Mastery

Today was a good day.

It didn't always feel that way.  At 1:30, when the toddler was crying in her bed, and the preschooler was sitting at the top of the stairs yelling, "MOMMY I'M SAD BECAUSE SISTER IS AWAKE AND I WANT SPECIAL MOMMY TIME" instead of listening to a book in her room, I was pretty sure the day would never end.

Then we had a tea party.  I blew up some balloons and watched my girls bat them around the living room. I threw some pillows on the floor in the upstairs hallway and let the girls jump back and forth across them while I folded two loads of laundry on my bed.  I let the little one smear glue aimlessly on a piece of construction paper, while the big one sorted pictures by vowel sound and I cooked smothered apple cider pork chops.

And we laughed.  And sang. And talked.

And holy crap, I wasn't awful at this.

A few months ago, Lindsay wrote a post in which she said that she admires stay at home moms because they are creative and I cringed.  I'm not creative. Does that mean I'm not a stay at home mom?

I confessed this to her because that's the kind of awkward, vulnerable, squishy relationship we have.

"You put on audio books for naps," she said. "You take your kids to classes and find activities for them. Creative doesn't mean pinterest, honey."

Today was the first day I really felt creative.

I've written before about being in survival mode.  Do you know what the next step is after surviving in Harold Wong's classroom management scale?  Mastery.  And at first, he says, you have to really think about what you're doing. You are constantly conscious of the choices you're making, but you are doing it. You know the right things to do and you are doing them.

Today, I felt like I achieved mastery.  And, man, it was hard work.  And I'm going to have a glass of wine and some pie and go to bed at 9:30.

But it's the best kind of exhausted I've felt in a while.