Field of Daisies

Pressure Cooker Living

Here's another story from the vault. This one was written when our son was four-and-a-half and our daughter was nearly two. My how times have changed already!

Pressure Cooker Living

When I was a child my mother often canned fresh fruits and vegetables. I remember her always shooing me out of the kitchen for fear that something would offset the delicate balance of the pressure cooker causing the lid to blow. That's how I feel today.

"Pardon me, do you have Nuclear Calgon?"

I realized recently that I'm always being pressured by outside forces. Either I'm in a rush to take my four year old son to preschool or I'm hurrying to pick him up. I'm either frantically throwing food on a plate for my one year old before she explodes into a million pieces, or I'm frantically trying to load the dishwasher before she can get a sharp utensil or a breakable plate out of it. Whatever the case may be it seems I'm always frantic.

Usually the scenario is like this: Jenna is crawling around the floor grabbing onto my pants leg whining as loudly as she is able. Zachary, hearing the noise, decides this is the perfect time to ask for or demand something---repeatedly. Or, he feels if someone else is making noise, he too should be scaling some decibels. About this time the microwave timer goes off. Then the oven timer goes off. The phone rings. The UPS man knocks on the door. My head is pounding, my nerves are raw. The delicate balance is teetering. This pressure cooker is about to blow.

It's usually at times like these that I hear those words from the old TV commercial: Calgon take me away! But Calgon isn't big enough for this job. It's going to take more than a bubble bath to keep this cooker from blowing!

Needy Times Three--Plus One

It's not that my life is any harder than anyone else's. My life is good. Most of the time I'd even say it's great. I have a sweetheart of a husband and two beautiful children. We own our home. We live in a quiet neighborhood in the suburbs of a posh southwestern metropolis. The problem is that I'm always rushing to meet someone else's deadline, whether it be the preschool bell or my daughter's hungry cry. When finally the rush is over and the house is quiet after the kids' bedtime, that's when the other timer goes off: this time it's my husband's expectations that pull me from my thoughts or activities. I love spending time with him, so that's not the issue. What I'm talking about here is the unseen pull; the silent alarm if you will. They can't be seen or heard with the naked senses, but the effects are real within me. It's time to meet someone else's needs.

Not only are there outside forces that act upon me causing me stress, but I have my own inner timetable complete with deadlines and expectations. The electric company expects to be paid on time. If I'm late with the payment, I have to pay a fine. I have made commitments to my MOMs group, there are phone calls to make, coupons to clip, birthdays and anniversaries to keep up with, insurance problems to straighten out, a weekly Bible study for which to prepare. Not to mention the more mundane things like dirty laundry to be washed, dried, and put away, beds to be made, house to be cleaned, groceries to be bought.

So where do I fit in?

On top of all this, I must find time for personal hygiene. Yes, I'd like to shower or bathe at least once a day. I'd like to brush my teeth and get dressed before noon. I'd like to sit down in the morning and have a cup of coffee in peace. I'd like to have time to exercise daily without having to get up before dawn to do it.

I've got projects I'd like to complete. Things that are just for me. But there aren't enough hours in the day to meet everyone else's needs and mine.

I know this time is temporary. Soon the kids will be grown and I'll be wishing for a little of that whining and demanding that drives me crazy now. I'll have all the time I want for myself and my activities and I'll probably spend it looking through pictures of when the kids were little. . . .

Life is ironic isn't it? We want what we want when we want it, and when we get it, we want what we had before. It helps to focus on the way time passes. To look ahead to the day when I'll be looking longingly back to this time . . . . Or maybe not! Perhaps I'll be so relieved to be a grandmother I won't miss having two small children that need constant care and attention. Right now, grandparenthood is looking awfully appealing!

Three P's and a Shoo

For now the pressure cooker has cooled. We made it through another day when the lid didn't blow. Of course there are no guarantees that it won't blow tomorrow. But with a little preparation and planning and prayer, and a lot of shooing the kids out of the kitchen, we might just make it through another day.

Come to think of it, I wonder if it was really because of the pressure cooker that my mother shooed me out of the kitchen all those years ago. I'll have to ask her about that now that she's a grandmother.

Posted by at June 5, 2004 11:37 AM