Mama-Come-Lately

So fascinating, right?

Years ago I read the excellently entertaining memoir Julie and Julia, wherein the author makes every recipe in Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking. One of the earliest chapters is all that’s really stuck with me. I believe it’s the one where she makes a simple potato-leek soup.

Actually, I lied. It’s not the chapter that’s stuck with me. It’s one thought within it: simple is not the same thing as easy. I can’t recall whether the soup turned out well (part of the fun of the book is that some of her efforts are not successful, so we readers get the thrill of struggle and failure without the effort). I suspect it didn’t, because of the nugget I remember.

Simple is not the same thing as easy.

I think of this sometimes when I’m in a parenting struggle — like getting my son to brush his teeth before bed. It’s simple, right? Brush your teeth, I’ll come floss and check a couple of spots, and then we can read. No. Simple, but not easy.

Why, you ask? Clearly, you are either not a parent, or have robots for children. Bedtime is bedlam, friends. Everyone is tired and just wants to go lay down or go get a glass of wine. And there are so many fascinating things between the bedroom and the bathroom. Heck, there are so many fascinating things IN the bathroom. Last night it was the washcloth I’d hung up to dry.

After the third or fourth time I’d asked The Boo to get started on brushing, he picked up the damn washcloth and just… looked at it. And I thought about what to do. Getting angry doesn’t help, even though anger is often what I feel at times like this. So I took a deep breath (oxygen DOES help) and went with logic: “Honey, more time brushing means less time reading.”

I’d like to say he responded to that immediately, but he didn’t. It still took a while before he decided to start brushing his teeth, so we spent less time reading, and he was not happy about that. Simple.

But not easy.