If you want someone's attention....

I was outnumbered 20 to 1, and I was alone. 

There was a 2 year-old pounding on the door, yelling, "I want out of here!"  I grumbled, "So do I."

Recently returned from college, 6 months pregnant with our first, and being a good sport, I agreed to babysit for the Relief Society three-hour homemaking meeting.  It was not going well, for them or me.

It was unbelievable chaos and I was supposed to do something about it.  I think that I was too overwhelmed to even pray.  But, suddenly a perfume advertisement that I had read when I was 16 years-old popped into my head.  I remembered sitting on my bedroom floor and reading a Seventeen magazine.  I turned the page and there was a large picture of a bottle of perfume with the words, "If you want someone's attention WHISPER."  With those words blazing in my brain, I picked up a book, sat on the floor next to 2 children, and started to whisper the story to them. 

I was shocked at how quickly everything changed as more and more children came and sat down to be whispered to.  The whole atmosphere in the room (and in me) becamse calmer, more settled.  That one sentence and first experience with whispering shaped my mothering and me.  But, I was still relieved and overjoyed to finally see their mothers!