Last night at about 10:15 I found myself standing in front of the oven waiting for it to pre heat so I could bake cookies for Sophia's Valentine's Day party today. This might seem mundane to you, but as I stood there waiting for the oven to beep, it struck me as completely out of character for me.
I've always been the type of person who if I needed to bring a dessert or any kind of food to any function I'd stop at the grocery store on my way there and pick it up. I can probably count on one hand how many times I've used my oven to bake anything but chicken fingers and French fries, but here I was, on a Wednesday night at 10:15, baking cookies for Sophia to bring to daycare.
The oddest feeling was that I really wanted to do it for her. I wanted to make those cookies. Tuesday night I spent about 45 minutes filling out Valentine's Day cards and putting candy in little bags for Sophia to give to her friends for Valentine's Day. Lots of thought and love went into preparing for this silly party and I'm shocked at myself.
What is going on with me? When did I become slightly domestic… um, well, that might be an overstatement considering the three laundry baskets sitting on the kitchen floor filled with clean clothes that need to be folded and put away, but go along with me.
For a full year, I've been reading blogs by moms and dads talking about their children and how it's affected them. For the most part, I think many parents (me included) are simply crazy. Almost daily we find ourselves doing things completely out of character because of our children. But that's when it hit me that those things that were once out of character are now becoming part of our character. There was bound to be a time when I got the hang of this parenting thing enough that I'd have a little free time to do things I want to do, which more and more is becoming about things for my kids rather than with me, like baking cookies.
So, with all this weird character changing things going on in my life, I guess it's timely that my blog buddy DC Dad awarded me this:
This award shows the values that every blogger shows in his or her effort to transmit cultural, literal, ethical and personal values every day.
And, as with every award, here are the rules:
1) Accept the award and post it on your blog along with the name of the person who gave you the award.
2) Pass it on to (15) bloggers that you know who deserve it.
Like any good anarchist, I'm not passing this along to 15 bloggers, because, frankly, I don't know 15 bloggers I can send this to. So, if you read my blog and you have one yourself, give yourself this award. You deserve it because you've stuck with me even after I said I was done blogging.
5 comments:
That was a sweet post. We sat with three of our kids making their valentines last night. I was pretty tired and tempted to lay down, but there we sat, til it was done. And each one was happy :)
I bow down to you. This year I completely forgot about V-Day and the SO wound up taking the kids to buy valentines and getting their snacks for their parties. But I have done the night before baking in previous years so I'm giving myself a break for this year's lapse. :)
What an awesome and amazingly candid post. I relate on so many levels.
I've been out of the blogosphere lately, but glad I stepped back in to read this post. I have been missing my bloggy friendships I formed last summer when I started blogging in earnest and you were one of my first online friends. Glad you didn't stop blogging :).
Happy Valentine's Day!
Wow, was that a mistake, or did you really just give me one of these awards? I'll assume it wasn't a mistake, and thank you graciously.
I've thought about giving laying my blog to rest several times, but my lovely wife has talked me off the ledge several times. I haven't decided if that's good or bad, yet. Glad to see you haven't gone away, though!
That is an interesting and helpful post.
Thanks for this.
I come form http://www.successfulsingleparenting.com
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