the little things

Last week I had a rare couple of hours to myself with nothing planned and no boys. I had wanted to run a few errands and thought it would be fun to stop in Michaels and just browse. Wrong. Here is my text conversation with Heath while I was at Michaels:

M: I am sorry I am such a failure wife and mommy.

H: What the heck?

M: I am at Michaels.

H: Oh. I see. And then he text me mushy gushy stuff that I will save you all from encouraging me otherwise.

I then went to pick up Brev at pre-school and shared my angst with two close girlfriends. They looked at me like I was a little crazy. Definitely warranted. One of them said Jill, I can teach you how to sew if that will make you feel better. And my response was But I don't even really want to sew or craft or...

As I chatted with girlfriends throughout the week I found that I wasn't alone in how a place like this could make a woman feel instantly incompetent.

I ask YOU...What is up with that? Women feeling like they are lacking in ALL things wifely and motherly simply from walking into one store? Where does it come from?

The story continues. Our summer flowers had bit the dust and I wasn't quite ready for our outside space to look so empty already. Prior to this one store drama, I had the idea of decorating our patio for fall, you know with hay bales, corn stalks, pumpkins.

Later that same day I mentioned to Brevin that we should go for an adventure looking for the above items. Seriously people, you would have thought I told him we were going to Disney World.

In a 43 second span he was all like Mama, that is a GREAT idea! I love when we go on adventures! I love to decorate mama, thank you. I will make a plan!

I loaded Brevin up and off we went. I brought the little white board for him to make his plan on. Everywhere we stopped, he shared what we were in search of and that we were on an adventure. We ended up finding two farms just north of us with all of the items for sale. We picked out the perfect pumpkins, watched the farmer bring our 3 hay bales and found out that corn stalks are super long. We got home, took out the wheelbarrow and started to unload. We quickly found out that I had slightly over done it with 3 hay bales as they are a tiny bit smaller looking at the farm than on our town home patio. We set things up just so. Brevin wanted to sit out and look at our new decorations all night long.

So what did I learn? My day went from a 1 to a 10. I learned I am not a failure because of all the things I do not do. I could have driven to Timbuktu and back looking for hay bales if it meant chit chatting with Brevin, talking about his dreams for our patio and to see his excitement for the little things. To spend this precious precious time with my 4 1/2 year old doesn't even compete with the time sink that is Michaels and all its darned crafts.

I also learned that this is something I need to keep on learning. I will feel like a failure again, I will be lured into all the things that need to get done, but I hope that I can stop myself faster and get in the car, make a plan and look for hay bales.