Being Mommy is rough

I had to call Mom a few days ago and go all clothes-rendy for crimes I committed in childhood. After spending hours working with Sam on this six-page paper for school, I am now way more aware than I ever wanted to be that I was a little snot when I was a kid. As much as I can look back on those projects I had to do with loathing and aggravation, I can now state with firm resolve that being on the parent side of the equation is MUCH, MUCH HARDER. I mean, I now get all the fun of walking through each and every tedious step of the work, plus with added vitriol being heaped upon me along the way! And when the insults ease up, the whining…oh, the whining!…kicks into high gear. Of course, the project is a lot of hard work, but he’s more than equal to the task; he’s just reluctant to pick up his axe and head for the woodpile. I know that. I’ve been there. I can, with technicolor clarity, recall shrieking at Mom when she sat at the kitchen table and worked with me over a stack of papers about Denmark. And now I’m completely mortified about that, and I know Sam will reach the same level of mortification someday when his own homework-burdened children wail like some breed of pencil-hurling banshees. That doesn’t ease the moment much.

And to top it off, we got backed into a corner with other assignments and obligations, and now we’re probably going to have to skip Scouts tonight in order to reach the next checkpoint along the path of this project (a second “sloppy copy,” complete with illustrations, due tomorrow). So much to do, and so little time to do it all…isn’t that the story of life, though?

But this afternoon, Sam’s at school, and it’s a rainy day that’s inspired Gabe to do quiet things around the house. I’ve baked pumpkin, not for any particular reason except that I had a can of pumpkin and a need to smell something comforting. It didn’t let me down. Just imagine that I’ve put a picture here; it doesn’t photograph well, but you can’t take a photo of a smell, anyway, or of a flavor.