Category: Motherhood

. . . and I don’t even have a license.

Just Another Soccer Mom Saturday Morning

My husband was away this morning, so it was up to me to take my 7-year old to his 9:00 a.m. soccer game. Not only that, but it happened to be our day to bring snacks. My husband explained to me that it was imperative that I cut up apples and oranges for halftime and then bring Oreos and Capri Suns for the end of the game.

Before we left the house then (at 8:38, only slightly behind schedule), I washed and sliced apples, peeled oranges and broke them into sections. I also fed the little kids breakfast (the 12-year olds are on their own) and put a chicken into the crockpot.

We arrived at the damp field and my son didn’t see his team. We limped along, me holding the snacks and an umbrella, my boys carrying an adult chair and a kid-sized chair and my daughter carrying her Winnie-the-Pooh unbrella. At long last, he exclaimed, “Oh, there’s my team!”

I found myself in agony watching this game between two teams of seven-year old boys. My son is the goalie and each time the other kids came barreling toward him, I wanted to close my eyes. A few weeks ago, he was kicked in the eye (thank God for cheekbones). Last week, he was kicked in an even more tender area. This week, no kicks, but alas, several goals were scored.

Then he slid hard on his backside and thigh, hard enough to make him cry. He came out of the game and his team carried on without him, which meant the other goalie let several more balls get past and the offense couldn’t seem to coordinate their efforts and score a goal. When he went back in the game, the ball smacked into him and he fell onto his knees more than once. All of this hurts even more when your tender skin is cold.

My daughter mostly sat and ate apple slices and then Oreos while the 12-year old boys took turns sitting in my chair. After a soggy hour, the game ended. My boy was disappointed that his team lost, but a good sport nonetheless.

We went to Goodwill, then, to find costumes for Halloween. My 12-year old twins are going to an event at the YMCA. One is going to be a cartoon character from some Japanese anime’ show and the other is going to be an Army guy. The army camoflauge was easy to find and we managed to pick up a few other things as well.

Then onto the bank and then to McDonald’s for lunch. We went through the drive-through and ate our lunch on the way home.

When we arrived home, I parked the car in the driveway and let out a sudden, shocking, rare, window-rattling, open-mouthed belch which spanned a seeming eternity. We sat in stunned silence for a moment. I didn’t even say “excuse me.” From the passenger seat, my blue-eyed 12-year old said dramatically, “It’s a sign of the apocalypse!”

And that comment, my friends, is the reason I had kids.

The Tenth Circle of Hell

Dante’s Inferno describes nine circles of hell, which feature such punishments as being trapped in a violent storm unable to touch each other, being forced to push rocks in opposite directions, being turned into a thorny black tree, being chased by ferocious dogs, being in a desert of flaming sands wehre flames rain from the sky, being whipped by demons, being placed head-first into a hole while flames burn the soles of the feet, having your head put on backwards so you can only see what is behind you, and being frozen in a lake of ice. (I remembered none of that. I had to look it up. What a pitiful education I’ve had.)

What Wikipedia will not tell you is that documents have been recovered which suggest a little known Tenth Circle of Hell. Which is where I spent the afternoon yesterday.

Chuck E Cheese’s The Tenth Circle of Hell is crowded with children who have no quiet, indoor voices, and catatonic adults who languish in booths watching over their territory. The adults appear to be shell-shocked, which is due to the high cost of tokens, which are the Lifeblood of the Tenth Circle of Hell. The token machines taken credit cards now and soon, they will be able to fill out the paperwork for your second mortgage.

But I thought I could survive unscathed, even though to enter you must accept the Mark of the Beast a hand-stamp. At precisely 4:00 p.m., we arrived with birthday present in hand. The mother of the birthday girl had twenty-five plates lines on the long table. No children were in sight. They began to trickle in fifteen minutes later and party seemed to sort of officially begin at 4:35 p.m.

I was lucky, though. Near the long table was an unoccupied booth, big enough for two. I marked my territory with my jean jacket and “Family Circle” magazine, then sat and watched. I read my magazine (“Love Your Life: 25 Ways to Feel Calm Every Day”, which strangely enough, didn’t mention a thing about sitting in a booth at Chuck E. Cheese’s on a Sunday afternoon), glancing up occasionally to see my son acting crazy.

