Inexperienced not just preferred, essential

I learned many things during my week away. Off-the-record chats with Pentagon brass about Iraq were far more enlightening than any news reports I follow. I got a CPR refresher course and figured out the location of a pretend casualty's brachial artery as fake blood shot in my face. In a strategic gaming exercise geared toward producing bright ideas for battling an Avian flu pandemic, I was humbled by what a monstrous beast public officials wrestle with when they try to take charge of a national disaster.

But the most important lesson of the week strikes much closer to home. Directly at home, in fact. The next time I leave, I need to find a stand-in who is far less competent than my mother. This person really just needs to be less competent than myself, and this is a challenge right up there with trying to close the borders to a virulent outbreak.

I came home to a spotless house, a jovial baby and pampered husband. It was a complete nightmare. After a week of care by the Uber Mother, my family is loath to return to my standard of care. Riley doesn't understand that we can't go outside every time she points to the door. My husband doesn't understand why I can't accomplish the same levels of cleanliness and culinary prowess as my mom while achieving professional success. When I asked him to hold Riley while I was chopping vegetables, he had the audacity to tell me that "Your mother did all that with a baby on her hip."

Insert expletive-filled comeback here.

I knew when I left that my shoes would be more than filled. In fact, they burst at the seams. My mother is Mary Poppins, Julia Childs and Merry Maids all rolled into one. To make matters worse, she's skinny and looks 10 years younger than she actually is without dying her hair or ducking under a knife. It's just wrong on so many levels.

Not that I have deeply-rooted issues (DRIs).

So as I thumb through the yellow pages for therapists, I'm making a mental list of those DRIs. I'm not even going to try to kid myself that I won't do some level of mental damage to my daughter over the next several decades, but I will promise her this: if she ever leaves her family in my care for a week, she won't come home to a clean house. I figure it's the least I can do for her.