Sometimes Mothering Looks Like Dirty Dishes

I have a clean kitchen. It’s one of the things that sort of magically happened after Elias was born. I started doing laundry regularly…I vacuum (almost) every day….I keep a clean kitchen. I mean…it isn’t “magical.” I do the work, and it gets clean. Before Elias was born, Nathan and I would let dirty dishes pile up for sometimes days before I’d get disgusted enough to clean them up. Now, I clean the kitchen after every meal. It’s just a way of having my little space of sanity I guess… when my toddler makes lots of other things crazy.

A wise woman wrote to me at my baby shower about making sure not to let chores get in the way of spending time with my child. “Time goes by fast,” she wrote. “Let laundry pile up and dishes go unwashed, and spend time with your baby.” Before I was actually a parent, I thought that would be easy. But it is easier said than done. When Elias was a newborn I didn’t have time for anything else. But now that he can entertain himself, it’s tempting to “get stuff done” while he plays.

This morning I was washing the dishes, and Elias came up and hugged my legs…you know…that way that little kids can make it so you can’t move anywhere. I looked down at him and he was holding a book. “Mama,” he said while pointing to the book. He wanted me to read him the story.

“Just a minute, Elias,” I told him, “Mama’s washing the dishes.”

Well…Elias waited about 30 seconds…and then went off to play. He went to his book box and started looking at books on the couch. The book he wanted me to read him was discarded on the kitchen floor. It took me a minute or so of watching him to realize what an opportunity I was missing. “Oh, please let it not be too late,” I thought.

I threw down my sponge and my yellow dish-washing gloves, picked up the book, and went over to read with him. Luckily, he was still happy to read it with me. We read about dozy the bulldozer about 8 times. We read a few other books. Then he lost interest and went to play with his trains.

It was bliss, though, those few minutes. He was curled up in my lap listening to me read. We pointed to parts of the pictures and talked about dozy and sea creatures and various other things in his books. His curly hair rubbed against my neck, and his cheek was so soft when I kissed it. I almost missed out. I almost missed it all for what? For dishes? (Dishes that got cleaned anyway a few minutes later when he wanted to play with his train…)

Sometimes there will be things that I just have to do…and I’ll have to deny him what he wants. But for the most part, I can do chores on his time rather than on my time. Then we’ll both get something special. We can play rocket ship blastoffs or read stories or look out the window at a passing fire truck. I learned today that sometimes mothering looks like dirty dishes. Maybe for a few minutes…maybe for a few hours….what’s most important is time with my son.

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