Just for Today, I Was a Superhero

A while back, one of my boys asked those of us gathered around our dinner table, "If you could choose any superpower, what would it be?"  A variety of answers was given: being invisible, being super-fast, being able to fly, and so forth.  But my answer was a little different.

"If I could," I told my family, "I would have the ability to clone myself whenever I wanted.  When I needed an extra me, I could create a clone; and then when I was done with it, I could just reabsorb it into myself.  That way, I could be two places at once, doing two things at the same time.  And then, maybe, just maybe, I could actually accomplish all that I feel like I should be doing!"  :)

It's true: I often wish that I could be sitting on the couch, doing a reading lesson with Shav, but instead I'm in the laundry room, dumping yet another load of dirty clothes into the washing machine.  Or as evening approaches and I'm in the kitchen making supper, I wish I could simultaneously be in the living room helping David practice violin.  Or when I'm reading aloud from Farmer Boy to the kids, I'm thinking how helpful it would be to have another me upstairs sorting through Josiah and David's outgrown clothes.

How much more productive I could be if I could only split myself in two!  ;-)

Well, today...drumroll, please...I did.

I know it's hard to believe--I mean, I'm not really superhero material--but on the 10th of March in the year 2015, I was able to actually reach that elusive goal of cloning myself.  And my, what a productive day it has been!!  ;-)

What?  You don't believe me?  You think I must be pulling your leg?

Oh, alright, I'll tell you what really happened.  ;-)

The oldest daughter of our next-door neighbors has been staying with another Old Order Mennonite family, helping them with their greenhouse business, so she hasn't been available to help me with some housecleaning like she occasionally did last fall.

I'VE MISSED HER.  :)

While chasing our delinquent dog around the neighborhood yesterday, I spotted Rosalie on her front porch and chatted with her long enough to find out that she was going to be around for a few days; and the lightbulb came on in my head.  Maybe she could come and help me today!

Indeed she could, and indeed she did--thoroughly cleaning both bathrooms and Moriah's room and my room, vacuuming the floors of most of the other rooms, and mopping the kitchen floor.  I, meanwhile, had taken the day off school (teacher workday, you know) ;-)--but that's not entirely accurate because Josiah and David did quite a bit of independent schoolwork, so it wasn't even a wasted day in that regard.  But I laid aside my schoolmarm hat and did other things...like lots and lots of laundry, putting away things in my bedroom, gathering up a bunch of stuff to drop off in town tomorrow at a thrift store, overseeing the boys as they did jobs like carrying in wood and taking out trash and sweeping the porch and cleaning fingerprints (and pawprints) off doors and so forth, and generally working at all the tasks that are necessary for the successful maintenance of a home and family!

It was a marvelous sensation to know that, while I was folding clean socks and underwear, the tub was being scrubbed--and scrubbed well.  It was encouraging to be working in my room, digging the things out of my closet that I wanted to donate, and seeing Rosalie dusting the top of the armoire in Moriah's room--a task I don't get to in my good-enough-is-good-enough routine (ahem! "routine" might be too optimistic of a word to use there) cleaning.  It was wonderful to be putting away the Christmas candles I took out of some of our windows (a task I delay until springtime when open windows are near, because I LOVE the look of candles in the windows and I figure winter needs that extra bit of cheer, long after Christmas has departed!) while the kitchen floor was being given a good mopping.  It really was like having a clone for a short time!  ;-)

To tell you the truth, it was probably even better than having a clone because Rosalie, with her youth and vigor and experience in the homemaking arts, not only worked skillfully, but also worked quickly.  Even if I could have cloned myself, I probably couldn't have gotten as much done as we were able to accomplish today.  ;-)  And anyway, the conversation was better than it would have been if I had only been talking to myself.  ;-)

It's not unusual for me, at this time of the year, to be hit with a feeling of "I am so behind in everything and I will never ever get caught up."  I've gone through this enough times to know that, as extracurricular activities finish up in the next month or two and as our formal schoolwork gets checked off and we wind down our homeschooling to switch into summer's easier pace, I will feel differently.  The closet that I never seem to find the time to organize has a much better chance of being worked on in May than it does in March.  The laundry mountain that seems unclimbable this month will likely shrink to a molehill by the time we turn the calendar to June.  This feeling I've been fighting against recently of being hopelessly overwhelmed will almost certainly diminish as the weeks go by.  It's just how the cycle of the year seems to be for me.

But oh, what a delight to already have a sense of "my head is above water! I just might make it!", and it's not even the middle of March!  ;-)  I feel like my clone....errrr, Rosalie gave me the helping hand that I needed to climb out of the housekeeping hole that I was stranded at the bottom of.  Oh, what a feeling!  :)

I'm not a superhero anymore.  Tomorrow it will just be me, trying to keep up with all the spinning plates--and almost certainly, dropping a few along the way.  But at least--AT LEAST--for today, I was granted the gift of having my superpower dream come true.

Maybe the next time the boys ask me what superpower I want, I'll wish for the ability to fly.  ;-)