Last month, I was catching up with my cousin. She called on a morning when the aspiring chef teen woke at five in order to assemble and bake an apple pie for a pie contest. In my slumber, I said to him sure, bake the younger guy’s peach pie as well.
That’s just one teeny-tiny parentingfail of my fall.
That particular misstep sent the next brother into a tailspin, with many, many tears.
(Aside: the school switching in third grade, that, to him so far is a gigantic parentingfail of my fall—sigh, because all we can do is hold steady for a while and remind him and ourselves that transitions are hard).
Baking another pie wasn’t the next brother’s desire; he wanted to be sure his pie counted as his and that he’d done it exactly as he’d imagined. He is a perfectionist. Doing things “right” is a big priority.
Sometimes, I feel there’s conspiracy against good enough at my house.
With four kids, umpteen mountainous baskets of laundry at any given time, the kids sleeping like dandelion fluff in whichever bed the wind carries them, hair sometimes brushed and always shaggy, and on like that I am a huge believer in good enough.
My cousin’s daughters are in college. Her younger sister’s youngest child just left for boarding school and was feeling the initial too-quiet house ache.
I asked, “So you’re suggesting I should savor the misery?”
“Yes,” she told me. “All too soon your house will be empty.”
Both pies were devoured, and garnered high praise. That afternoon at the pie contest both boys were devouring pie—and smiling.
**
Not to be outdone by last month, this week my dear husband is out of town and all three boys got sick on their sister’s scheduled home day. Although they seemed more or less better before bed, all three woke me with various ailments and the little girl wanted a bottle. I am savoring here, I am.
(Aside: Amongst the essays I’ve published in the past few weeks is one about work and parenting balances in an ebook called Welcome to My World. Last night, I read all the essays and was really impressed. I—my dear hubby, actually—downloaded a Kindle app onto my computer. I’ll be writing about one of the essays this weekend.)
