Apple Crisp

The speaker discusses the challenges of being a mom and compares herself to other moms who seem to have it all together. She feels pressure to be amazing like them, but realizes that she is just an average mom trying her best. She talks about the constant worries and doubts that moms have and the struggle to balance work and family responsibilities. She shares her experience of making apple crisp and how she gets caught up in trying to be perfect, but ultimately realizes that what matters most is spending time with her son. She emphasizes the importance of supporting and uplifting each other as moms and finding happiness in the present moment. This is for all my moms out there. You know who you are? You're those amazing people. You cook, you clean, you chase kids, you take them here, there. They're in every single sport I can possibly imagine. I want to be you, but I am not. I am so far from it. I'm truly the undomesticated mom. I stay up at night, I scroll through TikTok, all these short videos, seeing all these mom hacks. These moms who can. My best friend, we grew up together, but our whole lives knowing each other. She's a farmer. This woman runs her own farm. She has two sons, a wonderful husband. She cans everything. She does all this homemade stuff. And I'm thinking, girl, I'm just trying to get four hours of sleep at night. And here you are doing amazing things. It's like this never-ending, never-stopping Dr. Seuss story. From here to there and everywhere in between, it's constant. Our children are our lives. I love them. I have four beautiful children. I have a 16-year-old. I have a 14-year-old, 11, and a six. Yeah, don't ask me about the six-year-old. We thought we were young enough to have that last one. He is proving us wrong. But we love him all the same. He's amazing. But I look around and I see I have a 16-year-old who's almost grown, and I think, how many mistakes I've made. What haven't I done right? What do I need to teach him still? What do I need to prepare him for? This world is so different now, so, so different. And I was, I was truly fortunate to have an amazing upbringing, right? I had the stay-at-home mom. I had the dad who worked night shift. He was the caretaker. And then I had the mom who was at home every day. She saw me off to school, and she was there to receive me when I got home. She did start working when I was older, which I expected. I was more able to take care of myself. I was a teenager, for heaven's sakes. But I can't be like her. I'm an educator. And right now, being in education, it's a tough business. I mean, it's always been tough. I love it. I love kids. I love what I do. And I do think you have to have that. I have to, I know you have to have that passion to do what we do as educators. But being an educator comes at a high price. It's very time-consuming. And every moment I'm at work, I'm so focused on work, I forget about the doctor appointments I need to schedule for my kids. Or I forget about what I'm supposed to pick up at the grocery store on the way home. And then I start to panic. And then I find myself with my mind going in all different directions, trying to figure out one end from the other and everywhere in between. It truly is a Dr. Seuss story inside of my head. I want to be like you, Mom. I'm going to tell you right off the bat, I'm no one special. I'm just average. I remember the first time I watched the movie, Bad Moms. I haven't laughed that hard in the longest time because I thought, these are my people. These are my people. I want to be amazing, and I try to do amazing things, but yet I don't. I'm here, and I do the best I can. And I've got to find happiness with that. I can't keep doubting myself. And I feel like as moms, we do that. We do it all the time. We worry about whether or not we said the right thing or the wrong thing. Are we protecting our children enough? How am I going to handle grades with my child? How am I going to handle overcoming all this pandemic learning loss? What are we going to do? I love everything about my life, but sometimes I just feel like I'm not good enough. And I want to be better. So I look at these superhero moms. I see these moms that are travel ball moms. They take their kids all over the country, constantly busy. And then they come home and make amazing dinners and do these amazing things. And I look at myself and I thought, wow, I'm just excited when it's 4.30 and I get to come home. But you know what? What I love about my life is that it is simplistic when I come home. We don't have our children involved in tons of different sports. Now, that's not meant to be mean. It's not meant to be punishing, but we want to enjoy our children while we have them at home because we tend to be homebodies, my husband and I. And I like to steal all my children's time. I really do. I'm greedy because I know I'm not going to have it very long and they're going to leave me. They are going to leave me alone with my husband. I'm scared to death. I'm just teasing. He was a great guy. But for me, it starts off with something as simple as Apple crisp. Scrolling through, we have the pressure Thanksgiving dinner coming up. And of course, everybody has to make things. And I look and I think, what can I make that's kind of seasonal, that's something I can do? Never done, I can do it. What do I see? Apple crisp. Come on, it's classic. We all know that. Apples, sugar. You're good. You can do this, Erin. So I grab my recipe. I find one that's easy because you know, of course, when I Google searched it, I didn't just do DIY apple crisp. I did DIY easy apple crisp recipe. You know I did. You know why? Because I need it easy. I need it simple. I don't need it complex. So I find the recipe, right? And all is well, I go to the grocery store and I'm not even gonna go get the apples in the can. I wanted to. I wanted to get the apples in the can. You know why? Because I wanted to be finished with it. I just wanted it to look pretty. I wanted everybody to say, oh my gosh, you did a great job on this. I love it so much. And my life moved on. That's what I wanted to do. But you know what? No. Once again, I had compared myself to all the other amazing moms out there and thought no. I have these amazing mom friends who do these amazing things and I've gotta make sure I make it amazing too. I'm gonna make sure everybody realizes that I got fresh apples, I peeled apples, I cut apples, I did the whole thing and yes, it's gonna be amazing. I take these things home and then that morning I get up and I think, you know what? This is a lot. Meanwhile, I have two Dashens below me circling my feet, just praying that