when I wake him in the morning.   The warnings that children need 10 hours of sleep a night.

I think of my husband saying that more than anything he thinks our children need to work more.  I remember my childhood and expectation from my parents that we work and my dad's warning to me to not rob my children of the hard parts of life that made me who I am.  And so I want to make him do chores and do the work of practice needed to learn to play the piano.

I think of my promises to God, to myself, and in memory of parents that drug their body out of bed at 5 am so that we could pray as a family and have scripture study...and that lights such a fire in my heart that I will not let a day go by that we don't study scriptures and pray together, nor a week that we don't have family home evening.

I think of the latest social science warnings echoed by living prophets that children who eat dinner with their family and the dinner table are less likely to struggle as teens.  I remember warnings that it needs to be healthy.

More than anything, I hope I have built my relationship with my boy.  I hope I haven't raised my voice.  I hope I have built Master I's confidence in himself.  I hope I have connected with him.  I hope he feels loved.  I hope he as able to talk to me about things that were on his mind.

These concerns  and many others are always on my heart.  In addition I have another laundry list in my mind of the needs of each other child and the needs of my spouse.

I remember when I began my mission feeling anxious like there was no way that I could do all that I wanted to do.  I remember reading these verses from Mosiah 2 and finding my answer here:

20 I say unto you, my brethren, that if you should render all the^athanks and ^bpraise which your whole soul has power to possess, to that God who has created you, and has kept and ^cpreservedyou, and has caused that ye should ^drejoice, and has granted that ye should live in peace one with another—

 21 I say unto you that if ye should ^aserve him who has created you from the beginning, and is ^bpreserving you from day to day, by lending you ^cbreath, that ye may live and move and do according to your own ^dwill, and even supporting you from one moment to another—I say, if ye should serve him with all your^ewhole souls yet ye would be ^funprofitable servants.

 22 And behold, all that he ^arequires of you is to ^bkeep his commandments; and he has ^cpromised you that if ye would keep his commandments ye should prosper in the land; and he never doth ^dvary from that which he hath said; therefore, if ye do ^ekeephis ^fcommandments he doth bless you and prosper you.

So maybe I try to do all of the things in my heart, but maybe they don't each happen perfectly each day.   Maybe some days are better for play and other days for work.  I feel better just putting to words the different pressures I feel.  

It is similar to the pressure I felt as a missionary. I was a terribly imperfect missionary.  My anxiety to do it all perfectly didn't help.  I think I was much more effective when I still gave my heart and soul, but peacefully accepted that no matter how much I gave I would still fall short, or be an "unprofitable servant." I guess I just have to apply the lessons I learned from my mission to my life now. Just do the very best I can, be at peace with the fact that I can not do all that I would love to do every day, instead try to follow the promptings of the Spirit and do well the things I can, and try to be happy and find joy in the journey.