When Queens Ride By

 If you have a few minutes, sit down and read this short story entitled, "When Queens Ride By."  My cousin Emily recommended it, and it delivers a beautiful message about womanhood.  A am certainly not an advocate for either "staying home" or "working" as a wife and mother.  I've been fortunate enough to straddle that particular fence.  I commend women for the work they do, no matter how they divide their time, and it is always a question of how to divide it, when there is a home to maintain and children to care for.  The challenge is learning how to love your chosen role and find satisfaction and pride in it.  My mother taught me the domestic arts not as drudgery, but as things she was interested in.  It was never, "You're going to need to know this."  It was, "Get the sewing basket!  I have an idea!"  Because she loved to make clothes and sock dolls, cook, bake and organize, clean and decorate, my brothers and I learned those things, and it was fun. 

After I was married and still going to school, a cousin of my mom's made the comment that it was wonderful that I could do my violin work at home when I had kids.  I was offended.  I wanted to be taken seriously as a violin maker, not waste my education sitting at home changing diapers and mopping.  I had job applications in at the best violin shops in New York!  But when the first job offer came, a funny thing happened.  I could see my future so clearly:  me working on Staten Island, Scott waiting tables to support my career, all of our money going toward rent.  He was all for it, but at the expense of his next step, law school.  And five years down the road, what?  I would have my shop friends and Scott would have his late-night job and what would we be building?  I turned the job down.

Five years later, Scott had a law degree and a job.  I had a shop of my own and the confidence to run it, and we had three little girls, too.  Somehow, turning my back on my dream had helped me grow in my trade as well as at home.  I know we could have taken the New York route and things would have worked out just fine.  We would have had quite an experience, but I can't guarantee it all would have led me here, to my cozy kitchen, and to a weekend in 2010 of baking/crafting/sewing with the kids.  We went on a bit of a binge, making brownies, Martha Stewart cake houses (thumbs down!), chocolate chip cookies, bread pudding, gingerbread, Nutcracker bags, and an advent calendar by Freestone.

Not that it was all domestic bliss.  We're taking about six kids.  At one point Sunday night, I went downstairs to find Scott listening to classical music and reading in his sleek, clean theater room.  It was in direct contrast to the kitchen, with its piles of cookie sheets and fabric, spilled powdered sugar and spools of thread rolling willy-nilly across the floor. And all the noise!  I vented to Scott, "Having kids would be a lot more fun if...there weren't kids involved!"  He just laughed.  "OK, well, you have fun.  I'm using my creativity down here to imagine I'm a single guy living in a loft in New York, just admiring my theater room and listening to my awesome sound system.  Tell the upstairs neighbors to keep it down."

I said, "Oh, OK.  Let me just go get you an ascot and a martini."  Apparently the New York dream is alive and well.  It just doesn't hold a candle to the dream we're living, even if the downstairs "loft" can be pretty enticing.

 

 Freestone's advent calendar.  A Smartie with a blob of brownie on it for each day in December, dusted with powdered sugar. 

 Two domestic goddesses planning their week of carpools, childcare and wizardry.  Golda thinks we're funny.  Just wait, kid!  You'll be me someday, and you'll love it.