How to be a Domestic Goddess

I know that I passed some important milestone last week when, nonchalantly, as if it were nothing of any consequence whatsoever, I made gravy. I did not call my grandmother, confused and slightly panicked. I did not consult a recipe. I just took the butter, melted it, cooked the flour, put in the pan drippings, and cut it with milk. And, just like that, I feel strongly that I took an important step in my evolution from somebody’s mommy to The Mother. Not my own mother, necessarily. It should be stressed that I come from an entirely gravy-free home. No, I believe that this knowledge was deep-seated, almost instinctual, not a product of my environment. Like Uba, Ayla’s adopted Clan sister, all I needed was to tap the Memories, and out the gravy came, the wealth of the accumulated knowledge of generations.

I recently gave Ginny the Mommy quiz (a list of questions about what Mommy does/doesn’t do well, etc), and she apparently thinks I’m pretty incompetent on most fronts. However, what she doesn’t know is how much more incompetent I used to be. Put another way, if you look at my scale score, I’m still functioning in the lower, sub-average percentiles. But if you calculate my growth score, I’m off the charts.

Barely 4 years ago, I had no idea that I’d be able to stuff a thermometer up somebody’s backside, much less hold it there long enough to be able to read it by nightlight. Who knew I could make 3 separate breakfasts in under 3 minutes, while checking my email from work? Who would have believed that phrases like “walk on mouse feet” and “inside voices” and “no trucks on the table” would issue reflexively from my lips, as nuns chant novenas? I used to teach people how to avoid logical fallacies. Now I have mastered the art of the circular argument: “why?” Because I said so. “But why?” Because I know you would ask me why so I said so before you asked because that’s how it is.

Did I learn these things from bitter experience? No, I maintain. Getting catapulted into the sturm und drang of parenthood simply launched the developmental/maturational sequence that was encoded in my DNA. So I’m not Freya or Vesta or Isis yet. But one day—perhaps sooner than expected—I will become a full-fledged Domestic Goddess (Nigella Lawson-style, or at least that’s what Adam is hoping.)