Compromises

As I get older, and hopefully wiser, I am learning that life is full of compromises.

Thursday night I was needing to bake cupcakes for FirstBorn's Harvest party today at school as well as clean up the house for BabyBoy's intervention specialist visit Friday morning. All the while the little voice in the back of my head is saying "Why do you always wait until the very last minute?"

We went to my mom's for dinner and as we were leaving FirstBorn said "But when are we going to carve pumpkins?" At this point I did not share with him that carving pumpkins was not on my to do list this year.

I posed the question to him "Would you like store bought cupcakes for your party and to carve pumpkins or would you like homemade cupcakes for your party and no carving pumpkins?" He didn't even bat an eyelash and answered "Store bought, let's go carve."

Now I would be lying to you if I said I rolled my sleeves up and attacked the pumpkins with gusto and a good time was had by all.

My feelings were hurt that all the other moms would be looking at my child with pity that *his* mom was one of *those* moms - you know the ones who buy their cupcakes instead of making them. I was not in the mood to deal with pumpkin guts and besides, I had a house to clean.

When I shared this with Mr. Steady he gave me a guy's perspective: boys don't care whether cupcakes are homemade or store bought, they just like cupcakes. And in 20 years will they remember the homemade cupcakes or the memories of carving pumpkins?

I have reconciled myself to not making myself crazy trying to give the appearance of a perfectly groomed life. The fact of the matter is my life is not perfect and most of the time it's not even groomed.

For about 1/2 hour Thursday night I thought I would just stay up late and bake those cupcakes to preserve my image. Then I decided that going to bed and getting rest was way more important to my health and my family's sanity.

The children devoured the obnoxiously colored cupcakes with gusto and none of them asked me if they had partially hydrogenated vegetable oils or high fructose corn syrup in them. And no one refused to eat them because they "only eat baked goods made with love" which I actually heard a grown woman say one time. That would be a good way to not gain weight.

Oh and the house I was supposed to clean? Mr. Steady picked up the living room while I drove the boys to school, I closed the doors in the living room and called it sufficient. Sometimes sufficiency has to be enough. Next time I will strive for excellence or maybe even perfection but for today, it's enough.