From Soup to Pie

(I started this the week before Matt left and brought it out to finish this afternoon.)

The Soup.  All I wanted was to make soup.  Harvest soup.  A unique, healthy recipe I attempt only once a year.  And in the brief snatches of time between meetings, Matt took the kids outside to play so I could make it.  I enjoyed the quiet while I chopped potatoes and watched onions simmer in the pan.  The smells of garlic filled the house, and I was beginning to feel hopeful about yet another evening at home, alone, with the kids--despite the mound of dishes I knew would be waiting for me after dinner.  And so I called the troops in from the chilly October outside and ladled the warm, actually-made-from-scratch dinner into my white china bowls (no paper plates for a meal such as this). 

And my expectations were high.  My domestic-self pleased.  My motherhood content with this culinary offering to my family. 

The Response. 
And Kelty emphatically said, "No, thankyou," and
Ava promptly threw her potatoes, and
Cade literally had the gag reflex at the mere smell of my
once-a-year Harvest soup.

Dinnertime did not go well.  At all.
 
The adults ate the soup, and the kids were told to make themselves peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.  Which they obediently did.  Resulting in grape jelly smeared all over the kitchen table.  And a lot of leftover soup getting cold in the pot on the stove.

Five minutes later found me in a tearful tirade to Matt after he innocently asked, "What was so disappointing about the soup?"  To which I chokingly responded with an ever-rational, "I'm just never going to cook again! (and I've accused Kelty of being dramatic) We're eating cereal until the kids get grown and leave." He made the mistake of snorting at my outburst, thus calling down on him the fullness of my emotional wrath.  "And you didn't even say 'thankyou' or that you liked it," I hissed.  "And look at this house!(The martyr syndrome was beginning to kick in.)  How can I work hard all day and it still look like this disaster? And you're leaving and I'm going to be stuck with this sinkful of dishes for a dinner everyone hated!"

And I rolled my eyes in annoyance at the baby waiting to have jelly washed out of her hair and stomped like a rebellious teenager to get a paper towel, when I heard scrapes behind me on the hardwood floors.  And so I stopped and turned around.  And my six-year-old and four-year-old had pulled their little blue art chairs in front of the sink and happily proclaimed, "We're gonna wash the dishes for you, Mom."  Smiles on their faces, a secret mission between the two of them set in motion.

And my tirade stopped.  Abruptly.

As the soap suds started to slosh, my perspective was given an about-face, a 180.  Suddenly, my perception of being unappreciated just wasn't that important anymore, nor was the disaster that was our house, nor was the large amount of leftovers I was going to force down for the next five days at lunch.  I was reminded that life isn't all about me and that true love doesn't come with expectations of recognition attached.  Two little kids with wet hands showed me the power joyful service has to change a mood, to lift a spirit, and to communicate hope. 


And so, I did exactly what you would do after such a train-wreck-soup-event, I began to nibble down a bit of humble pie for my dessert.

"Whether your feelings are mean or kind

Your attitude to life is the key.

Don't wait to be happy until things are just right.

Don't let life's little annoyances get in the way...

You can be as happy as you decide to be."

-http://www.aholyexperience.com/, from a grandmother's note

"For God so LOVED, that He GAVE . . . "

-from John 3:16, the Bible