The Other Sister

Sorry I haven’t posted lately – it turned out to be a bad week for writing. I thought I would have some time at least on Saturday, but the littlest guy had pink eye and so both birthday parties we were invited to as well as Parent’s Night Out (aka “My Writing Block” since Shane was out of town for the day) went unattended. Oh well. We made a good day of it anyway.

I was reading Wendy Pope’s blog this week in which she confessed to the world that she is indeed not the Proverbs 31 woman as some might be tempted to think since she works for Proverbs 31 Ministries and seems to “have it all together”. She posted pictures of her house as “proof”. It made me smile and it also got me thinking (it’s ok…you can say “oh no” at this point…)

Anyone who truly knows anything about me knows that I am certainly far removed from the actual Proverbs 31 woman. In fact, I’ve rather come to reason that I must be more like the Proverbs 32 woman – P31’s unattractive, socially awkward older sister (I say older only because it has all too often been taboo throughout history for the older sister to be undesirable and hard to marry off…think of Rachael and Leah). I believe the reason we don’t know anything about P32 is that Solomon – in his infinite wisdom – left her on the cutting room floor (so to speak), lest any of us domestic slackers get any crazy ideas or find any solace in her description.

P32, I imagine, is a lot more like me. Perhaps her intentions are good and well, but she just falls short of the mark her perfect little sister has set. Sure, she cooks for her family, but it most often involves something out of a box that usually involves instructions for use in the microwave. She tries to keep her house, but winds up managing appearances for scheduled guests rather than actually cleaning things (such as the mildew hidden behind the nicely placed shower curtain).

Bringing in income for her family has less to do with crafting things and growing vegetables to sell at market, and more to do with coupon clipping and bargain hunting (not that there’s anything wrong with that…by the way, I got Tostino’s Pizza Rolls for $0.19 a box last week…AND they go in the microwave…). She certainly does “laugh at the days to come”, but I don’t think it’s for the same reason that her sister does. After a while the sight of piled dirty dishes and mountains of laundry becomes funny on some level…especially when you realize it’s going to do nothing but grow until you do something about it.

But make no mistake: While her children may not rise up and call her blessed, they still call her “Mama” every day. About 532 times every day, in fact, and quite often followed by some whining request or tattle-tale complaint about their sibling. But she’s still their Mama, and they still love her.

So, in a manner of providing my own “proof” (and in the spirit of confession and being real inspired by Wendy), I decided to take a few pictures of my own of what a P32's Saturday looks like at our house.

This is what a P32’s kitchen looks like:

But... this is what it can look like after 45 minutes of “company’s coming” disaster control…

…after which the P32 stretches out on the couch and watches a movie/takes a nap. The movie of choice this particular Saturday was “Miss Potter”, which my husband dismissed the other day as “Oh, that movie about the girl who wrote Winnie the Pooh. Her husband dies or something…” I reminded him that Miss Potter wrote Peter Rabbit and that she isn’t even married in the movie. Oh, and by the way Honey, I'm pretty sure Winnie the Pooh was written by a man. But thanks for sharing.

Then, what does the logical P32 woman decide to do after she has cleaned? Invite her children to a “mess party” of course!

While they happily play in a mixture of cornstarch in water (“Alien Glue” they call it), she nukes some pizza rolls and makes a ham sandwich for their dinner. All the while she takes pride in knowing that “Alien Glue” goes on the carpet wet, but dries to a very vacuumable powder in minutes, and has cost her less fuss than the much bigger carpet threat of Play Doh. So her children don’t necessarily play with “normal” toys. They don’t know that….

Then she sits them at the hearth to eat off TV trays while she cleans up the mess party (which is not left for later only because Dad will be home soon):

After some arguing about staying on the hearth and finishing their exquisite dinner, it’s off to the bath:


And then downstairs for a snack and a movie…but not before, of course, she utilizes their tiny little hands as a bit of slave labor to clean up the play room.

By the time Dad comes home, though, at least the kitchen is clean, the boys are “fed” and washed and she looks like the her P31 sister this poor, unknowing man thought he was marrying. All he has to do is walk down the hallway, though, to discover that behold! It’s still Leah, the not-so-desirable sister…the laundry is still mounded and lurking in the corner of their ridiculously dusty, cluttered master bedroom, and the mildew is still colonizing in the corners of their nearly condemnable shower.

So there it is, proof of the P32 woman’s existence (in case you still needed proof…). I’m so thankful that my husband either hasn’t memorized Proverbs 31, or that he at least doesn’t seem to mind that I don’t quite fit the bill. I love him and I’m so thankful that he sees fit to love me too, flaws and all.

Well, in typical P32 fashion, it’s 10:32 on Monday morning and we’re all still in our pjs. I’m off to run errands and then I’ll come back and post this later (what, you didn’t think I was “together” enough to write and publish a post with pictures all in one sitting, did you?). Tomorrow I’m leaving for another solitude retreat, after which I’m sure I’ll have something worth writing about. Until then, happy slacking my fellow P32ers, and good luck to those of you who are measuring up to the “perfect” sister’s image…if you have any great pointers, toss them my way. I’m sure I’ll get around to reading them sometime, and they might even fuel my laughter for the days ahead…

****Added Note:
Notice it took me almost 12 hours to publish this post. Yeah, I’m on top of things.