I let the twins help me make dinner last night.
Oh sure. I see you over there, feeling all superior because you always let your kids help. You love messes. Goo. Sticky chairs. You never find yourself under your kitchen table at 2:00 am, trying to find that last fleck of glitter that fell off some gift from a well-meaning friend. Crumbs on kitchen counters don't phase you!
Yeah. Okay. You're awesome. Whatevs.
Me? Not so much. So, letting two four year olds assist me in the sometimes already messy task of cooking? Busting out the Play-Doh and letting them (cringe) mix colors? Finger paint and dirty feet? Well. It's difficult for the control freak in me. Because she ruins everything. Especially during the holidays when all of those fun things like sparkles and glitter and greenery come into play (notice I have somehow managed to ignore the little fake pine needles peppering my living room floor...for now).
And that's where I found myself the other night. Regretting my tendency to control everything. Every crumb, every smudge, every single minute of my children's lives...I'm planning. Plotting. Trying to control each aspect of that moment. You know why Mr. BFG's chronic lateness makes me bonkers? Because I have no control over it.
I cringe at the thought of letting my kids play with Grandma's karaoke machine. In my defense, I've had some fairly awful karaoke experiences which range from Mr. BFG's drunk rendition of George Michael's Faith, to being forced to sing I Touch Myself one night on a stage in Memphis, where thankfully 90% of the crowd didn't know me.
Sure, a few happy kids and some Christmas songs can be endearing. But, when you're me? It quickly turns into a plan of who goes first, what song they'll pick, do they know the words, who's going to scream first, who will pout because they don't get there way and oh my God how am I going to pay for the broken karaoke machine and busted TV screen that now has a microphone sticking out of it.
This is how my brain works with everything. And it drains the joy out of all of those fun tasks my children should be allowed to participate in (thank you Lord for my friend Elizabeth who hosts kid's cooking camps each holiday...she is a saint). All of these cute craft ideas, all of the art supplies, all of the time they should be playing outside and enjoying being little people. It's all stripped away because mom is more worried about that little blob of Play-Doh being ground into the floors, never to be removed.
So. Yeah. When I say that I let the kids help me with dinner? That's a pretty big feat.
But, not big enough to move on to finger paint. Baby steps, folks. Baby steps.
Monday, November 28, 2011
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4 comments:
I don't do dyeing Easter eggs or carving pumpkins any more because it is too stressful for me. I didn't used to be that way. I'm stranger as I'm older. I sympathize and empathize, dear controller friend. I micro-manage EVERYTHING!! I can't help myself. The harder I try to loosen up, the tighter I get. Good work in letting them help you cook. I'm starting to itch just thinking of it.
My place tends to be one of chaos and disorder and that would still make me nuts...
LOL!
I'm right there with you. When Jessica's speech therapist gave her a thing of play-doh I hid it in the medicine cabinet. My kitchen is exactly wide enough for my fat ass, if anyone else comes to my side of the counter I start to get anxious. My grandmother is a saint for letting them make their own dry erase boards with freezer paper and cardboard then actually giving them the markers to use on them. I have such an issue with sticky hands that after finishing my half marathon the first thing I did after hugging Sean was rinse my hands because they had Gatorade on them. It is good to know that my kids don't suffer alone.
Oh, I feel for you. I used to be more controlling myself. I think I thought that if I could control every little thing, then the big things would just go away. Instead I ended up getting rid of the big things and lo and behold my need to control is pretty much gone.
There's still a few lingering control issues, but I do feel so much better. Now I see that things pretty much work out no matter what I do or don't control. Weird and pretty amazing.
Glad you were able to try this out with your kids in the kitchen. Seems fun. Hope you felt better, not worse afterwards.
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