I think as moms we often live in the zone of “tomorrow”. There is just so much to do today and we are getting tired. Tomorrow is always there, promising more time and new energy. Like Annie, it seems we bank our hopes that the “sun will come out tomorrow”.
The bad news is that tomorrow just keeps hopping ahead one more day, and some very important things keep getting scheduled for “tomorrow”.
Louisa had asked for cooking lessons for several YEARS! (Gosh, it hurt me to write that! Could I really have put her off for years?!)
I had some grandiose ideas:
- recipe cards in a cute flip-top recipe box
- little 3-ring-binder that we add one recipe at a time as she learned to cook
- vocabulary terms
- discussion of cooking utensils and equipment
- healthy sweet recipes that we invented together
- a syllabus and a plan with weekly hour lessons where we focus on quick breads, then soups, salads, breakfast foods, etc.
- fun, hands-on nutrition lessons
- a cooking class with friends
. . . ah, need I go on?
Dreaming, dreaming!
Better to do a little than nothing at all. If we wait to pull things together and do them up right, then very often NOTHING happens. It is scheduled for that ever-fleeting “tomorrow”.
So, one day when she was 10, I called Louisa in from play and said, “I want you to follow the recipe and make Cabbage Banana salad for dinner. I’ll help you if you need me to.” Nothing grandiose. No organization or cute recipe cards needed. Just spur-of-the-moment, practical stuff.
She didn’t feel confident but the salad got done and a little bonus is that the other family members gave her some kudos for it. And another bonus is that I got a direly needed reminder to myself that it doesn’t have to be done exactly right as long as it is generally edible. She felt good about her effort! Next day I had her make Broccoli Tree Salad. And the following, it was Spinach Salad. Eventually I assigned her a weekly “dinner night” in which she planned the entire meal and had it ready on time.
These were not the cooking lessons I dreamed of giving her. . . boo hoo! But my spur-of-the-moment hands-on lesson was realistic, I could manage it right then. Little by little, day by day, she learned and made the metamorphosis into the capable cook she is today!
Don’t wait for that elusive tomorrow. Let the sun come out . . . today!
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I always keep my recipes on my computer. When our oldest son moved out I printed all of his favorite recipes (and a few that I knew he could try on his own) and put them in a 3-ring binder along with a "staples" shopping list tucked inside of the front cover. Now whenever he wants to cook one of his favorite meals, he has the recipe.
I love spending time in the kitchen with my children ~ baking, cooking, doing the dishes, whatever. This time spent together (espeically when it's one-on-one) is precious time. And throughout the process of teaching my children the recipes, they have learned what the abbreviations mean, how to convert recipes, where everything is kept in the kitchen, how to properly use the utensils/tools, etc. It becomes so much more than a cooking lesson ~ math and science get included too. And it build confidence in them ~ so that when they finally do move out on their own, cooking is not a big issue.
Thank you so much for the reminder!!
I too have many grandios plans and dreams that haven't seemed to have gotten done and I needed to remember to live in today not in tomorrows. Thank you!
You are so right! That is exactly me- the dreamer of perfection- and nothing can get done because the time and energy required for my "perfect plan" never comes! Better little than none! Thank you!
Thank you, thank you for this advice. You have mentioned this before, and there have many days where I have done art or history projects in less than a perfect manner and the kids still learned lots and had fun.
It's so important to do what we can each day because the time to teach children is so short.
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! This was just the reminder I needed today!