He goofed off with the others. The animatronic creatures had been replaced with a fake movie camera which projects the images of the crazed children on two big screens. The girls seemed to be auditioning for MTV, while the boys took turns throwing themselves to the floor and karate-chopping each other and shaking the camera violently. Periodically, my son would hurry over and ask if I’d seen a particular stunt he’d done. At one point, a bunch of hapless employees joined a costumed Chuck (can I call you “Chuck”?) as he danced a few numbers. The bored manner in which these employees danced was a delight.

At long last, pizza was served. At long long, pizza was finished. At long last, tokens were distributed. Ten tokens for each child. Knowing ten tokens would never be enough and hoping to parole myself Chuck E. Cheese’s the Tenth Circle of Hell for at least another year, I bought twenty bucks worth of tokens–which works out to 105. I redeemed myself by actually tagging along and playing games with my boy and his friend (who was mooching tokens from us). (I had long since finished my magazine.) I demonstrated my propensity for gambling by plugging token after token into this game in which (in the words of this website,) “The coin or token will land on a flat surface or surfaces which have a sweeper(s) and/or a pusher arm moving across the surface or surfaces.” I could easily put all 105 tokens in that machine, but I didn’t.

When we spent all the tokens, turned the 311 tickets into a receipt, and “purchased” our cheap trinkets, we went back to see if the cake was being served. No. It was not. Instead, birthday party mom had distribute goody bags which contained torturous noise-makers. Suddenly, the room was filled the sound of ten thousand crows having their tailfeathers plucked out one by one and dog-whistle kind of whistles, which oddly enough, considering my state of near-deafness, I could hear.

A grown adult, a man, stood blowing a whistle over and over. I was about to suggest to the three other moms sitting near me (they’d infringed on my booth territory while I was busy gambling playing games, but I’d assured them, “”Oh no, that’s fine. Stay there,” and then I eavesdropped, but sadly to say, they were very boring) that one of us needed to slap that noise-making lunatic and I was willing to offer ten bucks to the slapper, but instead, I just sat glaring deathrays at that man who eventually did stop, but not a second too soon. I had slapped him in my imagination about ten times by then. (No wonder I was sitting in the Tenth Circle of Hell with such dreadful thoughts.)

The cake was finally served and the second my son finished licking his plate (over and over and over again and then some more, was he raised by wolves, hungry wolves on the Atkins plan with a fierce sugar craving?) I marched over to birthday party mom and shook her sticky hand and thanked her profusely. And I said that I hoped she’d get to put up her feet when she got home.

We left at 6:15 p.m. I have no idea when the birthday girl opened gifts.

As we walked out in the sudden stillness of the evening, my son said, “Mom, you know what kind of parties I like the best? Chuck E. Cheese’s and Odyssey 1.”

Yeah, me, too. That and being chased by venomous snakes and being plunged into a lake of burning pitch and then, as a grand finale, being steeped in human excrement.

You Want Narcissistic?

I realized today with a sort of shock that I am a Working Mother. And by that, I don’t just mean that I handle the bulk of the housework and the childcare. I mean that I work. I get a paycheck every week. I work for money.

But I work at home and I do work that is considered not to be work by most everyone. I wipe noses and change diapers and referee disagreements between three-year olds. I balance this work with my household duties, which means that I never dust and hardly ever get down on my hands and knees to scrub my kitchen floor. So, the balance is more like a wobbly seesaw with a chubby kid sitting on one end. A lot of see, but no saw. A lot of teeter, but no totter. Very little housework, but a lot of childcare.

Beyond my imperfect housekeeping, what’s bugging me today is the clear-eyed fact that I have no connections with local women around me. Because I’m neither (or both?) a full-time stay-at-home mom or a full-time working mom, I lack the benefits of each job title. I don’t schmooze with other stay-at-home moms, getting together over coffee while the kids play in the other room or lingering at a park bench chatting or joining playgroups or volunteering at the schools or anything. I can’t run errands during the day or enroll my little girl in classes at the YMCA. My work day begins at 7:30 a.m. and ends at 5:30 p.m.

