Domestic Imperfection

Something about mothering young children makes you want to bake, dust off the sewing machine and own a glue gun. Martha Stewart, I am not. I enjoy watching the urges, but need to be able to laugh at the realities. Kids are young but once and I’d rather have happy kids eating mac n’ cheese than stressed out mommy and kids with handmade clothes and gourmet meals. How many times have I burned rice because someone needs hugs, or a book read. I think my dad once told me that people with very clean cars lead boring lives – at least that makes me feel like a very exciting person…

During the younger kids’ naps, Kelsey and I try to do some creative projects with Lorna. One day, I tried to do a spontaneous gluten-free cake with vegan buttercream frosting (welcome to Boulder) but had to make some substitutions for missing ingredients. I knew that it was a gamble but thought the process with Lorna was more important. The cake fell out of the pans in pieces, so we sculpted the pieces together with the frosting, but that was too runny. So it stated eroding off of Grandma’s fancy cake plate into the waiting bowl. We laughed good belly laughs, spooned some cake-like substance into cereal bowls before throwing “it” into the trash.

Then there was the time I wouldn’t stop trying to get the Katzen bread to work. (I can bake successful bread, that I can do.) But this recipe was failing me. Lorna and I tried three times, but it would start crumbling when I had only worked in half the flour. So we hacked off some dough, put on some “butter” and snacked on that. Those went into the trash too.

I’ve been reading this wonderful book called the “handmade home” for ideas about creativity and projects with young kids. It is inspiring and now I have supplies for many such projects. One of her ideas is to have a meeting in bed with your kids to talk about projects and ideas for the day. On day one, I try this technique with note pad in hand and suggest projects for Lorna. Her response was “can you do that instead Mommy? I would have more fun watching the ‘Snow White’ movie.” Huh. The woman made it sound so easy in the book!

Note the photo with the matching dresses – for a time there were matching pig tails – but Lucy’s melting down. Doh! Sometimes it takes all day to water the four house plants. “What was I just doing?”

So I try to be kind to the maternal domestic urges and patient with the imperfections of my craft.