I made frosted cookies with Kendall today. It’s not something I do very often, but I felt like, okay, it’s the holidays, we’ll bake some friggin cookies, I guess.
Bah humbug?
Listen, it’s not that I hate Christmas cookies, or even baking all that much. It’s that I HATE doing it with children trying to “help.” It could be Easter or Valentines or any other holiday cookie, or craft for that matter, I just dislike doing it alongside my child.
Judge me. Judge me hard. I am not that mother who willingly breaks out the paints, scissors and glue every day. I’m not that mother who smiles while watching the kids stir the flour and laughs when they send a plume of white dust into the air that lands all over their shirt and the floor. My life is not a Rice Krispies commercial.
Have you ever watched Martha Stewart craft with small children? She gets all jumpy and demanding. She chides them for not lining the rick-rack up along the edge of the recycled can just so. I used to judge her. How could a mother be so… unnatural with children in a setting as fun as turning an old can of soup into a pencil holder?
Oh, I get it now, Martha. I feel you. They’re messy and they don’t listen, and, seriously, how hard IS IT to just listen and put the thing on the piece it belongs and if you JUST LISTEN and SLOW DOWN you will not MAKE A MESS and OH MY GOD JUST LET ME DO IT.
Of course, that’s the dialogue playing in my head, not coming out of my mouth. I’m not that mean….most of the time. Instead, I’m all tensed up and forcing a fake smile, all the while surveying the damage and trying to covertly corral the mess. So, that’s why this is really a rare occasion around here. I get that this is a button easily pushed for me, and I avoid it as much as possible.
I joke with friends that we don’t ever paint at home because we pay his school to do that with him. Really, though? TRUTH.
I dont’ know why I’m like this. I’m a crafty person, and I’m not a neat freak. Growing up, my mother was amazingly patient and so wonderful about including us in things like this. I had the best role model for this stuff. It’s just something about the uncontrolled chaos that makes my anxiety rise and leaves me longing for a glass of red wine to wash down those freshly, messily frosted sugar cookies.
That ends this chapter in Adventures In Parenting As A Control Freak.
*Footnote: If you are an eggnog lover, you really need to make yourself some eggnog icing for your cookies.
Kendall is 3.5 years old, and he’s a really great “maker.” Hopefully he’ll be good enough to “make” things all on his own soon… and then clean them up.