She asked what I had done during the day and I rattled off the usual errands- grocery store, dry cleaners, post office- but when I added that I'd been to Home Depot she came unglued.
"What!? Home Depot?" she asked.
"Well, I had to get flowers for the front pots and..."
"Oh! For flowers! I thought you meant for tools or wood or something. And my mom doesn't do stuff like THAT!" and she began to laugh uncontrolably.
No, I don't usually go to Home Depot so I can see how it was out of the ordinary. But still- why does she think that Mommy can't go to Home Depot? Understandably, if I had said J Crew instead of Home Depot she wouldn't have batted an eye...but I wonder if sometimes she sees me only as another mom in a polo dress, making grocery lists, planting impatiens, doing laundry, washing dishes, etc.
When my daughter looks at me, does she only see this?
Or does she ever see this?
Granted, she knows I can do pullups and run with the best of 'em (by the way, you KNOW June was hitting the gym- look at that waist!), so she may know I am physically fit- but does she know I am capable? Does she know that if anything ever happened to Rhett I would be able to hold it all together? Maybe our larger home renovation journeys would end, but can she feel assured that I would be able to fix leaky faucets? Paint walls? Install printers? And maybe I can even do those things without breaking a nail (or whining about it).
Sometimes I wonder.
I take for granted sometimes that my own mother is a warrior in her own right. A single mom for the majority of my childhood, she did it all- cooking, cleaning, scheduling, child-rearing, AND bringing home the bacon. So much of me has always wanted to be a stay-at-home mother, and I'm thankful I am. However, I have to ask myself sometimes that if in wanting so badly the lifestyle my own mother was not able to have I have somehow negated to make sure my daughter knows I would be capable if I was ever on my own. Capable of say, going to Home Depot. In short, will she look at me with admiration for my strong character as I do my own mother, or will she see me only as a source for fashion advice?
So, when I pulled the car into the driveway, I took her out to see the screw that I drilled into her treehouse. Yes, ME. I did it. (Mainly because Rhett needed me to drill it while he pushed the board into place, but that's neither here nor there.)
"You know I drilled this, right?" I said, pointing to one small screw out of about a gazillion.
"Yes."
"Because you saw me do it yesterday. That's right, Mommy can operate power tools."
"Okay. Can I play with the neighbors?"
I don't know if the message got through to her, but I have to say that I am convinced that the whole treehouse would topple to the ground if it wasn't for the one screw that I drilled. Mommy is a super-hero, and don't you forget it.
I hope she comes to see more of Mommy being capable in the renovation stories that follow (please see the post on my shoveling the driveway from a few months ago...) In the meantime, I am going to wait on Rhett to get home so he can drill holes in the bottom of my new planters.
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