Doing stuff

I consider myself to be a reasonably educated woman. I have to remind myself of this sometimes though. So often even I, a woman with two degrees and years of experience under her belt, falls prey to stereotypes and a "I cannot do this attitude". Which is funny as I so often tell myself to give all sorts of things a try when it comes to doing things with the kids. I felt that way with crochet before last year, that I wouldn't be able to catch on and it may not be right for me.

This week we have friends visiting and as they have little ones, it was helpful that we had a crib, extra bed, and could acquire a pack and play for them to use. However, Matt was unavailable to drop the crib to a lower height so their 9 month old didn't tumble out and onto the floor. I fretted over what to do and almost had another pack and play to take up more limited space in that room. But I decided against it, I decided it was time to pull up my big girl pants and learn how to drop the crib to a lower level. After asking Mattie what tools were required, I went up to Johnny's room prepared for battle. I was pleasantly surprised when only 15 minutes later I had successfully dropped the crib to a lower level and had adjusted the bedding accordingly.

Why did I allow myself to be convinced that it was too hard or that I couldn't do it? Why didn't I do this  before without stressing over all sorts of other solutions? Why did I tell myself that as a girl, I probably didn't have that intrinsic "know how" and thus shouldn't bother? After all, what would a single mom do? What would our military wives do? My sister in law is a military wife and she kicks butt at home renovations and building stuff when her hubby is deployed or is out of town doing training exercises! There are mommies who cannot ask their man for help or don't have one to help them, so they figure it out.

So if I am trying to teach my girls about what it means to be a strong, capable woman, then I need to do some of these things myself. Does that mean that I won't leave a lot of "man chores" for Matt? Of course not, I think the girls need to see him doing stuff around the house that he enjoys doing and is good at too. But I do need to show them that when push comes to shove, I can do a great job fixing things, hanging things, moving things, or being a general help around the house.

That being said, I am not sure how I can move my couch from upstairs to downstairs...Oh Matt...