Musings on a pumpkin muffin

Last night, once the kids were all asleep in bed and I had finally finished cleaning up the kitchen, I decided to make muffins. Baking has always been that one thing for me that I go back to. I don't ever remember not baking actually. As a child, I liked to find out someone's favorite dessert, then make it if we were visiting. I made so many apple pies. So many pies. I remember one disaster that turned into an applesauce pie, just absolute mush inside. I remember pans of brownies baked at midnight on sleepovers with friends. And filling ziplocs of cookies for my rowing team in college. Baking = love

Which brings me back to last night. Sometimes when the house is quiet and my tasks for the day are done, I like to bake muffins for the next morning. It doesn't take too long, and instead of focusing on other to do lists, I can focus on scooping ingredients and stirring the bowl, and smelling the air as the bake. As I was in the middle of making a batch of pumpkin muffins, Max walked into the kitchen- right as I spilled the egg into the carton by accident, then poured it into the bowl of batter. He asked why I was baking at 10pm.

"Sometimes I like to make muffins before bed so the kids can wake up and see that I made them a little something special. They'll come into the kitchen and get excited that they get to have a pumpkin muffin for breakfast and ask if they can bring one to school for snack too. Then at school, they'll pull out their homemade muffin and their teacher will think what a good mom I am for making them a homemade treat, and I will win all the awards and be loved by all."

But actually, that's not what usually happens at all. The kids come downstairs grumpy and annoyed in the morning. They see the muffins and ask why I didn't make chocolate chip muffins or blueberry muffins or any other flavor than what I made. Then I get disappointed that my kids are being ungrateful and all my expectations of being a "perfect mom" fly out the window. Because at that moment, I feel like I'm failing. And the muffins just look like a big pan of disappointment and regret.

I got ready for bed thinking about this. I laughed as I told Max that my "pan of disappointment and regret" needed 5 more minutes in the oven. And then I started thinking about this fantastic book that I've been reading with our son, What To Do When Your Temper Flares. The book is all about controlling your anger and it does it using Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. It explains to kids that if they can change their thoughts about a situation, then that will change their feelings about it, and that will affect their actions. So my swirling thoughts of the teacher seeing the muffin and the disappointment of my kids not getting the flavor they want and acting like spoiled brats against the joy I get from baking all kind of settled in my head.

I had to reframe the situation. I baked the muffins because I love baking muffins. I did it for myself as much as I did it for the kids. The teacher is so busy busting her butt all day that she really is not going to notice what snack my kid has- only that he has one. And if my kids start to show disappointment at the flavor, I could reframe for them too. "Oh, chocolate chip is a good idea. Should I make those next?"

But this morning, miraculously, nobody was in a bad mood. They seemed genuinely happy that there were muffins. The younger two packed them up for snack, and had other things for breakfast. The oldest swallowed one down before he left for the bus and told me they were "pretty good actually." Which, if you speak 11 year old boy, is a huge compliment. And now the house is quiet and I just ate my first pumpkin muffin. They weren't life changing and I don't think I would make this recipe again, but it was a perfectly yummy little treat to have with my coffee. And I don't feel any regret at all.