Shout out to Marjorie Pay Hinckley

I sent luC and cC down to the basement while I went upstairs to get the babe bC down for a nap.  As soon as I put him down in his crib I heard the cries of cC, getting louder and louder, as he made his way up the basement stairs.

When I came from my room he was standing at the gate to the upstairs crying his little head off.  luC, always willing to offer up what she did to make him cry, frankly told me that cC hit her so she hit him back.  

"You are older than him so you know..."
"I am fouw and he is two." she replied before I could even finish.
"Exactly.  That means..."
And once again before I could finish she interrupted again.  Placing her head closely beside his she said "And wew're the same size!"
"It doesn't matter if you're the same size.  You are older than him so you know better than him."
Completely not paying attention to me, "Fouw plus two equals....six."

I immediately thought of the quote that I have over on the left hand side of my blog by Marjorie Pay Hinckley.  “The only way to get through life is to laugh your way through it. You either have to laugh or cry. I prefer to laugh. Crying gives me a headache.” 

And since I've been doing more than my fair share of crying, especially lately and even this morning, I laughed...in my head.  Because the last thing I want is for luC to think that she needs to do this kind of stuff more to get a laugh out of me.  And because if I didn't laugh...in my head...I'd cry more.  And I didn't want that either.

Someone asked me recently what I felt the purpose of life was.  As I was giving my answer, one of the things I said was how I feel that we go through certain things for a reason, because there is something specific we are supposed to learn from it.  The hard part is when you are in the thick of it, and you are sitting there thinking "What am I supposed to learn from this?!  Why do I need to learn it?"  and wishing you didn't need to learn whatever it is you are supposed to be learning because the process for learning it is hard and not fun and on and on and on.  But whatever it is I'm supposed to be learning right now, I do hope I come out on the other side having actually learned it.  

So here I was, looking up the quote from Marjorie Pay Hinckley to write this post, so I could copy and paste it instead of type it out because I'm lazy like that, I read through her quotes.  She said some amazing, true stuff.  The kind of stuff you need to keep reading over and over again.  Especially when you want to cry instead of laugh.

Some of her quotes--
**Home is where you are loved the most and act the worst.  
(I can attest to this fact.  Especially right now.  Our poor family members in our home are usually the ones that pay the price for anything we're dealing with.)

**Be kind. Everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle. 
(I truly feel like this is one of the things I needed to learn and am learning through this process.)

**There are some years in our lives that we would not want to live again. But even these years will pass away, and the lessons learned will be a future blessing. 
(I kept telling myself that this year was going to be better than last.  So far, that hasn't held true.  I know, it's all a matter of perspective.  But, I know this time will pass.  And that's something I keep having to remind myself.  And like I mentioned before, I hope I learn the lesson I need to so it can be a future blessing)

**Everything you are learning is preparing you for something else.  

Thank you, Marjorie Pay Hinckley, for coming into my mind when I needed you to.  Even if it was when my 4 year old was doing math that I needed you. Thank you for saying things, years and years ago, that I need to hear and remember now.  

And thank you to everyone I know that has gotten through trials..."big" ones and "small" ones, that are an example to me of getting through them, too.