Sorry, Life Got In The Way

I've been meaning to write for the past week, but life happens.  Nothing major, just the little things--an errand here, a craft there.  Dinner, the dog, laundry.  It wouldn't be a problem, but I've been noticing lately (okay, pretty much for the past 9 years) that I don't let life get in the way, I seem to PUT life in the way. 

What I mean is this--before I can sit and cuddle or read or draw with my daughter, I've got to vacuum up the dog hair.  Before I can build the next great Star Wars gun ship with my son, I've got laundry or the bills.  It's not that I don't want to do these things (I do!, I do!), its that I want everything else 'perfect' before I do them.  For some reason I seem to think that "it" will all be better if I sit down to do these things in a clean house, glowing with soft candle light and smelling of lavender and Beef Bourguignon.

I think part of it comes from this self-induced perception that I don't pull my share of load at home.  I work outside the house, my husband inside the house.  And I get worried that I'm putting it all on his shoulders--the house, the kids, the dog, etc.   The reality is that we've got a pretty equitable split of the load that is life:  he does the dishes, I do the bills.  Everything else gets done as we do it--sometimes its me, sometimes it's him.

I think part of it comes from another thing that is self-induced--the dream of perfect motherhood.  I know, I know...I can hear the cackles  and guffaws already.  There is no such thing--and if there were, would we know it when we saw it?  I don' t think so.  Perfection, much like beauty, is totally in the eye of the beholder. 

And let's face it, on this subject, my eye is totally skewed because no matter how much I may want it to happen, there is no way my kids would sit up after a marathon game of Monopoly and say, "This was perfect because the floors were so clean they reflected the candlelight, and the Chopin during my drive to build on Park Ave was instrumental in my success--and finally mother, the repast of French chocolate and Ladyfingers really helped me deal with being sent directly to jail, without passing Go and collecting $200."

It's just not going to happen. Ever.  Unless they read this and then mock me about it over the Thanksgiving break.  Now that would be perfection in their eyes.  Good enough.