worth staying up for

Every so often I come across a passage in a novel that is so perfectly aligned with my experience that I wonder if the author and I are twins separated at birth. Last night I had a little too much chai tea and couldn't drift off to sleep and instead padded downstairs with a stack of books. Only after I finished the last page of Everyone is Beautiful did I climb back into bed.

It was nice to be doing something that was only for me. I had been longing for something that was just mine for years now. I had tried to explain to Peter once, and he had been obtuse about it. "The kids are yours," he'd said.
"They're mine, but they aren't me."
"But you are doing a great job of raising them."
"Sometimes," I said. "And sometimes they are unraveling every roll of toilet paper in the house while I sit on the sofa with my head in my hands."
"You can't tell me they aren't great kids."
"No," I said. "And I wouldn't want to."
"Peter had a gleam as if he'd won.
"But," I pushed on, "when Toby picks his nose and wipes it on the couch, I don't exactly beam with pride and say, 'I did that! That's all me!'"
Peter shook his head.
That was the tricky part. You poured inordinate amounts of time and attention and affection into your kids, but the result was indirect. You didn't point out a cat to you one-year-old and then watch him, minutes later say, "Cat." Instead you pointed out a hundred cats to your one-year-old and then one day, watched him point to a cat and say "Mama."
That was what I wanted Peter to understand-that everything you did for your children was filtered and refracted through their personalities. There was nothing you could take credit for. You just tried to hold yourself together, give them lots of hugs, get them in the tub at least once a day, and hope for the best.
What I needed so desperately, and did not have time in my life, was something I could point to and say, "I did that." Something that was a direct reflection of me.

Housework is only gratifying if no one disturbs the perfection of a polished coffee table neatly stacked with books, no one dribbles urine on the newly cleaned toilet seat, no one spills the bowl of popcorn kernels all over the freshly vacuumed rug. Cooking is only an art if no one grumbles during the partaking, "This is yucky. Can't I have cereal?" Children, as Katherine Center puts it so well, are not little puppets, able to recite Latin proverbs for their relatives on cue just to prove your parenting prowess. And they rarely say "Thank you," for all the work, time, sweat, and tears. This is why I blog, why I quilt. I need something that is mine and I can say, "I did this!"

I this wrote on my etsy profile which sums up this feeling: Quilting relaxes me, feeds my creative nature, and allows me to produce something that will last. With 6 children to take care of, sometimes my life only seems to be full of dirty dishes, laundry, and diapers. Quilting allows me to produce something of beauty and fills my life with color, order, and a finished product.