I'll drop something. A six year old who keeps wandering in asking me the most random questions. Last time it was like, hey mom, how do you break an arm? Oh my gosh, please stop doing this to me. Can you please self entertain for just a few minutes? Let mom get this done. And then I've got older kids, right? And those older kids, I get it. They're older, I understand. They don't wanna hang out with the little one too much. They're off playing whatever Xbox deadly game they can possibly find that I've tried to kind of rack into my brain that it's okay for them to play and that they won't become some sort of crazed person later in life. I'm still praying on this. They're really good kids, I love them, but you know those games just drive me crazy. That starts entering my head. Then I keep looking, oh my gosh, I have six apples. I have to cut these apples. And so, you know what? I just get going. I start peeling and you know what I noticed? My hand hurt, yes, my hand hurt. That's ridiculous, but it did, it hurt. I was sore, so I keep going because you know what? I'm three apples in, I need to get this done. I'm taking my time, trying to do a good job, and then I look, my apples, they're turning brown. Yeah, now I have brown apples. So then I start panicking. My mind starts to wonder, okay, now that I have brown apples, what's the apple crisp gonna look like? It's gonna look like a failure. Now I spent all this time, I'm invested. I am four and a half apples in, and I am invested. I can't let this fail. So what do I do? I start going faster. And all at the same time, what am I thinking? Yeah, I'm probably gonna cut myself. That's what I'm thinking. Then at the same time, while this is all going on, I'm sitting here staring at these apples that I'm trying to cut. All of a sudden, the thought pops into my head. Dear Lord, there's a huge pile of laundry in there sitting there waiting for me to do. We have four children. Did I tell you that already? Yeah, four, four children, okay? 16, 14, 11, and six, and my husband. There's six of us in that house. And you know what? They make a lot of laundry. And I'm gonna tell you, we do have them trained. We do have them help fold. We do have them put things away. My kids aren't lazy. They're really not. They're worker bees, and I love that about them. But all at the same time, when I'm supposed to be focused on my apple crisp, I'm worried about getting the laundry started. Then I'm thinking, when can I do that? Well, maybe I could pause right now, run over there, sort it real quick, throw it in there, and get it going. But then I think, oh wait, I can't do that. I haven't stripped the sheets yet. I gotta get the sheets down because, hey, it's the middle of a break for me because I'm not at work. Normally, I can't get that done on time, so this would be a perfect time. So I yell up the kids, hey guys, strip your beds real quick so Mom can wash your sheets. Yeah, let me just add one more thing to my plate. Mm-hmm, yeah, that's a great idea. Good job. So here I go back, okay, refocus, refocus. Finish peeling the apples, get everything done, put into the bowl, everything's brown, of course, and then I start stressing, but then I stop and think, well, you have to put brown sugar in there, girl. Oh, and cinnamon. So it's gonna cover up, you're good. So I just keep going, and yes, I ended up with brown apples, but they were brown apples with purpose because I had my brown sugar in there and I had my cinnamon in there. So I was good to go, and I finally had it all made, everything laid out, ready to go, and I put it in the oven, I think I'm doing such a good job, and then the thought hits me. I didn't set the timer. Of course I didn't. You know why? Because somewhere along the way, I was gonna fail. And then I couldn't remember how much time had passed. Was it three minutes, was it four, was it five? Because here's the thing with me. When I put something in the oven, I do not have a good concept of time. Like, I'm not late to things. I would not be late. I would rather die than show up late. That is not my thing at all. However, when it comes to actually cooking things inside of an oven, and I'm not a terrible cook, but let's just say I am undomesticated and I am average. But when it comes to me being able to pull it off, to get it all together and make it work, it's a struggle, it's a real struggle, especially when timed. So I had to guess. I guessed maybe there was 12 more minutes left on that clock. I had no idea. And then I start watching and waiting and watching and waiting all the while again, trying to fight two dogs off. My son's at my feet, wanting my attention, and me starting to feel super guilty because I'm a mom and I'm supposed to pay attention to him and I'm supposed to stop whatever I'm doing to do what he wants to do. Because you know what, I keep thinking is one day, again, he's going to be gone and I'm going to miss this time and I'm going to sit there and think, you know what? The apple crisp didn't matter. And it didn't. Yeah, it was a great thought. And you know what? It came out okay. But what mattered more was my son. I needed to stop, turn to him, and give him my full attention and we did. I sat with him, we built trains, he showed me how to race him correctly because obviously I don't do it the right way, but we spent time together. Something he's going to remember, something I'm going to remember. Because 15 years from now, I'm not going to be sweating the apple crisp. I'm going to be sweating the fact that he's going to leave me. He's going to go out into this world. I'm going to have less time with him. And that strikes me at my core. I love that kid and I love my family. And as undomesticated as I am, because you know what? Not one person ate any of my apple crisp. Oh well, there's plenty of other desserts. But as undomesticated as I am, I love my family more than anything. They're the only thing I've got in this world and I will do whatever it takes to protect them. And I know all of you moms will do that too. If you're out there and you're listening to me right now, you're in the same boat. We're doing everything we can just to keep our head above water. But what we don't hear enough is that you are doing an amazing job. You are amazing. You're doing amazing things. You're a superhero. And everyone should be lifting each other up along the way. I hope to be able to talk to you next time. Again, a little bit more about what the Dr. Seuss novel is inside of my brain that goes on and on, and how to balance it, how to find happiness, how to be happy, enjoy moments, and live your life the best you possibly can. Thanks for now.