the (not) mama

How a new pantry made me think about a kid

So today is Valentine’s Day, which is all peachy keen, but Brian spent it at work and I spent it in the kitchen with my mother. We’ve been working on some new house projects lately, which has been not as much of a headache as I originally thought. I had a friend of mine from work build us a pantry, which has given us a tremendous amount of food storage space, and which also necessitated a reorganization project of vast proportions.

Enter my mother, Saint Valentine herself. My mom is one of those people who exudes organization by her very presence. Everything in her home, her car, on her person, is organized. Everything has a home, a spot where it belongs and lives and prospers. In my house there are piles of crap everywhere that we claim are on their way to somewhere to else – once we find that somewhere else to put it. Anyway, my kitchen is no different and so once the pantry and slide-out trash can and new dishwasher and all were in, I asked my mom to come over and help me put it all together.

It only took us like two trillion hours, but y’all…once it was done, my kitchen was a thing of beauty. And still is! Three hours later! We haven’t ruined it yet! Woot woot with me, people! BB and I pinky-promised that we’d always keep it this way, and we’ll try, we swear we will, at least for a week.

My point in telling you all of this is that a) I don’t live far from my parents and so my mother is conveniently available for these types of activities and b) I’m glad I have her and do realize how lucky I am.

As I said before, The (Not) Mama is about my indecision when it comes to childbearing. And you should know that my pro and con columns are getting dangerously long. So today, when we were up to our elbows in cake pans and plastic pitchers and flour canisters, I thought about what it would be like for me to be 58 years old and not have someone to call me on a Sunday afternoon to ask for help like this. Sure some friend or niece or nephew might call me every so often when they think about it, but will I regret not having a child down the street who needs me?

Conversely, Brian came home with an armful of Valentine tulips and took a look at the kitchen, which was apparently enough of a gift to him. We looked at it and laughed about how it probably won’t stay that way, and then we cooked dinner together and watched the Olympics. And we both were thinking the same thing the whole time: we sure couldn’t do this if we had a houseful of little ones.

Or could we?