Apron

Last night, in between putting my younger baby and older child to bed, I swept the kitchen floor in my flower-print apron. There is no way to modernize this vision of female domestication. Every time I put the apron on, I feel myself shrink a bit. But if I don't put it on, I cringe with every splash or spray of water that comes my way.

How can I counterbalance this ping to my feminist ego? Read philosophy after the dishes are done? Listen to NPR while scrubbing the range? Promise myself this is only an experiment in practicing my "choices"?

The kitchen is one wax-off from sparkling when I hear my son in the tub say he's ready for me to wash his hair and bottom. Suddenly I remember that I'd rather fulfill that request than ponder existentialism. For now, I am not entirely free, and there's nowhere else I'd rather be.