I’ve been blessed with a creative mind and my own sense of style. There is rarely a day that goes by that I don’t twist metaphors into poetry or fight my way through run on sentences because of the descriptive details I’ve painted. My style has never been trending and can’t be found on the cover of anything. I love scavenging through old barns and can get lost in an antique shop for hours. This is the extent of my creativeness and style. However, like many moms I discovered Pinterest and was in floral arrangement, burlap sack, and chalk board paint heaven.
I was a mom now, so of course I could crochet and do amazing things with Popsicle stick, as though I was running the arts and crafts table at bible camp. I pinned it all and was determined to do it all. Because the idea time to decorate cakes and upholster furniture, the very things people go to college for, is on three hours of sleep with a baby in my arms. Needless to say things didn’t go well. I was a DIY disaster trying to measure up to Blake’s mom, the Pinterest queen. Blake’s mom bakes from scratch, homemade, handwritten, fresh squeezed… sounds like Blake’s mom doesn’t sleep and is getting into her son’s Ritalin.
But I’m a mom now. I should be doing and more importantly want to do all this, right?
I wasn’t big on holidays until I had kids. They bring so much joy to them how can you not wrap garland around everything and blow up five hundred balloons. But this Elf on the Shelf business-really! Ground Hogs Day cupcakes-nope! And don’t even get me started on St. Patrick’s Day. It was one thing when I was twenty-two and drinking green beer. It is another when I am asked to make twenty-two gallons of green Kool-Aid and cut out hundreds of construction paper shamrocks. But that’s what it’s boiling down to because not only are we PTO moms, we are Pinterest PTO moms, and that is some serious business.
The worst for me were the recipe pins. This generation of moms has been big on breast feeding, organic foods, and gluten free. Seriously, I dare you give your children Twinkies in front of a pack of moms. One of them will say something and though she will with a sweet smile you’ll feel the claws slash across your face. So to avoid all those cancer causing chemicals, I put on my apron and attempted to cook from scratch. My kids will eat things off the floor at a restaurant, but I’m killing myself trying to keep processed foods out of my kitchen. I’m not a good cook, but practice makes perfect and I had pinned two-hundred and some recipes, so obviously I was Betty Crocker. Unfortunately I hate cooking and my baking cupboard consisted of a mismatch of measuring cups and one cookie sheet. But the mom guilt fueled the fire and I continued to burn everything, while my family filled up on buttered bread.
The eye opener was my son’s birthday. I was determined to make him a Batman cake. Of course it looked nothing like the one I found nor did the rest of the menu or decorations. It was basically a plastic table cloth of Pinterest fails…
The bubble bath punch looked like a Smurf had drowned in it. I can’t draw animals, so why I ever thought I could carve them out of fruit is beyond me and then there was that whole mess with the cake. During the craziness of the party I didn’t get a chance to eat it and while it didn’t look as I had hoped I assumed it tasted good. After I took the first bite, it dawned on me how polite people are. They actually ate this to avoid hurting my feelings. It was awful!
The mom in me assumed I could do it all. The sarcastic, combat boot wearing woman in me just laughed, “You don’t got this!” You couldn’t even make it through Target without abandoning the cart and bailing, confused as to why this place is mom paradise. Did you really think you’d be able to or enjoy making center pieces and wreathes?
I do think Pinterest is an amazing tool and in spite my fails I still use it. Not to do it all, but what actual interests me. Thankfully I have a sense of humor and a sensitive smoke alarm. Because if I hadn’t ditched the spice rack and the do-it-all attitude when I did, my epic Pinterest fail would’ve been me holding chard chicken marsala, while my family ate buttered bread in front of our brunt down house.