Move Over Amelia Bedelia

First of all, for anyone who doesn't have a clue whom Amelia Bedelia is- You need to go to the local library.......now. Growing up, she was always one of my favorites. She was the Lucille Ball of children's literature. I found her domestic faux pas hilarious. Now that I actually spend my days running a household, I find them, well, relatable. The thing about being a homemaker/mother is that there is really no prior training for the job. Talk about a learning curve. If any of you have wondered about my url name, domestic hazard, this post will hopefully explain the reasoning behind it. I know plenty of women who, at any given moment, look as though they could be appearing in a commercial for laundry detergent or Glade scented candles. There appears to be some sort of glowing aura surrounding them at all times. Their children are always happy. Their house is always sparkling and lemon-scented. There is always freshly baked bread on the counter, and often times some type of cookies or cake as well. You may not believe that these women actually exist. But I have seen them. I am not one of these women. I have a friend who can make almost anything out of a cardboard box and some toothpicks. I, on the other hand, could be given access to an entire room full of the best crafting supplies, and end up with something that looked like it had been made out of a cardboard box and some toothpicks. I have never been able to cut in a straight line ( I blame this on being completely right brained)- not cheese, not wrapping paper. The concept of scrapbooking completely eludes me; one, because it makes me feel like I am back in kindergarten, and two because there are so many widgets and cricuts and buttons and ribbons and.......well you get the picture........that my head starts to spin. I just sit there and stare vacantly. Unlike Amelia, I am actually fairly competent at cleaning, and my house is very organized ( I blame this on OCD). I have never, for example, put dust back onto the furniture ( one of my favorite A.B. domestic disasters) when asked to dust. However, I did once pour dishwashing soap, as opposed to dishwashing detergent, into the dishwasher. And it was a lot........enough to fill up the entire detergent tray. The result was very Amelia Bedeliaesque. It involved a kitchen full of bubbles and a lot of towels. The worst part?- It was in my parents' kitchen! I have also managed to give myself a black eye while canning apples.......I'll let your imagination run wild as to exactly how that one came about. But how many people do you know who inflict injury upon themselves while preserving fruit? So maybe I am a hazard to myself while inside my house, but what about outside? It turns out that when it comes to gardening, I am just a hazard to all other living things. I think plants have begun to wilt after I have merely looked at them. And when I try to "garden" ( I blame this on rare primal urges to be one with nature), I feel like one of those peasants on Monty Python and the Holy Grail, pointlessly digging for "filth". On all of these points I am sure Amelia (if only she were real, but alas.......) could commiserate with me. There is one level of domestic ineptitude, however, that even Amelia could not relate to me on. Baking. This is always Amelia's saving grace. She can completely destroy the Rogers' house, but all is forgotten the moment Mr. Rogers takes a bite of that lemon meringue pie. She also makes delectable cookies and cream puffs. And if you don't believe that all can be forgiven by a man with a cream puff in his hand, well then you have never lived with a man. Alas, I do not possess Amelia's rare ability to rectify my domestic mishaps through baked goods. Cooking I can handle. Cooking is much different. There is room for experimentation and variation. It is a very right brained task. Baking, however, requires exact measurements, and just the right "touch". I once baked a batch of bread. The recipe made two loaves. One loaf rose just as it was supposed to. The other did not. It was the same dough........cue Twilight Zone music. I can usually do semi-homemade baking; you know, if the recipe starts out with a boxed mix or some frozen dough. But baking from scratch......I may as well try to assemble a rocket and fly to the moon. I have plenty more anecdotes in my arsenal of self-deprecation, but you get the gist. Move over, Amelia Bedelia........there's a new domestic hazard in town. Aside from her ability to make heavenly pastries, Amelia did always possess one other saving quality. She had heart. She may have destroyed everything she touched, but she did it with her heart in the right place. This is a quality I would like to think I share with her. No matter how many things I blow up, flood, cut crookedly or wilt, I will never stop trying. That sort of sounds like a threat. Let's try again ( I love unedited writing). I hope that someday when my children are grown, that instead of the many batches of flat/ burnt/ abnormally large cookies that I made, they will remember all the times we sat around eating Oreos from the store and laughing so hard milk almost came out of our noses. Maybe they will not have a perfectly trimmed hedgerow to look back on when they remember their childhood home, but hopefully they will remember countless picnics at the park and trips to the zoo. The point is........I may never win any awards from Good Housekeeping, but my children will grow up knowing that I loved them enough to spend time with them, and to try, despite what could have been a crippling sense of failure, to make a nice home and life for them. Too bad Amelia Bedelia never had any children. I think she may have found her calling in motherhood.