Mary Jane and Tommy, the grands, at the lavender farm
I learn a lot about myself from my grandchildren. I have become more aware of who I am, and who I want to be. For example, I learned I tend to sigh heavily a lot. My 2-year-old grandson Tommy imitated me, clenching his little shoulders then exhaling dramatically. He gleefully repeated my unattractive habit over and over, beaming at me proudly the second I recognized he was exactly right.
I find myself learning more every day from Tommy and his sister Mary Jane, mainly things about how I don’t want to me. Because of them, I try to never put myself down for my flaws or features I’m not crazy about, and there are many opportunities for this exercise. Instead, for example, I try to act like being tall is the best thing ever, and leap up from my seat or over smaller people to show how extraordinary it is to be able to reach the top shelf without a stool, often standing flatfooted and not engaging my tiptoes!
Tree branches, the star on top of the Christmas tree, things in the back seat, helium balloons wallowing about on the vaulted ceiling ... I’m telling you, I shine in this department and am trying to show this self-love to my grands.
I’m also trying to be gentle with myself, not berate myself for messing up but giving myself grace.
For example, Mary Jane and I were making a quiche together, or rather she was making it and I was assisting. I had leftover mushrooms and fresh spinach in the fridge and they needed to be used for something, so quiche was the solution. I was in charge of gathering ingredients and she was in charge of cracking the eggs, measuring the milk and other ingredients and stirring everything. It was a new recipe, and, spoiler alert, I made mistakes. She blended everything perfectly, and I poured it into the shell. It barely covered the bottom. I had forgotten the spinach! We poured the mixture from the pie pan back into the mixing bowl and Mary Jane folded in the spinach. We then poured it back in the pie pan, but then I realized I’d forgotten the mushrooms. So, we poured everything back into the mixing bowl, spinach and all, and she folded the mushrooms in.
“I’m an idiot!” “I don’t deserve to own an oven!” “What is my problem!” All of these phrases were running around in my head, and whether they are true or not, in that moment I acted like these silly careless errors are all part of cooking.
I just said an “oopsie daisy” or two and explained that we can’t always think of everything every second of the day and we need to be gentle with ourselves when we don’t do things perfectly.
And despite my mistake, I was feeling pretty proud of how I handled the situation, illustrating how to be as encouraging to myself as I would be to someone learning to cook.
But then, apparently, I sighed. Loudly and exaggeratedly. And that was a mistake.
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Ferris Robinson is the author of three children’s books, “The Queen Who Banished Bugs,” “The Queen Who Accidentally Banished Birds,” and “Call Me Arthropod” in her pollinator series “If Bugs Are Banished.” “Making Arrangements” is her first novel and is available in paperback and on Kindle. “Dogs and Love - Stories of Fidelity” is a collection of true tales about man’s best friend. She is the editor of The Lookout Mountain Mirror and The Signal Mountain Mirror.
Ferris Robinson