Thanks for Making me Look Good, Kid

I often joke with my young assistants that I am  never one to take credit for their accomplishments at work because the fact is: When they look good, I look good. I am a very shallow person. I want to look good. Because I am a 40-year-old-workaholic with a toddler, this will no longer be manifested physically. So I take the self esteem builders where I can get ’em.

My daughter–like every toddler before her, and probably like every one yet to come– resists me on issues from the mundane (what to wear) to the obscure (“don’t say that word, mommy” uh, okay, but what’s wrong with the word litigious? “just don’t say it!). And while she is what most moms call “a good eater,” she develops random loathings for once-loved foods, and control issues with what textures and tastes are acceptable at any moment (though thankfully, she is drinking water again).

So it was that I went to Thanksgiving day at my in-laws with trepidation. Nothing like a child that refuses to eat orange food, or mashed food, or whatever in front of your husband’s parents, right? As we sat down, and I anxiously gulped my second Vodka gimlet, my dear girl took her seat across from me with daddy, as the dishes began to be passed. Okay, despite the fact that she’d eaten two Brussels sprouts earlier at home, she refused to take any on her plate. Gulp. But then she warmed to scalloped potatoes, portabella ravioli, pine nut stuffing, turnips, Tofurky, and every other item that passed before her! And she cleaned her plate! Then, in the piece de resistance, Grandpa offered her the cranberry sauce I’d made for just him and I (as no one else eats it in that familial branch)–and she tried it… and liked it! After that, she ate the most bacteria-laden blue cheese I have ever seen!

Oh, my sweet girl, I shall strive to be more patient at breakfast when you suddenly want me to strain the seeds out of your raspberry yogurt or refuse a strawberry that you feel has displeasing proportions. For you, my girl, made me so very proud (and yes, thankful) on Thanksgiving Day.

Mother’s Day?

So, as you all may have noticed, this site has been an outlet for Michelle and I to vent about motherhood.  Motherhood has been the greatest adventure of my life.  Like any adventure though, it is fraught with hazards and hard labor.  As a reward for all of this, most of the free world has set a day aside to honor all of the work that we as mothers put forward, Mother’s Day.  I personally love Mother’s Day.  I love that my toddler comes home from preschool with a plant he lovingly planted in a Styrofoam cup for me, or more accurately, a plant that his teacher told him he should put in a styrafoam cup for me.  In any case, it is a holiday filled with love and obligation.  It is the later part of this statement that I would like to squelch.  You see, as wife, it is my duty to cover all holidays and birthdays for the family.  I don’t mind this chore as I feel I have excelled at finding that perfect something for everyone on my husbands gift list.  The interesting thing about this particular holiday is that it is my duty to honor my husband’s mother.  I don’t really have a problem with this, as she should be honored.  She worked hard to raise my husband and she has continued to be a beloved grandmother to my children.  She is a wonderful lady and deserves to be acknowledged as such.  So, what’s the problem?  The rub is that while I am being honored as a mother, I have to roll up my sleeves to find a way to honor her.  While I am currently entrenched in the meat and potatoes of motherhood, I have to work to find the perfect thing for other moms.  This is not unique to me, all women are put in this position (they however, may have too much class to mention it).  For generations, moms have spent their Hallmark given holiday trying to please other moms.  Instead of enjoying our day spending it in our pajamas and sleeping in, we are forced to dress up ourselves and our children and traipse the whole crew out to brunch, to please someone else’s mom.  I’m not trying to rock the boat, but am I alone in seeing the irony?