"Mom, It's the Cheetah Girls"

Um... where to begin. I turned on cartoons for Jeremy yesterday morning so I could get dressed and when I went to check on him he said, "Mom, its the Cheetah girls." with a shy smile on his face. The cartoons had moved on to a Cheetah Girls movie. Not catching on at first, I offered to find a cartoon for him and then another shy smile up at me confirmed that Jeremy was just fine watching The Cheetah Girls. He's 5 and just a little too aware of pretty girls for his mom's peace of mind to stay intact.

The hysterical laugh/cry and why I love my sister...

My sister called me two weeks ago to update me on her life which has been a little challenging lately. She told me about her breakdown in Relief Society the week before and while she was telling me we were laughing - a lot! She had one of those tearful breakdowns that makes you want to disappear into the paint on the wall but she definitely had it coming her way. My sister has a way of telling stories that cracks me up even when the most painful details are involved - I told her to blog about it. I know most of us have had one or two of those "life is way too hard", "i can't take it anymore," feel like you are "coming apart at the seams" moments and she definitely had one. I don't know if the story will be funny to you as you read it but to give a little background, that she didn't, the following events had all happened in the month leading up to this awkward moment in her life where she was blindsided by the topic of the Relief Society lesson:

1 - The house they moved out of in July and sold to their former bishop, who is a real estate investor so he could flip the house, went into foreclosure. As part of the business deal they made with their former bishop my sister and her husband carried the note on the house and their former bishop did not tell them he was letting the house go into foreclosure. By the time the bank caught up with my sister and her husband, at their new address, the note was so far behind they could not catch up on it. This former bishop is the same one who went through the last pregnancy and funeral with my sister and fully supported them moving and selling the house so Jennifer could be a stay at home mom. Had they known he was going to let the house go into foreclosure my sister could have picked up a few shifts as a nurse to keep it from foreclosure.

2 - The house going into foreclosure will ruin my sister's/brother in law's almost perfect credit and my brother in laws government job, with high security clearance, is put into jeopardy by a bad credit report.

3- One of my nephews, one of her sons, has a white blood cell count that is rapidly dropping and doctors aren't sure why yet. It could be a reaction to medication he is on to control seizures he has at night or it could be leukemia.

4 - She met with a geneticist and found out that not only do they have a 25% chance of another baby having the same condition as TJ but if another baby has that condition it will manifest in exactly the same way which means little to no chance of survival. She is currently pregnant and begins monitoring this baby in another week.

So all of these events led up to her breakdown in Relief Society where the title of the lesson was "Come What May and Love It." Which resulted in the hysterical crying/laughing episode, sparked to some extent by a young mom who said she found "life to be extremely stressful when her child spilled KoolAid on a just mopped floor" and ended with my sister doubled over crying during the closing song of "I'll Go Where You Want Me To Go."

One of the many reasons why I love my sister is because she can call and tell me this story, while laughing with me, and in the very same day leave the following comment on my blog.

Audrey's website is so overwhelming. I wish that I could hold on to my faith so strongly. Love you,

Jenn

We so often don't see how strong our own faith is or see ourselves as other see us.