Women of Power

This week the women around here have proven themselves. My mom spent the week taking care of me; she loaded and unloaded dishes repeatedly, changed diaper after diaper for two, tolerated my toddler, cooked delicious and nutritious meals three times a day, cleaned my bathroom, did at least one load of laundry per day, scrubbed the floors, stocked my pantry, provided emotional support, was my personal seamstress, even polished my toaster, and the list goes on. In sum, she was everything but the wet-nurse. (That was my job).

One evening she lamented that my vacuum cleaner wasn't working, otherwise she'd vacuum the rugs and stairs. I had already made several attempts to unclog the hoses, had even attempted flushing them with water, and was at a loss for what else could be wrong with it. My friend Julie was here and volunteered her vacuum-repairing skills. In a matter of 15 minutes, and with the aid of a screwdriver and a long wooden pole, we had removed a large soggy hairball (gross) and a plastic outlet cover from the hose, and thereby had a fully functional vacuum cleaner. That was certainly a women-of-power moment for all of us, even if all the credit goes to Julie.

One of the requests I had made of my mom for this week was for her to make decent curtains for the kids' room. She kept saying that curtains were an easy, single-day project, so I busted out my sewing machine and set her to work. We picked out a fun, colorful plaid decor fabric, and she fairly easily made four panels for the main window. But the architectural half-circle window at the top was a bit of a challenge. This window was the most important of all to cover, since uncovered it causes the room to bake by mid afternoon, and Leah would often complain that the lights were on at nap time. It was obvious that generations of residents have tried tactic after tactic to make some kind of window covering stay in place, as there was evidence of several types of tape and even Velcro adorning the window frame.

After entertaining many theories about possible ways to cover this window, we (or I should say, Mom) settled upon a flexible rod with brackets to hold it in place. The curtain itself is a long rectangle with two casings, gathered at the bottom...simple enough, right? This portion of the project took several days and a return trip to the fabric store, but it is quite a victory as the installation

instructions were completely useless and mom basically invented the curtain on her own. Kudos to you, Mom! You are a woman of power!

So what did I do this week to be a woman of power? Does baking bread count if you make it in an automatic breadmaker? I didn't cook or clean a thing, but I think it's worth something that my body just made a baby and delivered it successfully, and that my body now produces an insane amount of milk for this tiny baby to subsist on for the next year. That makes me a woman of power, thank you very much.