Baked

I'm making no-bake chocolate peanut butter cookies.  This classic childhood treat was always my dad's favorite and also one of the first things I can remember learning to cook with my mom.  My dad always seemed truly delighted to find these gooey confections cooling on the counter.

I love to let JAC help in the kitchen.  We leave a chair in the corner and when he is ready to help he drags it to the counter and stands on it waiting for instructions.  I have taught him to roll out sugar cookies with a child size rolling pin.  He can carefully slice vegetables with a paring knife or stir ingredients into a hearty stew.  Later, we do dishes together.  I wash and he rinses them and places them out to dry. 

In the kitchen I feel purposeful and calm.  Many moments during the day my patience wears thin and I am reduced to yelling but the kitchen is where I am the mom I really want to be.

This winter I fell in to a horrible slump of self doubt and general unhappiness.  JAC wanted to play Nerf gun wars every day and I was sick of it.  I refused to play.  I talked to my good friend about my parenting guilt and tearfully admitted my refusal to play Nerf gun wars or any other imagination game.  She kindly reminded me, "I might not be a imagination game mom, but I was a cooking mom."  I instantly felt relieved because while I can try to be a better version of myself I can only be myself.

I'm a mom that makes cookies on a Tuesday afternoon.  I am a mom how loves to run, ride bikes and play soccer.  I'm a mom that wants to shoot herself when faced with all games involving imagination but I'm also a mom who loves to read nap time stories and take grand traveling adventures with her son.  That is all I really need to be.