This Beautiful Messy Moment

I recently shared a snapshot on social media, depicting a moment in my life that involved cooking, writing, and mindful parenting. Later, I realized that what I shared is in the spirit of this blog, “Putting it Into Practice,” and that other writer/parent/caregiver folks out there might appreciate it in blog form.

HERE’S WHAT’S HAPPENING IN THIS PHOTO: The trash can has become a car. The water table is no longer interesting but the sponge was great fun to squeeze all over the floor. The cat has hidden in the lazy susan (which must now be kept ajar, an invitation for pinched fingers) because River is TODDLING and, naturally, lazy susans are the places a cat must go to hide. The tupperwares have become a traffic jam of pretend trucks that hum and beep and bbbbbblllllllppppp-spit across the floor. The same floor, mind you, that several minutes ago had rice and turkey zuchini poppers and vomit on it. It is 4 in the afternoon and there are sausages cooking on the stovetop for tonight’s dinner, not because it’s dinnertime, but because we are in the kitchen and now is the time that is available for cooking. The timer on the stovetop is set, not for the sausages, but for my livestream reading tonight, because if I don’t set an alarm I will likely forget to login and read a short story for the International Women’s Writing Guild and that would be embarassing enough to make me hide in a lazy susan. And through all of it, there is River’s look over his shoulder…a look that makes me flash forward into the future. The look of, “No, Mom, it wasn’t me,” and the look of, “What? You mean I’m not supposed to play with knives?” The look of “Can I really?” and “I didn’t mean to.” The look of love, of confusion, of yearning, of learning. The look that tells me I CALL ALL OF THIS WRITING. That my self-care is this sentence. That life is so much better when it’s as messy as this kitchen.