On the other hand, I don’t share a camaraderie with working moms, either. No laments over childcare and gossip about co-workers. No working lunches, no shared laughter in the office, no professional satisfaction of teamwork. No contribution to the workforce whatsoever. An entire career world exists outside of my neighborhood and I’m excluded because I’m working, but I’m not a career woman. Besides that, I get no sick days, no 401k, no vacation time, no raises. I can’t afford cruises or vacation houses like many of the two-income families in my town. My work ranks just above folding soft tacos at Taco Time.

Today was a lonely day. I tried to remember the last time I laughed really hard at something besides my kids. Nothing came to mind. I thought, I’m so depressed, but I’m not really. I would like to sit with an old friend and just ramble and talk long enough to get jittery from the caffeine. Maybe I just wish I were still in college, free of the snot and crumbs and tiny bits of cut paper that my kids keep creating and leaving like snow on the family room floor.

Probably, though, it’s all the wishful thinking of a true introvert. What I really wish is that I were a blustery, outgoing, cheerful, happy-go-lucky kind of woman, the kind that everyone invites to parties. While I was talking with my husband tonight, I said to him suddenly, “It must be nice to go through life being an optimist.” He truly is optimistic, deep down to his core.

And let’s just say I’m not. I specialize in pinpointing the flaws, the errors, the many ways things can go wrong. There’s a place for people like me, and apparently, it’s the laundry room.

Tangible Proof

I spent my evening sorting and organizing forty-eight packets of photographs. Two boxes now contain the tangible proof of our lives in the years 2004 and 2005.

Now, if I can just figure out where I put the pictures from 2003 and 2002, I’ll be all set to resume scrapbooking.

Meanwhile, I came across this photograph.

Today, the twins had P.E. at the YMCA. After my husband dropped them off, he came home and picked up my daughter and the 3-year old boy we watch and took them to the park, leaving me home alone.

And how did I spend my precious quiet hour?

I cleaned out my refrigerator, including the freezer. Then I sorted through the ever-present pile of papers and magazines on the counter and relocated everything. I picked up the scattered Legos so they wouldn’t become even more scattered. I took the recycling out to the bin.

And then everyone was home. What does it say about me that I spend a rare hour home alone cleaning out my freezer? What would you do if you were home alone for an hour?

Swimming With the Current

Some days, I feel adrift. I bob along, tread water, scan the horizon for a boat to rescue me. I don’t feel like picking up, cleaning, interacting, washing, drying, folding and putting away. The thought of producing yet another dinner crashes over my head like a rogue wave.

I don’t sleep enough. I’m bleary in the mornings, yet night arrives and I’m bright-eyed with all the gears in my brain whirring at full speed. Before I know it, midnight arrives and I pull the covers up and calculate how little sleep I’ll get. The weariness drags me under.

My house is full of children every day. My 7-year old invited two friends over to play today, and just when those children went home (at 6:00 p.m.), the two neighbor boys arrived. Ten children were in my house at various times today. Granted, that’s fewer than Barbara parents (she has twelve children), but still. Some days these children are like an anchor–and I mean that in a good way and a bad way. I dream of freedom, of grabbing my car keys and driving somewhere. Alone.

The experts say you should remain calm. Don’t fight a current. And so, today, when I felt myself being dragged away from shore, I did what any reasonable housewife would do. I swam with the current, just paddled along, kept moving.

I tidied up the living room so at least one room looked presentable. Then, I made a pot-pie from scratch, including pie crust. My 3-year old daughter “helped” me make the crust–she dumped in the flour, mixed it a little with the pastry blender, used the rolling pin and then generously sprinkled the extra pie crust with cinnamon sugar. She grinned at me each time I showed her how to help. She gleefully proclaimed, “I am a good girl!”

And I’m kept afloat by the power of her crooked smile.

