My daughter was tossing a napkin back and forth between her hands, when my son looked at her and said, “You’re going to drop that.”
She continued her juggling act and replied, “No, I won’t.”
Then my son raised up his hand and swiftly knocked the napkin to the floor and said, “Told ya you’d drop it.”
My husband and I took the kids out to dinner at a new Japanese steak house nearby. You know, the kind of restaurant where they make the food right at your table, with lots of fancy knife work, spatula egg-tossing, and volcanoes made out of onions.
After we started eating our meals, our chef wiped down the cooking area with a steaming hot cloth, then he scoured it front to back, and left to right.
And, as soon as the stainless steel surface was sparkling and clean, my five year old son lopped a forkful of rice right into the middle of it.
I have a problem. The hem on my daughter’s school uniform has come undone and it needs sewn, but I don’t know how to do it. As a matter of fact, I recently gave my sewing machine to my in-laws because they will actually use it. Poor thing sat in my closet for 10 years without being touched. My husband bought me that machine with much wishful thinking, but I never even learned how to thread it.
But, sewing isn’t the only task I do miserably. It is just one of many reasons why I make a lousy housewife…
I am a rotten cook, my husband frequently runs out of clean underwear because I haven’t done the laundry, and the kitchen sink is often overflowing with dishes.
The most I can seem to run a sweeper is twice a week, when it should really be done every day. My dog sheds so much that I am constantly telling the children not to sit on the floor. I keep a lint brush handy, so their teachers won’t think I make them sleep on top of the dog’s bed, in their school clothes.
There is dust covered furniture with dust-bunnies underneath…and you don’t want to know what I find when a ball rolls under the oven and I have to pull it away from the wall.
The basement is cluttered with things I plan on putting out for a garage sale…the one I’ve been meaning to have for three years now. The floors need mopped, the curtains need washed, toys need disinfected, and the cabinets need scrubbed. I REALLY could go on and on.
But, I am good at some things…
I’ve read Barney books so often that I have them memorized, and I can whoop some butt at Candyland, PayDay, Chutes & Ladders and Sorry.
I have the patience to spend an entire Saturday afternoon putting together a jigsaw puzzle with two kids, and I wait for, what seems like eons, while my five year old says his prayers each night.
I can give a kid a good bath in two minutes flat, undo knotted shoelaces and necklaces in record speed, pack a lunch faster than a speeding bullet, and I always get my kids to school on time.
I manage to keep files from work, school papers, homework, committee documents, insurance forms and therapy instructions in order. And, I can be enthusiastic while watching magic tricks and shows put on by a five and nine year old. Over, and over, and over…
I can give a haircut to a squirming kid, floss the back teeth of a child with a severe gag reflex, and thanks to a “failure to thrive” diagnosis, I, along with my husband, managed without much sleep in order to feed our boy every three hours, round the clock, for 13 months straight.
I can heal boo-boos with a kiss, make up stories and songs to sooth a tired child, once danced around the lab at the hospital to distract my son while his blood was drawn, and have somehow mustered the strength to watch him get taken to surgery time after time.
So there. My daughter’s hem is out and I need someone else to sew it. I’m no domestic goddess, and I’m not a Super-Parent either, but I think I make a halfway decent Mom.
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