He adores cooking and always has. If you come to the house he will likely ask you if you would like a fried egg or maybe some pancakes. It brings him genuine and pure joy. 

He was standing at the counter mixing up cinnamon pancakes for a friend of mine who had come to visit. He was so proud of himself and absolutely glowing. Pancake batter ended up all over the stove and the counter as he was looking at my friend and not his bowl that he was mixing in.

“Come on” I said to him.

I instantly cringed. Why was I acting like this? First, I hate that phrase, and when the boys use it on me I get annoyed. I find it a passive aggressive phase and here I was using it. Not only was I using the phrase, I had a ton of tone in my voice. I was making my own skin crawl. Second, he is a child and was just enjoying cooking. Cooking isn’t meant to be perfect, it is one of the reasons I love it. It is meant to be exploring and learning and here he was exploring and learning, yet I was annoyed. 

It wasn’t until an hour later when I was standing in a hot shower that I realized why I was acting like this. Part of my job is to hold space for other people, it is something that I love doing. I was getting too caught up in my work. I was giving too much of myself to my clients and as a result I didn’t have enough for myself and my beautiful boys. I had bandwidth for others but not for us. As I stood in the shower allowing water to wash over me, I cried. I needed to cry. I needed to feel this deeply so I could fix it. These small people are my whole world, yet I was giving them my leftovers. It was ok that I was crying, actually, it was needed. 

I wasn’t sad that I was seeing this. I certainly was sad that I was doing it, but I wasn’t sad that I was seeing it. I was grateful that I had the opportunity to see it and shift and change. Without seeing it, I would have a hard time changing but because I could see it I had the opportunity to be different, to do different, to do better.