Ukka, bukka

I said awhile back that I hadn’t been bored since 1983, which was when I graduated from high school. I loathed high school. I thought it was a giant waste of time because I could get straight A’s, even though I never took books home. (I did my assignments sometimes while the teacher took attendance or during my lunch hour in the library.) I had more Important Things To Do, though I hadn’t figured out exactly what those things were.

As it turns out, I understated how boring my days actually are. Repeating the same mundane tasks over and over bores me silly, as do the games and shrieks of toddlers. Washing twenty-seven glasses a day and folding clothes and stepping on Cheerios in the kitchen is dull.

Great stretches of my days are boring, leaving me with nothing to write about beyond, “I woke up at 7:43 a.m.,” and “the three-month old spit up in four places on my blue shirt and I’m still wearing it now.”

But, the boredom is peppered with funny little moments, like yesterday when my husband took our 7-year old son with him to the marsh to release the three captive frogs. My blond son gently freed the frogs and said wistfully, “I’m going to miss those frogs.” Pause. “They grow up so fast.”

My husband reported to me that he couldn’t tell if our son was joking. That boy can keep a straight face and sometimes you just can’t tell.

My daughter sings all the time. The tunes are familiar, but the words are often nonsensical. She belts out these words (to the tune of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”):

Swinkle, swinkle, little star;
How I wonder what you are;
Ukka, bukka, world so high;
Like a diamond in the sky;
Swinkle, swinkle, little star;
Ukka, bukka, world so high;
Like a diamond in the sky . . .

And so on. It’s the song that never ends. My favorite part is the “ukka, bukka.”

She ambles around the house, making up words to songs, cradling her babydolls. And every morning, she greets DaycareKid’s mom or dad with the cheerful promise, “Today, I will not hit [DaycareKid].”

On the way to the store tonight, she yawned and then piped up from the back seat: “I am not tired. I did not yawn.”

And before I put her to bed she says earnestly, “Tonight I will not cry.”

Really, it’s the little things I hope I remember, the sporadic dots of vibrant color in the gray monotony of my day-to-day routine. Because soon, she’ll realize that little stars twinkle up above the world so high and the ukka-bukka will be forgotten like so much dust under the bed.

Long Days, Revisited

I began my day with an expired chicken. I needed to use it or freeze it by the fifteenth and somehow–how? I demand to know–it’s already the eighteenth. How time can simultaneously rush so quickly and slog so slowly is one of the great mysteries of life. (The days are long, but the years are short, that voice in my head intones solemnly, while the tune from “The Cat’s In the Cradle” plays hauntingly in the background.)

I ended my day at with a recalcitrant child who did not want to leave the pool. She cried, “But I don’t want to go home,” over and over again as she trailed behind me, climbed into the car, sat in her booster seat and rode home. I rolled all the windows down to dilute the screams and turned up the music on the Christian radio station to add to the cacophony. If you can’t beat them (and you can’t beat them), join them. I broke a major rule of motherhood (Rule Number Three: Early Bedtimes for Small Children) and allowed her to watch all of the “Heffalump” movie because I couldn’t bear to hear her cry again.

And so, my evening has been quite short, just like this post. Tomorrow–Friday! Rejoice and be glad. Only one more day until the town-wide garage sale, that glorious Saturday when books can be purchased for a quarter and my children will shriek with glee over the toys I bring home and my husband will caution me, “We already have enough stuff!”

Frogs and Intense Scrutiny

Three green frogs–tiny little things–are now hopping and swimming in their new plastic home, complete with blue rocks. Tomorrow the kids will have to catch bugs to feed their new little friends. At least they aren’t hamsters. Or gerbils.

The front tire on the 1993 Mercury Sable was completely flat this morning, so my husband spent a lot of his day fixing that. He ran a lot of errands, which made me so jealous because I like nothing more than gallivanting from place to place in the car, listening to the radio and letting my thoughts wander.

