More Bubble Wrap, Please

Last Sunday, our bishop stood up in Sacrament meeting to make a special announcement. The swine flu has hit Cache Valley, and the poor person is in our ward boundaries. Yikes. My heart might have skipped a little beat, but not much. I have to admit, I haven't been too horribly nervous about it. We have just graduated from licking grocery carts and we are pretty good about washing our hands.

At the last hour in our meetings, our Bishop again addressed us in a joint Priesthood/Relief Society meeting. He talked about the scary things that our youth are dealing with, here, in our own ward. SCARY, SCARY STUFF!! Pornography, "sexting" (never had heard that before!) heavy duty relationships. Some of this stuff is even happening with youth under the age of 10.

Now, I will be the first one to admit that I have been surprise at how uptight I am as a mom. I have read back in my journals and am reminded of how fun I used to be. I am so different now. But, now I am a mom. I found out what a mother bear I was going to be while Chase was still in the womb. I am ultra-sensitive about motherhood. You want to hurt me? Kick me in my motherhood and I will drop to the floor.

It didn't surprise me at all which address from the Bishop caused me more stress. I came home from church in a sweat. It scares me horribly to be raising a child in today's world. It will probably be even worse when Chase is older. One of our youth has even asked his mom to home school him. Middle school is that bad. SHEEEEESH!!

Jeff and I were talking a mile a minute when we got home from church, making our game plan, reiterating rules that we have set, rethinking some others. Anything that we could think of that will help us raise this beautiful child in today's society. We were only slightly wise enough to realize that Chase is entirely too young and innocent to lecture him about all of the sins of youth. But, he did get a healthy dose of "We never" and "We don't" and "We can't", etc. This poor kid just nodded innocently, while pouring over his chips and dip, probably having no idea of anything that we were talking about. At the end of the rip-roaring lecture, I topped it off by saying that the adversary really does not want us to do well and be happy. There are a lot of scary things in this world that can make us unhappy and hurt us. Chase sweetly said,

"Well, why don't we just wrap me up in bubble wrap? Then I won't get hurt."

You're on, pal! Bubble wrap, blinders, ear muffs, all while safely handcuffed to my side, until you are a least 19. Think that will work?


Just to show you how innocent Chase is, the bubble wrap idea came about after a bath one night. Chase's legs looked like they had been through a shredder. The mark of an active boy, but painful to a mommy. I told him we should wrap him up in bubble wrap for the summer so he will stop getting hurt.

If only bubble wrap could protect us from the kind of hurt this world can offer!!