Hard Times as a young mother

My family in 1987, about six months before this story happened.


I just came across this story in an old journal of mine from 1988, and remembered how difficult it was to have all those little children. I am so thankful for how easy my life is today. Compared to being a mother of young children, teaching seminary is a breeze.


A letter I wrote to my mother from Cary, North Carolina, May 10, 1988. We had moved to Cary in December 1987. We had three boys, Adam was 6, Isaac was 4, Seth was almost 3. I was 7 1/2 months pregnant with our fourth son Bryce.


Dear Mother,
I am at the end of a long day. I thought I would tell you about it and xerox it for my journal.

We got up this morning at 8 am and cleaned the house in preparation for our arts and crafts class (two other home school families come over once a week). We made sack puppets decorated with construction paper and yarn for hair.

My kitchen was covered with big packages of food storage in various 5-gallon buckets and number 10 cans so all day whenever any of my kids fought or did something naughty I made them carry something down to the basement. Now the kitchen is almost clean and I didn’t spank or pull hair all day.

After the other kids left we ate lunch and then went on errands. First we went to the grocery store and bought lots more food storage items.

Yesterday I got my years supply of grape jelly, macaroni, and shortening. Today I got 10 bottles of 2-liter soda pop (we will use the empty bottles for water storage), oil, and mayonnaise. I keep finding things on sale and buying a bunch.

I had to fight with Adam at the checkout counter because he is fascinated with the conveyor belt that moves the groceries and likes to hold the groceries back with his hand.

Then we went to the library. It has a fun children’s playroom, and the kids went straight in there while I put our 23 books in the book return hole. As soon as I was done I heard Seth screaming and ran in there and Seth had fallen on a sharp corner of the baseboard and punched a small hole in his forehead.

Blood was running down his face and he was screaming. I laid him on the librarian’s counter and she got a bandaid and some ice wrapped in a kleenex and I carried him outside to scream for another 5 minutes. Adam and Isaac wanted to check out some books so I told them to pick out their own and gave them my library card, and they did just fine.

We came home and I read them 3 books and felt so sleepy I made them all get in their beds and we all fell asleep (except Adam, but he was quiet.) I woke up 45 minutes later.

Adam and I made a casserole together. Wayne came home just long enough to eat, then he went to church to teach his Webelos scouts. While he was gone I got Seth up from his nap and he had wet the bed. (He has been in training pants for a week but I have always put diapers on him at night).

I had to feed Isaac and Seth, and since it was Isaac’s day he had to help me with the dishes. While cleaning off the table Isaac got too enthusiastic with spinning the lazy susan that is in the middle of our table and a jar of pickled beets tipped over. It was spinning so fast the juice flew clear to the wall on three sides of the kitchen before the jar finally spun off the table and hit the floor, splashing the rest of the juice and beets all over the other side of the kitchen.

I couldn’t believe I didn’t yell or anything, I just told Isaac to start carrying food storage downstairs and he did that the whole time I scrubbed all the floor, walls, table legs, and folding chairs. The 1/4th of the kitchen floor that didn’t get beets on it was already sticky because two nights ago we had a friend of Wayne’s over and served pop. Seth spilled two whole glasses, one right in the visitor’s lap.

After I got the beets cleaned up, Adam was trying to close his bedroom window and it closed on his finger and scraped some skin off so he cried a long time.

Now Wayne came home from church so I decided since my legs hurt I would sit here and write about my exciting day. I figured you would enjoy hearing about it.

Love, Amy

P.S. As Wayne was reading this letter and chuckling about it, Seth came out of the bathroom after going potty. He said, “I dropped the roll of toilet paper in the potty. Sorry.”