Last week I blogged all my lovely St. Patrick’s Day plans. Well, there should be a saying about the well meant plans of mothers. Those lovely plans do have a tendency to go south pretty darn quick don’t they?
Last Monday, the girls came home excited to make the St. Patrick’s Day cookies that we made last year. They donned their cute little aprons from Auntie Fara and we set to work. Well, half way through, Sarah decided they really should be green cookies with white frosting this year instead of the other way around. I thought I shouldn’t be a control freak – after all, it is about the experience of cooking together not the end product right? Well, no. A few moments into Sarah squirting a LOT of food coloring into our dough, I realized, it wasn’t. As much as I want to be that calm “who cares what the cookies that we bring to Grandma’s St. Patties dinner look like,” kind of mom. I am just not really that mom. Deep down (actually not that deep) I wanted pretty cookies. Now the dough had way too much coloring and was overly mushy but I decided to just plop them on the baking sheet and throw them in the oven. By this point I was getting testy, and so were the girls. When the first batch came out of the oven, it was all over. The mushy dough had just sort of spread all over the cookie sheet instead of turning into cookies. I tried to be funny and said we had made leprechaun poop. (that’s funny, right?) Sarah was distraught that her cookies were ugly, and Emily wisely wandered off. End of happy bonding time.
An hour or so later, I emerged from a cleaned up kitchen, I had salvaged some of the dough and made some respectable cookies, but our happy afternoon was gone. Sure, I was frustrated with the cookies, but I was mostly frustrated with my loss of good time with the girls. Time with the girls seems to be in shorter and shorter supply these days, I hate to waste it. Looking back I realize that going into our baking adventure, I was rushed for time and stressed out from work. Sarah wisely said that evening, “Mommy I wish we could have just played a game together.” That’s exactly what we should have done, instead of trying to shove creating cute cookies into our busy calendar.
So friends, I really think there needs to be a saying about how the well meant plans of moms go astray, to help remind me when to throw my plans out the window, and also to make me laugh.
Making cookies when there’s too much to do, results in sticky leprechaun poo…
Or ... I don't know, what do you think? Send me your mommy saying ideas.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Oh how nice plans go astray
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3 comments:
I so appreciate this story--it sounds like me.
yes yes yes! it's so hard to seize that moment when you're in the middle of it, but it's amazing how hindsight works. the important thing is that both you AND the girls figured out what does really matter and once you come to that realization the ugliness of it just melts away. the hard part is seeing the tension sneak it's ugly head before it's too late!
as for mommy-isms, i'm a firm believer that there are no firm plans once kids are introduced. i used to joke that you couldn't say any plans out loud for babies to hear because they would then know and find out some way to throw a wrench in them! like go and catch a cold when you had a great vacation planned ;-)
No funny sayings for you, but I appreciate your honesty.
I don't love cooking/baking with my kids. It's just HARD for me. I'm not a perfectionist, but it tries every bit of patience I have to let them help me.
It's better now that my girls are older, but still hard. I suggest making playdough with them...easy to make, hard to mess up, and they get to be hands on with the finished product. I posted my recipe on my recipe blog last week. www.mersrecipes.blogspot.com
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