Tip for today: Do what you do best

I have taken a lot of personality tests in my adult life.  In college, I was seriously considering becoming an industrial psychologist (these are the people that develop the personality tests), so I took a couple classes on how they make these tests.  And I work at North Point, where if you don't take at least one personality test a year, I think they fire you.  As such, I have an inordinate amount of data on what makes me tick.  My boss and I talk about my personality, why I react the way that I do to certain situations, and how I process information a lot.  I get assigned certain projects because I scored a certain way on a certain profile.  My skill set is always taken into consideration when tasks are assigned.  In short, I am set up to succeed at work.
Because this way of thinking is so ingrained at me at work, I realized that I starting doing this at home as well.  For the first couple years of Garrett's life and the first year of Harper's, I was desperately trying to do it all. I put so much pressure on myself to be everything for my children.
I don't know when this shifted for me, but if I had to guess, I would say it was around the time I went back to work full time.  When you have a 4 year old and a 1 year old and you work outside the home 30 hours a week, something's gotta give. Then when you toss in a brush with cancer a year later, something's really gotta give.  For me, what gave was the pressure I put on myself to be everything for my kids.  I decided I was going to do what I do best in motherhood, just like I do at work.
You know what I'm really good at? Physical and emotional care.  You know what I suck at? Play.
You know what I love?  Taking care of the physical needs of my kids-making sure we have food, clothing that fits them and is seasonally appropriate, a clean and well-run home.  I also love meeting emotional needs-snuggles at bed time, telling my kids I love them, catching them doing something good and giving them verbal and physical praise.  You know what I don't love?  Getting down in the floor and playing with my kids.  Building block towers, making play dough sculptures, playing Candy Land for the 10,000th time. Blech.  The whole time I'm down there, I'm thinking about what we need at the grocery store, realizing I need to move clothes from the washer to the dryer, and wondering how quickly I can end this game and get it cleaned up.
And you know what?  That's ok.  You know who is awesome at play?  My husband, the father of these children.  You know what he sucks at?  Physical care.  He has no idea what size clothing our children wear, or whether or not we have paper towels in the basement.
So I've given up the guilt about not really enjoying playing with my kids (and this is not a hard and fast rule-I do enjoy playing some things, some times with the kids).  Instead, I let Jason shine in this area.  And I shine in my area.
Somewhere along the way, mothers have bought into the whole "if you want something done right, do it yourself" myth. We make our husbands feel stupid and inadequate when it comes to caring for their own children.  We put on a front to our friends that we have it all together and that our life is perfect. I think this is the single most detrimental thing that we do to each other as fellow travelers in this journey we call parenting.
So stop it. Do what you do best and delegate the rest.  Does your husband make the worlds best forts?  Well, let him build one and don't clean it up for a couple days.  Does your friend love doing crafts with kids?  Well take your kids over there and let them craft while you reorganize her pantry.
Now does this mean that you get out of everything you hate?  Absolutely not.  I love my job, but there are some parts of my job that I don't like.  I still do them.  Same goes here.  But just don't make your whole job description be full of things you don't like.
It will make you far more effective, I promise.  And happier too.