Simply baking with Mama

Today I wanted to make some coconut flour pumpkin muffins and thought it would be fun to have the girls watch/help. Lately while I am cooking I will be holding one of the girls, obviously when I only need one hand at the moment, and talk through what I'm doing. Mostly I do that because one of the girls is being fussy and wanting attention. But, since they are getting older, I figure it's time to involve them, somewhat, with what I'm doing. It gets them exposed to cooking and I can still play with them and have fun while doing what needs to get done.

With Porter I did things a little different. I always wanted to be in control of the situation and of the messiness factor, so I would keep him occupied with something while I did kitchen stuff. I would never have dreamed of having him stand on a chair next to me at the counter at this age while I cooked, letting him play with and touch things. The control thing for me was also a factor in a lot of things that I did with Porter. I fed him myself most of the time until he was older, instead of letting him feed himself because I didn't want to have to deal with a mess. I didn't like him to play outside in the dirt too much (bad/anal, I know). I thoroughly kept track of every toy he played with and made sure it was exactly where it should be at the end of the day. In general I was just way more up tight and controlling with what I let him do. I see that now. He still had fun and was a great kid, but at the time a clean house was more important to me.

Instantly add two more kids into the swing of things and it gets a little more chaotic. I tried controlling things in the beginning but the more mobile the girls got the more sanity was being lost as I was trying to live up to my own impossible standards. Plus, if at each meal I always was having to feed each girl I myself would never get to eat. While trying to control everything I was missing out on a lot of fun and making my kids miss out too. I had to just let go. With feeding the girls, they feed themselves and they are always a big mess after. But they are having fun and I get to eat my own food. Don't get me wrong, I still clean my house and am all about having a place for everything and everything in it's place and having rules (such as no throwing food on the floor), but I'm looser with my rules/cleanliness. I don't vacuum or mop everyday, the bathrooms aren't spick and span all the time, the kids play outside and then of course bring dirt into the house (heaven forbid!), etc. But you know what, I get to spend more time with my kids and we actually have fun together. No one is going to notice if I don't dust one week or change the sheets exactly one week after the last time. And the kids won't remember that either. If I kept up with my anal cleaning/controlling then all they would remember was that mom was always in a rush to get things done and grouchy. They don't care about a perfectly clean house, they only care about hanging out with mom and having fun. It's taken me some time to realize that, and it has been a breakthrough for me to get to this point (I love a clean house and had a hard time accepting the fact that it can't be absolutely clean every single day). They are only young once and the time goes by so fast. I want to enjoy life, not see everything as a chore, although there are still a lot of chores, and things do need to get done, but not this very minute. If my kids need my attention then whatever I wanted to clean can wait. Being a mom comes before being a housekeeper.