Big Girls Don’t Cry

At the end of last week, I was flying around the kitchen, pulling dinner together for the instant pot, and went to thaw a quart of frozen chicken stock. I threw it into the microwave and hurriedly entered “666” (for seven minutes and six seconds) and that number literally broke the microwave. The light went on, the timer began counting down, but it just stopped heating.

As I write this, I confess to hiding in a corner of the house for a moment’s peace. It’s lunchtime, and I hear Mac screaming in displeasure, a bite of turkey sitting unchewed in his cheek. The past couple of weeks have been a bit of a struggle… a string of those days that you look around and think, my life’s work is cooking food people don’t want to eat, teaching people who don’t want to learn, and cleaning a house that never looks clean. Sometime after returning from Montana, I began an ambitious list of five and ten-year goals, items like learning new languages, attaining new fitness goals, being involved in new ministries, and single-handedly accomplishing renovation projects. The days that followed were so laughably frenzied, culminating in arm-length lists of “bare minimum tasks” I had not accomplished, that I have not returned to even view that list of goals. Furthermore, I honestly don’t even know if “shoot-for-the-moon-to-land-among-the-stars” is the right approach for my next ten years, or if I should just set the bar low enough so that I feel like a smashing success if everyone gets their flu shots before Christmas and no one starves. 

I am learning when to press on, and when to let go. It’s not easy. 

Nevertheless, there are always victories. Always. Even when for every victory you can count four shortcomings, failures, or tasks undone… There are always victories. So here are mine:

1. I saw Neva standing in the mirror, whispering to herself, ”You are perfect just the way you are.”

2. William wanted a bedtime snack of leftover turkey last night. This is huge, for my picky big boy. In fact, since our return, I’ve tightened up our diet enough that all the kids are happily eating healthy food they’d normally resist. 

3. I took the kids to the park two times last week. We collected brilliant leaves, made new friends, and raced each other up slides. It was less than fifty degrees and all of us were so warm from running that we ditched our coats. 

4. I worked out almost every day. Strength training? Not much of that, but I did something. I was considering my lack of lifting a failure, until I realized that the workouts I had done would’ve been incomprehensibly strenuous for me five years ago.

5. I beat Brian in chess!

6. Will is reading so well. Mac and Neva are playing together so nicely. Barrett is obsessed with porgs and snapping shrimp. At night the kids are asking for a made-up song called “Porg Time,” about fictitious Star Wars birds who befriend Chewbacca. 

7. Little by little, I’m tackling the overdue deep cleaning projects that have been under my skin. The basement is mopped and reorganized, the homeschool room has been purged and re-sorted, and the bathroom floor is finally looking new again since I discovered the right product for the weird, white, pebbly plastic tile that was looking so grungy. The Honda upholstery looks fresh, the pantry has been resorted, and I think we are over the post-vacation laundry hump. There is still so much to be done. One bite at a time. 

8. We are in Week 9 of school. I haven’t quit yet. 

See? In five years, when I read back over this post, I’ll laugh about the microwave, smile at our successes, and wonder what on earth could’ve possibly been wrong this month.