Good Enough

Today was going to be sweetness and light and honey and a thing of beauty and a joy forever in terms of the absolute amazingness in which I was going to be as Mommy.

I would start off by singing "Good morning" to my precious progeny when they entered my sleeping haven. Then I would give them breakfast wide awake, (perhaps curtesy of some strong coffee)as I smoothly floated about the immaculate apartment, gathering things up for gan and preparing perfectly balanced lunchboxes. The baby, already (mysteriously, now that I think about it) fed, would gurgle happily on his mat. Angels were going going to sing, too, I think, and maybe sprinkle down gold coins and fat-free muffins.

But Princess too, awoke with a dream. She too was determined as she gazed into the unknown future. She was going to definitely, no matter what, cry and tantrum the whole morning through.

It started at 4:30. The day, that is, started at 4:30. The girls were up and eating yogurt before the sun even got his pants on. 4:30 is not really my hour of glory, I must admit. I prefer to spent it drooling on a pillow, truth be told.

Outdoorsman, bless his soul, got up with them, and I kept drifting off to sleep between poundings on my door and spilling of aforementioned yogurts for the next hour. 5:30, Outdoorsman was off to shul and I sailed out of bed and took a deep steadying breath.

"Good morning, girls! Who want to get dre--Coco-pop, off the baby. Who wants to get--"

"Ima! Can you pour us orange juice and also I spilled my yogurt on my shoes."

"Ima, Princess doesn't let me use the glue."

"Ima, Coco-pop is using the big scissors and I told her you don't let and she didn't listen."

"Ima, Princess pulled my hair!"

"Ima, Coco-pop is yucky!"

"Ima, the baby is crying."

So he was. And so were they. And there was a huge pile of laundry that I forgot to fold from last night that was being used as--well, not exactly sure as what, but it entailed the used-to-be-clean articles of clothing being dragged through puddles of semi-dried yogurt.

I tried. I did. The angels laughed, though, and kept their singing talents and gold coins and fat-free muffins for themselves. And I'm afraid I said something to the effect of, "She gets it from your side," in rather a hiss when Outdoorsman came home for breakfast.

The apartment is in shambles, my nerves shot, and Princess went off to gan in tears.
And I'm rereading my first paragraph here and here's a thought--maybe she gets it from my side.

I mean, really. Why can't I pray and aim for a GOOD morning? Why does it have to be perfect or nothing? And I see the same look in Princess' eye when something doesn't go her way--okay, might as well let it all out. Day's ruined anyway.

Why can't I aim for a decent start and for everyone to be mostly happy? I can't sing first thing in the morning anyway, I would scare small sparrows out of the lemon trees.

I see it in Princess when she doesn't understand something on the first try, the frutration and the automatic reaction to give it up as a bad job. That's the reason I flunked math in school--it didn't come as naturally to me as the english subjects, so drop it. Why do soemthing if you can't do it perfectly?

Is this what I am passing on to my kids? Don't bother if it's not going to be guaranteed perfect?

Tomorrow, I will be pretty good. I will be good enough.

And the good-enough angels will sing mostly on key for me. And drop agurot and 95% fat free-muffins.