Identity Crisis Revisited

A few days ago, while I had my camera at my side to record sweet moments of my daughter crawling and exploring, I was busy cooking, baking and doing laundry. It was one of those days that I felt as though there must be something I'm doing incorrectly if there's this much to do at once.

I was making a curry inspired by the fresh corn I had just bought at the market. The peppers were arranged artfully on the cutting board. I grabbed my camera and snapped a couple of shots. I thought it was a good idea to document the work I do in a day to make myself feel better about the work I'm not doing in a day.


Then came the muffins. These were a successful try at inventing a healthful baked good for my almost 11 month old daughter. I had been feeling as though I had been feeding her the same old thing day after day, and not feeling good about giving her store bought breads etc. I still give her cereals, but want to include more grains in her diet. Baking was the answer, and here was the result:



I'm going to share the recipe with you before I get into why I think I must be insane, and how this all has to do with the identity crisis at hand...

Corn and Oat Baby Muffin Recipe (Mom and Dad love them too!)

1/2 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
3/4 cup boiling water
1/2 cup raisins
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/4 cup unsweetened apple sauce
1 cup whole yellow cornmeal
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup oat flour
2 tbsp flax seeds
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 cup plain yogurt
1/2 cup milk
2 large eggs

-preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
-greast muffin tin
-place oats in mixing bowl and pour boiling water over them. add raisins and butter. -stir to combine, then set aside to cool.
-whisk together cornmeal, flours, baking powder and soda, salt.
-stir buttermilk and eggs into the cooled oat mixture
-add dry ingredients and mix until everything is moist
-bake for 25 minutes.

-adapted from King Arthur Flour's Whole Grain Baking Book

Okay, so my insanity has brought us a new recipe which my kid looooooves. Honestly, she went nuts over these. It was hard to get her to eat anything else once the muffins were introduced.

But in looking at my photos, I see a perfectionist. A perfectionist that I don't normally associate with myself. Then I feel sad and I mourn the creator in me who just enjoys making things. In the days before the baby came along, it would have warmed my heart just to make a nice meal for friends. Now I'm documenting it to prove something to myself about productivity. I'm producing a human being over here for god's sakes! What the hell am I doing to myself?

And in that day that I baked the perfect muffins, made the awesome and artful curry, I did 3 loads of laundry, washed dishes, took my kid to the park, ran for half an hour, and did 3 hours of money earning work.

My therapist and I have been talking about this at length. I have been crying about this at length. As it turns out, I am realizing that not only am I trying to be the great and present parent that my parents were not, I'm also listening to a voice in my head that isn't altogether my own.

My dad passed away almost 2 years ago. He was a tough guy. Lovely in some ways, and particularly if I were "hitting home runs", as he used to call it. In other ways, he could be very hard on me, particularly if I wasn't doing what he considered productive (aka making moolah.) Apparently when a parent passes away, the negative or positive voices they once spoke become stronger as a way of keeping them alive. And while I had some very positive words from him, I was very sensitive to the negative, and that's what I hear.

I have no doubt that I'm being hard on myself for several reasons, many of which I blame Hollywood and the boob-tube for. But I can't ignore the fact that my dad's voice creeps up the moment I find myself relaxing. I remedy the voice echo by getting up and working my ass off. This is nothing new, but has become worse since I have become a mother. It's a many layered problem with reasons feeding reasons.

I'm glad to know that though the millions of baby books out there don't usually touch on this subject, there are others out there who are experiencing the same thing. My bestest friend S sent me to this blog entry, and I was happy to read that my insanity in this respect is not altogether unusual.