I spent my day with kids, kids, kids. Nobody slept as expected. CuteBaby woke up at 9:20 a.m., rather than 10:30 a.m., as usual. Three-month old BabyBaby slept from the time she arrived at 12:15 p.m. until 3:00 p.m. She was supposed to wake up at 1:00 p.m. CuteBaby’s afternoon nap was out of kilter, too. I put him in the crib at 1:00 p.m., then checked him at 1:30 (crying), and 2:00 (poopy diaper) and finally at 2:30 p.m. (sleeping). The older kids were so noisy–if I’d given them each had a megaphone, it wouldn’t have been any louder. They talk loudly, they fight loudly, they laugh loudly, and the last couple of days, they cough loudly–which makes me think that I would be a terrible nurse because that coughing annoys me. STOP COUGHING!

My daughter and her almost-three year old playmate can not seem to get along. For one thing, she keeps turning on the hose outside and then spraying him. Then, she throws sand at him. Last, but not least, she hits him.

I’m raising a hellion.

The funny thing is that she scolds herself. “Do not hit!” she’ll say. And then she’ll say, “I will be nice!” When she hits, I put her in her bed and she’ll actually suggest it, if I am distracted. “Do not put me in my bed!” she’ll say with a mischievous look in her eye and then when I swoop her up, she starts kicking and screaming. (The other day, she wet her pants in the family room–she’s been totally potty-trained for almost a year–and we didn’t say anything. She, however, gave herself the riot act: “Do not pee in your pants!” “Pee in the potty!” “That is bad! Do not pee in your pants!” “I will not pee in my pants!” And on and on.)

By 10:00 a.m., I was ready for vodka. Only I don’t drink.

I daydreamed about leaving my house and going for a long walk and I knew that could never happen. I fantasized about baking and eating enough chocolate chip cookies to make myself sick. Again, no. I said to my boys, “STOP MAKING NOISE! STOP!” And then, when they asked, I agreed to let them invite their twin-friends over, because I AM INSANE AND MUST USE CAPITAL LETTERS TO SHOW YOU THE DEGREE OF THAT INSANITY! (And apparently I’m channeling Dooce, aka Heather B. Armstrong.)

So, it was a long day. And then, my youngest son went to a friend’s house to play. Then my husband took our twins to run errands and the other twins home. And one by one, the little ones I babysit left, leaving only me and my daughter for a moment. It was sort of quiet, if you didn’t notice her babbling.

I reminded myself tonight as I drove away from my loud house that these days won’t last forever. In a few weeks, my daughter will be three. One day she won’t insist that I hold her and she won’t follow me so closely that I bump into her when I turn around suddenly. She will not holler out my name first thing in the morning and she will not hug my neck and tell me, “You are my best friend!” She won’t compliment my clothes and stand on the counter in the hope that she can use my eye shadow.

So, I’m trying to enjoy her constant company. But I feel like I’m under surveillance and I hate people staring at me, even if they are only three years old.

Staring at Myself

My daughter is almost three years old and prefers to keep me within arm’s length. I told my husband today that if she were my boyfriend, I would break up. I need more space. I am totally not kidding.

She stands on the bathroom counter while I dry my hair and put on my make-up. Mostly, she peers at herself in the mirror, scrunching up her nose, pursing her lips, baring her teeth, flirting with herself. Today she was posing, a la Paris Hilton.

Then she noticed I was looking at her and she stopped her self-examination and grinned an embarrassed grin at me.

Sometimes, that’s how blogging feels to me. I started my first blog as an experiment with a few friends. “We’ll share our journals,” we said, “And see how the others live.”

The first time a stranger commented, I freaked out, a quiet, private little freak-out. Another time, I emailed a commenter to demand, “Who are you? And why are you commenting on my blog?”

Most of the time, though, I write with abandon, pretending I’m alone. I feel a little self-conscious when it’s all about me, me, me–but only when I picture the whole Internet watch me as I stare at myself.

And when I catch you looking at me, sure, I feel bashful for a moment. But I’m going to pretend that it’s just me here, and fifty of my closest friends who understand and won’t laugh at me behind my back.

And now I will commence the navel gazing.

