I'm so glad that after the birth of my son I found a community with parents with whom
I could celebrate and commiserate. Where would I be if I couldn't laugh with people who
really understand? It's important for me to enjoy my children, their humor, the way their
minds work, everything about raising them--even if it means laughing at my own mistakes
sometimes.
Let's just start there, shall we? My latest mommy mistake was forgetting I am not
Martha Stewart. I envy those with her kind of talent and patience, but I don't even scrapbook
for lack of crafty-ness. However, for some reason which I see now was sick and twisted, my
sister April got me Family Fun magazine for Christmas. I got February as my first issue and
it contained Valentine ideas galore! I immediately focused on the cutest valentine card
idea: You trace your child's hand and then write a little message on the palm. Then you
fold the two middle fingers down in the sign language symbol for "I love you." Neat idea,
right? Well, I didn't send Christmas cards this year because time flew and making Christmas
happen got higher priority then sending cards. Can you see where this is going? Yes, I
decided I would make 20+ little valentines for my family.
After an hour begging Shane to please hold still and let me trace his hand and prying
Elaina's little chubby hand out of fist mode, I finally got smart and made their hand patterns
on card stock and traced those for the rest of the cards. DUH! Then with the 14th looming
as a deadline, with Shane wanting to scribble on me not the paper, with him tearing off the
folded fingers, and with Elaina eating construction paper, I had a major headache coming on.
Plus, I hadn’t even considered how long it would take to address and deliver or mail the
cards, and I was running out of cute things to say! I have to admit I quit before I finished
half the cards.
Instead I went back to reading the magazine while Shane and Elaina went on a search
and destroy mission for the few remaining intact hands. I found an adorable plan in which
you use candy and icing to make train tracks and trains on top of cupcakes. Shane loves
trains. Hmm... But no, luckily the hand tracing frustration and the rain of paper coming
down on me as Shane made the rest of the construction paper into confetti helped me resist
the cuteness. Even with the cupcakes' charm like quicksand sucking me in (they had little
flags coming from the smokestacks that said, "I choo-choo-choose you"), I only had to think
of the many mini candy bars I would eat prior to any actual train assembly to cause me to
want to resist. A good mom would make her train-loving son train-topped cupcakes though.
It took the thought of all the potential kitchen disasters of cooking with a 2 year old
("No! Shane don't touch the eggs!" etc.) to help me successfully extract myself from the
I-wanna-be-the-perfect-mom rat race.
I hope I'm not the only one who tends to get caught up in that race occasionally. That
race where you are measured against ideal women who have perfectly dressed, well-mannered
children. Those moms who can leave the house in coordinated outfits and make-up and be on
time. Those women who probably never miss sending Christmas cards and plan and make their
homemade Valentine's Day cards more than two days prior to before the holiday. I know I'm
never going to win that race, but I do want my kids to have good holidays and lots of happy
childhood memories. However, after I put Shane down for a nap and was cleaning up the hand
tracing card mess, I realized that my kids don't expect much. They would like cupcakes with
trains, but honestly Shane is happy with frosting in any form. Plus, at ages 2 and less
than 1, it doesn’t get much better than a whole afternoon of tearing up paper. It’s their
favorite thing to do. And, my family doesn't even mind that they got no Christmas card this
year as long as I keep sending them pictures of the kids. Thirty minutes and a couple of
Advil later, I was feeling much better when my husband got home. John looked at the train
cupcake picture in the magazine that was still lying out on the table. With raised eyebrows
he looked at me and said, "You weren't really going to try to make those were you?"
I just laughed. "Nope. Not in this life time." Now if I can just throw away the
March issue without opening it...