I BET YOU DIDN’T KNOW THIS, but if you put a straw in your cup with your elbows, you’re probably going to spill the smoothie on the couch. My daughter taught me this. She’s quite unique. Her creative 3-foot-high self is always doing things in ways I never would have tried:
• Kneel-walking through Walmart.
• Brushing her chin with a toothbrush. (It really cleans the pores.)
• Blowing bubbles in the toilet. (I mean, the water’s always there for the playing.)
• Oh, and let’s not forget that watering a garden most certainly means watering yourself and any innocent bystander as well. (Sorry, Amazon delivery guy!)
Truthfully, my life would be a lot less adventurous without my 2-year-old’s (almost 3) constant creativity.
MUFFIN MIXUP
I was in the kitchen making muffins when my sleepy-eyed baker wobbled in from her afternoon nap. Seeing that I had all the bowls out, she said, “I help!” So we pulled up her handy-dandy helper-stool-counter-stair thingy (I highly recommend this for anyone with littles), and we began to measure out the ingredients. She loves the scooping/pouring of the whole baking process and loves tasting every ingredient that goes into the bowl even more.
As she was scooping the baking powder, I realized that each scoop we were counting was getting more and more full until her last tablespoon was equivalent to ¼ cup. I said, “Remember to swipe it off before you pour,” and I grabbed the tablespoon just in time to swipe before we’d end up with super acidic muffins. She got a bit huffy and said, “I all done.” She climbed off her stool to play with her baby dolls.
I stood there for a minute not knowing how to handle this. Clearly, I was teaching her a great life lesson on measuring baking ingredients to get the perfect muffins every time, and she didn’t want to learn.
I know there are those of you who are on different sides of the issue:
a. Some are saying, “She just let her daughter quit something when she didn’t like the way it was going.” Yeah, I did. No excuses here.
b. Others might say, “But you had to teach her how to do it properly or she’ll forever be making acidic muffins!” to which I would completely agree. There’s a correct way to measure, amiright?
c. And others will say, “Ehh, she’s 2—let her discover a love for the art of baking, let her make the mistakes and learn from them; she’ll eventually learn on her own!” Well, I thought of that too.
Seriously, y’all, I had all of these thoughts in 2.5 seconds. It’s crazy how the mom brain works. But I think what stood out the most to me was a feeling. A feeling that I made my daughter so miserable with my “correcting” that she didn’t want to bake with me anymore. And yeah, she’s not even 3 and she had just woken up from a nap and hadn’t had a snackie (we live by that snackie schedule). There are lots of reasons she could have quit before we finished the job, but it shook me.
MASTER MICROMANAGER
It shook me because of my childhood, when my dad would micromanage every aspect of whatever I was doing. It drove me crazy and drove quite a wedge in our relationship that we are still working through today. (Healing is a journey!) Those feelings of “I can’t do anything right” from childhood all came flooding back like a tidal wave. And then I realized something.
I do this to my husband too. I’m constantly in his work (because, hello, it’s ministry, and the expectation/need/desire is for us to be a #PowerCouple serving together). And it’s not all a bad thing. We really do complement each other. He’s a fantastic listener; I’m really good at making a list and getting things done. He’s great at preaching; I’m great at visiting and making people muffins—despite my 2-year-old’s attempts to
overmeasure things. He’s thoughtful and educated and sooo romantic; I’m good at getting things done.
Are you seeing a pattern here? I live fast; he lives life slow. I see how much I can cram into my day—I literally have been fighting insomnia, so I got up at 3:30 this morning after two hours of “trying to go back to sleep.” And I’ve had the most productive morning all week! He’s still in bed and will probably get up around 6 and start with some devotions before heading to the gym.
We are complete opposites in so many ways. But that’s what really balances us out. He helps me enjoy life under a cottonwood in a hammock. I keep him on track with my impressive lists. #Balance
Sometimes my aggressive helpfulness isn’t as appreciated as I’d like. A few months ago I reached out to the GC Spouses Facebook Support Group (a resource that never lets me down!) asking for advice to help my very busy, very introverted husband do more visitation.
I had hoped this group would come back at me with a myriad of stories and lists of steps of how to get this done. That did not happen. In fact, they came back with the most eye-opening realization I had had in quite some time. God made Dominick introverted. He called him to the ministry as an introvert who connects very well one on one. He didn’t call him to pastoral work to make him an extrovert. In fact, he called him to show the beauty of being an introvert—and there is so much beauty in the thoughtfulness of an introvert. He called him to a three-church district that keeps him very busy. He called. Not me. And my expectations and “helpful lists” were more my way of grasping at control than of being a helpful partner in ministry.
Well, that was a big old piece of reality pie that I didn’t enjoy eating. But the story doesn’t end there. I sent my husband an incredibly emotional email. Like ugly cried while writing the whole thing. It was honest and raw and a bit discombobulated, but I had to get my feelings out on paper.
When he came home from work, we sat on the couch for over an hour and fleshed out our feelings and came to a place of beauty through boundaries. Now I still have a deep-rooted desire to control things (and my lists are definitely here to stay), but I am more self-aware, and it’s because of the honesty of some supportive pastors’ wives who have lived through the muck and are willing to share their life with me. After all, if we have to live through the highs and lows of ministry, it’s nice to know we’re not alone.
Oh, and as for the muffins, next time I’ll just let her scoop as much baking powder as she wants. #YOLO
