Mother of the Year, Or Not

When I was a kid my mom used to joke about being "Mother of the Year." Or rather, the things she did that disqualified her from that lofty status. It was all just for fun. If she didn't cook dinner or do something "motherly" she would say, "Well, I guess I just lost my bid for Mother of the Year." And we'd laugh. Don't get me wrong here. My mom was great. She did all sorts of motherly things and more. But of course no one is perfect, and often she could joke about it when she wasn't.

Some days feel like "Mother of the Year" days. You know those days when everything clicks? The TV stays off. We take fun trips, go for walks, do crafty things, and have lots of mother-daughter-bonding time. The days when I can still be calm the tenth time I say something like "No Honey, we don't pull the dog's tail/put a book on your sister's face/climb on the counter/insert toddler behavior. Come on over here and let's read this stimulating and oh-so-educational book instead." One of those the-house-is-picked-up-delicious-dinner-is-made-kiss-the-hubby-at-the-door-domestic-bliss kind of days. Okay, not quite so Leave It To Beaver, but you know what I mean. If you're a mom, you have those days when it just flows. It works. You get in your groove.

Yesterday was one of those days. It started with Miss and I making an apple pie in the morning. This was a first for both of us. Prior to yesterday my experience with making pie consisted of putting a pre-made (pre-baked even) pumpkin pie in the oven to warm it up a little bit on Thanksgiving. So yesterday I took the apples we got from the farm last Friday, got Miss all set up in her Tower, and proceeded to make pie. I did not make the crust from scratch, but we did the rest. We started by donning our aprons. I don't have a little one for Miss yet, so I took my waist-down only apron and adjusted it to fit her.

Miss's apron and mine were both made by my aunt. She has an Etsy shop, which you can check out here if you're in the market for an apron.

Miss enjoyed "helping" me wash, peel, core and slice the apples. She pretended to "wash" the cores, and she ate half of one of the apples (that one didn't go into the pie of course).

I pointed out to her that her apron had some pockets and she stocked them with apple peels.

After I zested the lemon and squeezed the juice onto the apples, Miss wanted to eat the lemon. She actually took quite a few tastes of it and didn't even make a sour face. In fact, I had to keep her from taking a big old bite of the peel, which I think she would have chowed down on if I had let her.

She kept an eye on the progress of the pie as it was baking and we were very pleased with the finished project, both in terms of how it looked and how it tasted!

The rest of yesterday was kind of more of the same. We went to the grocery store, Miss played outside with her dad, we had a good dinner, Lass was super fussy in the evening and nothing was working to soothe her until I figured out what she needed and then she was happy as a clam, and so on. It was a, "Yeah, I got this" kind of day.

Today was not so much. It wasn't a bad day. In fact, it was a just-fine day. I just wasn't on my game. Once again I woke determined to get ready and get to story time at the library. Once again, we did not get ready on time. I planned to go to the library again anyway, but I was rushing to get out the door with enough time to get to the library and browse for books before having to get home for lunch. It was after 11 when I finally got in the car with both girls and started driving to the library. And then I realized I had forgotten my wrap for Lass. I could have pulled her out of the car in the infant car seat and carried her around the library in that. But at the thought of that, I said, "Ah, screw it." And I headed for the Starbucks drive through. I got myself a decaf, venti, nonfat, no whip, 2 Splenda Mocha and drove. It was really quite nice. My girls tend to like the car and so they chill. And I chill. And it's nice sometimes to just hit the drive through. So that's how I rolled through the library too, with the drive-through book drop. So I guess I just lost my bid for Mother of the Year. Oh well. I'll try again next year :)