All I have to say today is that I feel deflated and bummed out that my twin 12-year old boys are so often the target of bullies. Why are some kids such cruel brats? At the pool today, my husband noticed several boys mocking my twins during a game of water-basketball. He intervened, but was incensed afterward. A little later during “Adult Swim,” I walked to the grassy area to see what was going on–a cluster of kids had gathered out there–and just then, I heard a bony girl with bucked teeth say to my son with a sneer, “I don’t even know your name.” Then her cross-eyed brother said, “He’s stupid.” I strode up to that kid (the same boy who last year slapped and pinched my youngest son–but I’m too tired to find that post and link it) and said, “EXCUSE ME? DID I JUST HEAR YOU SAY SOMETHING UNKIND?”

He shrunk back and denied it. Then I said, “Good. Because we would not want to say unkind things here, would we?” That group of kids broke up and I told my son he should move away. And as we walked away, I told that skeleton of a girl my son’s name, not that she even realizes what a snot she is.

My boys just don’t seem to read social cues with any savvy. It’s disheartening, but at the same time, a week ago at Vacation Bible School, they did a great job of interacting with younger kids and adults, too. They were volunteers with excellent attitudes, so I have to hope that they will ultimately be fine, despite the bullies who dot the landscape like dog doo left behind by inconsiderate dog owners. Sometimes you have to scrape your shoe off and watch your step so it doesn’t happen again. I hope I can teach my boys that lesson eventually.

In the meantime, we’ll continue schooling them at home, away from the stench of people who have nothing better to do than pick on other kids.

Afternoon Fun!

I read the newspaper because I am a grown-up. I eat fishsticks because that’s what the kids ate and a few remainded scattered on the cookie sheet. When the phone rang at 12:11 p.m., I was doing just that, reading and eating.

The woman on the telephone asked if I’d be home, if she and her husband could stop by at about 1:00 p.m. I said in a calm, measured voice, “Sure, that would be fine.” Then I gave her directions to my house. I hung up the phone and sprang into action, enlisting the aid of my sons who wander around in the summer, looking bored.

Fortunately, the family room carpet was freshly vacuumed, thanks to army-crawling CuteBaby whose new mission in life involvs gnawing on power cords and eating specks of paper and licking the carpet. I only had to clean up the lunch mess, put away a few reminders of our recent trip to Florida, sweep and hide away the basket of clutter that sits in the kitchen taunting me.

By 1:00 p.m., sure, I was a little sweaty, but my house looked presentable. The doorbell rang and there stood Happy Little Family, mom, dad and baby girl. I’ll start watching the baby next week, just afternoons, four days a week. I saw Dad stealing glances at my desk, which sits in the family room. A landslide of papers covers the entire left half of the desk. And Bloglines kept beeping as blogs on my list were updated. (You really must check out Bloglines. Oh! The organization! The time-savings! The little beep that brings joy to my day! Someone has updated something! I must log on and check it out!)

Anyway, they left. Naptime arrived. At 2:15, CuteBaby and DaycareKid were sleeping. Babygirl? No. She was resistant, in fact, told me in no uncertain terms, “I do not want to go night-night!” I insisted that she did and she would . . . but she didn’t. It was 3:15 p.m. when I gave up.

But I wasn’t happy about it. Mommy stays sane around here by taking little breaks here and there. Lunchtime, while the kids nap, is one of those times. So, downstairs I tromped and she trailed behind me. I went straight to the kitchen where I poured myself Diet Coke with Lime (thank you, caffeine, you are my friend). She stood near me and touched my pants gently. “I love your pants! I love your shirt! I love your shoes!” she said in a sweet voice.

How can I be irked, really, when my curly-haired girl spreads the compliments as thick as chocolate icing on a birthday cake?

She never did sleep. She played in the sand and then she turned on the sprinkler and got drenched. She ran upstairs to put on dry clothes and came down wearing a pair of purple stretch pants and a pair of blue Osh-Kosh overalls. No shirt. My 7-year old son played in the sprinkler, too, and left a trail of soggy footprints all the way up to the bathroom–which doesn’t seem possible. Shouldn’t the carpet have dried his feet off at some point?

My house still retains the remnants of the noontime cleaning spree and for that, I congratulate myself. Tonight? I’m channel surfing while I read magazines . . . unless Bloglines keeps calling out to me. Beep! Beep! Beep!