Now this is love

A mother has to brag some-times, and the woman-child deserves it. I've really been wanting to clean out my kitchen cabinets, declutter and reorganize. It's amazing how much stuff accumulates during twenty years of marriage. I mean, who really needs an indoor S'mores maker?

However, a middle aged body can only take one afternoon of stooping and crawling around on my knees before complaining quite loudly, and yesterday evening's oven cleaning did me in. So the womanchild stepped up to the plate. I should make that plates, pots, pans, cake platters, tupperware, and all the fancy crystal stuff that gets used just on the big holiday dinners. She pulled everything out of 19 cabinets, stripped the shelf liner paper, replaced it, helped me sort all of the contents and decide what to eliminate. We washed and dried everything together, and she put all the remaining contents back in a neatly organized fashion. We only have 11 cabinets left to finish.

If this weren't enough, she got in a serious tug of war over shelf liner with the cabinet monster, and it looked like it was going to win. At one point, all I could see were her legs, and they were heading deeper into the cabinet. I'm afraid that this was a severely overdue chore. Inside, she found not only spilled and dried pancake syrup, but a container of vegetable oil that had developed a messy leak. When she emerged from underneath the counter, slimy, sticky, gritty and exhausted described her best.

I had planned to do this slowly over a week's time. Making accommodations for my prodigious procrastination and lack of speed when it comes to chores I really hate, it probably would have taken two weeks. Because I have a wonderful daughter, I'm looking at two days. She didn't have to do this. She volunteered. I would have been tickled if she had just brought me garbage bags when I was doing the dirty work. As it, I'm thrilled.

Yep, I've got every right to brag. The womanchild is smart, hard working, talented, loving and funny. While I'm at it, she's awfully cute too.

teenagers
parental pride