origamimami

so this morning i was getting the boys ready for school...well, nagging them to get themselves ready.
taylor came into my room and sd, "Mom, i need to make 3 origami frogs bcs i told 3 friends i would bring them each one". i sd, "get in the shower, and i'll do it"... so he did, and i...TRIED. how hard could an origami frog be?? i looked up online and saw some "for kids"... but they looked too basic. then i found this really cool one listed as "easy"....  and it is super cool bcs you actually "blow" up the belly! so that's the one i settled on. i got my paper and the instructions and got 3 folds into it when i realized i couldn't do it. i called out to taylor in the shower, "taylor, i don't think i can do this...it's really hard" and he cried back, "MOM! I NEED THEM!! YOU CAN DO THEM!!"...alright already, REGROUP...so i tried w/a new paper. same thing. i tried folding differently than i had the first time. anyway, 15 futile attempts later, after modifying from the "easy" one, to the "basic one" to a giraffe and finally finishing w/a horse (hey! it can do somersaults!....well, it's SUPPOSED to do somersaults)... i presented to tay. "nah. i can't take THAT to school mom. it doesn't even work". defeated, i surrendered.
while attempting my feat, i remembered back to a day when i had come home to my mom and sd that "we are going to make frog skirts". obviously she knew that "we" meant "her" bcs I couldn't sew a straight line. i remember her pulling me away from my friends and saying that she didn't ever want me to volunteer her to do things like that up front of my friends again. and then she begrudgingly set to work making dark green corduroy circle skirts and then sewing frogs on the pockets. hand-drawn, hand-cut out, and machine stitched using the old-fashioned sewing machines that aren't computer programmed. as i folded each paper this morning, i felt guilty for having promised my mom's time to something so trivial to her. i wanted to call her, 35 yrs later and apologize. but as i reminisced abt the skirts, something inside of me changed. SHE actually DID the skirts! and they turned out FABULOUS!! and me and grazynka LOVED them!! i, on the other hand, failed epically, to the tune of pinterest fails (note: no 'after' photos). what I did for my mom HAD to boost her self-esteem!! what taylor did for me, plummeted mine. after all, it's just a stupid paper folding frog! yes, my mom owed me. so i didn't call and apologize. one of these days, maybe SHE'll call ME and say "thank you for challenging me up front of your friends... bcs of that, i learned that i am fully capable of making something awesome out of a pile of scraps". :) yea, i'll wait for that call....

:)