I'm learning

There's a My Utmost for His Highest entry that talks about how the process is the goal in the spiritual life. Chambers writes, "We have an idea that God is leading us to a particular end, a desired goal. He is not. The question of getting to a particular end is a mere incident. What we call the process, God calls the goal."

Well, I think I'm learning that this isn't just true for the spiritual life, but also in parenting. Right now it's 12:56 pm, both girls are napping and I'm feeling tempted (if it's even possible to be tempted to scrub toilets) to scurry off to the bathrooms and get them cleaned before my little "helper" wakes up. Cleaning with Emery always takes three times as long, since we must account for a certain amount of sharing of the cleaning apparati, plenty of "no touches!" of the dirty toilet seat, silencing whines that she'd rather me be doing something else or paying attention to her, quick darts into the next room to confirm that Anna Kimball is sufficiently entertained and not too lonely ... and on and on and on.

I'm definitely tempted to whine here, too, because quite honestly this isn't how I'd prefer to spend an afternoon. BUT, it struck me that isn't this the point of parenting? To teach patience, cleanliness, creativity and so forth. Yes, the bathrooms will get clean, eventually, in just the same way they will get dirty again, and quickly! But maybe the greater reward and goal is that we all have learned something along the way.

This all sounds a bit pie-in-the-sky to me in a way, but at the same time, I feel I have no choice but to believe it and continue to keep little fingers off dirty toilet seats in the hopes we're accomplishing more than just a clean bathroom.

She who cooks should not clean

Matt and I went to a Family Life marriage conference in Grand Rapids this weekend, which, incidentally, turned out to be quite the spot for food enthusiasts like myself. If we had restaurants like The Green Well and Real Food Cafe in our neighborhood, well, I'm not sure I'd eat anywhere else!

We began our meal last night with an appetizer of beer braised short ribs over french fries with a cheddar truffle sauce and a dijon gravy. Then, to be virtuous, I moved onto a seven-vegetable quinoa with tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, broccoli, cauliflower, fresh herbs, arugla, onion, 2 vinaigrettes and manchego cheese. I believe seven vegetables more than compensates for the fat-laden appetizer, so I happily indulged in a dessert of challah bread french toast with butter pecan gelato and brittle.

But I digress. The marriage conference was excellent and gave us so many invaluable building blocks for marriage. I could elaborate on those principles, but I'm really not sure where to begin and I might start rambling.

So I'll just fill you in one on nugget of priceless wisdom that I gathered this morning.

Nearly all of our sessions were coed, except for this morning, when the men and women met separately. Then, we reconnected for our final, joint session, during which one of the male speakers referenced a comment he had made during the men's session. He said that the rule in his house is, "She who cooks, should not clean."

Now this shocked me a little. Not because this was a guiding principle in his house, but that Matt had not divulged this bit of wisdom to me between sessions! After all, we had about 30 minutes to debrief with one another between sessions and he had ample opportunity to share with me how wholeheartedly he agreed with the speaker's most important point.

In all fairness, Matt dutifully does the dishes after meals, unless I've made a royal mess of the kitchen and I pitch in out of guilt.

Note, the speaker did not specify, "She who cooks, should not clean the kitchen after mealtime." He kept it open ended. There's room for interpretation, don't you think?

Unfortunately I don't think I can bargain a good deal out of this one. I have a feeling Matt and my standards of cleanliness are just too different.

However, I wouldn't mind seeing "She who cooks should not clean" engraved on some kind of plaque in the kitchen or perhaps stamped into the sink. We could all use a friendly reminder, don't you think?