I am Superwoman

So my kids think I am Superwoman.

I learned this most recently when I was dying Daughter #4's hair pink. I said you know I don’t really know how to dye hair. Of course you do Mom you can do anything D4 said.

I think they may have gotten this idea from the fact that I spent most of the summer recruiting them to do home projects that I had never done before. We ceramic tiled the bathroom, painted vaulted ceilings that were about 15 feet high with a stepladder and landscaped the yard.

Maybe I have always led them and many others to believe I am Superwoman. It has been like my claim to fame. Oh sure Nancy can do that. A Belle or Jasmine Halloween costume? Sure I will whip it up on my sewing machine. Clouds painted on the ceiling? Absolutely. Cupcakes for 90? What color icing?

Daughter #3 often wants to play the game "Fix my problems". I always win.

Just this morning we were listening to a Sheryl Crow song about God. I don’t recall the words but they were like talk to the one you love, talk to the one who made you, talk to the one who can make it right... something like that. D3 thought the song was about Moms.

My girls have watched me simultaneously breastfeed an infant, help with homework and cook a 7-course meal, all while talking on the phone.

There’s no need to fear... Oh wait that’s Underdog, not superwoman.

In any case, maybe I have made it look too easy. When hubby was working full time and bartending on the weekends, I didn’t want him to be bothered with any of the lawn care. So I took out the ride on mower, put the smallest kid on my lap and mowed the back 40. Ok so we don’t have 40 acres, maybe just a half, but it was hard work.

Then I would get out the weedwacker and trim the bushes... blah blah blah the list went on and on.

Hubby has become so allergic to poison ivy in the last few years that the doctor actually wrote on the paperwork last time "No Gardening Ever". We hired a landscaper to cut the lawn but the weeds and the bushes, all me. I spent an entire day a few weeks ago taking small trees out, digging with worms, pulling out weeds, dragging it all to the curb. I actually sweated and smelled. And I am opposed to that stuff. Sweating and Smelling.

I used to give the best parties. We were reminiscing recently about some of them. A wizard of Oz party, complete with flying monkeys, an over the rainbow 7 layer cake, a house dropped on my sister (i wish), a yellow brick road...

Another party I gave was a hungry caterpillar party based on the Eric Carle book. In the book, the hungry caterpillar eats so much stuff each day and then gets in his cocoon and becomes a butterfly. I had all the food cut into little pieces and then I drew all the pages of the book on poster board. I read the story as we served each piece of food and when they were all done I had them go into a tent I had set up in the backyard and I had one of my older daughters pin butterfly wings that I made out of tissue paper on their back.

Superwoman or Stupidwoman... I am not sure.

My kids have often told me the night before... I need posters to win student council. That means a creative idea and then me staying up until midnight making the posters. I think D4's Snapple facts one was pretty cool, although I do remember a Rugrats poster that put all the other posters to shame.

So was this helpful to them or detrimental? Should I have stayed the princess I always wanted to be and waited for a man to help me get it done? Um No!

I have sacrificed a lot being Superwoman. My hand was always the first raised to volunteer for everything, countless class mothers, coaching and of course girl scout leader to all 4 girls. I spent every waking moment doing stuff for other people.

Part of the problem was I didn’t know how to say no.

During my long years of therapy, my therapist wanted to know why? Why do I have every holiday at my house, cook everything from scratch and never let anyone do anything? I am really better at it than anyone else, I say. So, she says. What would happen if you didn’t make fudge this year? Oh My God, I scream. I don’t know what would happen. People would be devastated if they didn’t get to eat my fudge this year. Really would they she asks. Or would they be like Ok Nancy didn’t make fudge. Maybe this year she actually sat down and ate some store bought cake for dessert.

Let me tell you...it has taken me 5 years of therapy, lots and lots of dollars of therapy and lots of work...

And I still have trouble with it. I still want to have these super parties that people rave about and I still want people to talk about how amazing I am, and I still want to do everything for every holiday because I really do do it better.

But I did learn that the sacrifice I had been making for all these years was not necessarily a healthy one. There is a power to being great at everything, but there is also a power in saying today I am worrying about me and mine. Today I cannot participate in the bake sale or help with the craft fair. Today I am staying home and laying on the swing with my kids and laughing and joking.

So maybe I have hidden my cape in the closet. I may not need it for a while.