Category: Motherhood

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

What I Did. And Didn’t.

While the rest of the country is having a heat wave, our weather is perfect. Sunny, warm, blue skies, gentle breezes. I planted orange and yellow flowers in my flowerpots outside and then we went to the pool. We tried to go in the van, but the battery is drained–again–and so after being completely buckled in, we all unbuckled and switched to the car. The battery in the van (aka The Deathtrap) was dead when we returned home from our trip last week, so before he left yesterday, my husband jump-started it and drove it around awhile to make sure it was working. Which it is not now.

The kids are incapable of simply staring out the car windows when we go anywhere and just leaving each other alone. They have circular conversations about video games or the restaurants they’ll own one day. They plan what the menu will be and who will cook for whom and if they’ll give discounts to relatives. Even my daughter has taken to pleading, “BE QUIET! STOP TALKING!” when we go somewhere in the car. They also cannot stop poking, touching, wrestling, grabbing, shoving and tormenting each other.

When I wasn’t busy doing summertime stuff today (and laundry), I was busy creating a reciprocal blogroll which you can see in my sidebar over there to the right. I think I linked to everyone who links to me–so if your name is missing, let me know. I’m all about reciprocity and I love the fact that I just used that word (“reciprocity”) in a sentence.

For those who were wondering, yes, I did make milkshakes–finally–last night. I am a woman of my word. Unless I forget.

My only regret for the day is that I failed to make my youngest son a Serengeti Trek t-shirt by ironing on the iron-on transfer. And I failed to get caught up on laundry, dust the house, clean the toilets, weed the garden, sweep up the patio, pick up clutter on the floor, empty the kitchen counter, scrub the George Foreman grill, iron those pants hanging on my exercise bike, put away my daughter’s clothes, start an exercise program, write a best-selling novel, teach my youngest son to tie his shoes, “clean sweep” the storage room, clean the litter box, vacuum the floors, mop, organize the kitchen cabinets, make a plan for lunch tomorrow, pay bills, wash windows, sort through school-at-home materials, solve the crisis in the Middle East, and figure out what to do with my hair.

Other than that, it was a day well-lived.

The Power’s Out! And My Pants are Aflame!

Last night I revised my roster for Vacation Bible School, wrote a letter for distribution to parents and compiled a list of volunteers for the church bulletin. I tucked those papers into my leather bag, ready to take with me this morning at 8:30 a.m.

When I woke up this morning, the room seemed strangely dim. After brushing the cobwebs out of my hair and rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I cracked open the bathroom window to find rain, rain, rain everywhere. Rain? We rely upon this week in July to be traditionally rain-free! Never in my four years of running VBS have we had rain. Did I mention that the game session is run outdoors?

Uh-oh.

When I arrived at church, I pulled the papers from my bag that needed photocopying. The letter–the one I needed 65 copies of to distribute to parents as they signed in their kids–yes, that letter, was missing. I searched, double-searched, and searched again. No letter. I called my husband and he assured me he found the letter on my desk. I’d have to go back and pick it up.

But first, to sign in all eighty children. As I sat greeting parents the most unexpected thing happened. The power went out.

Someone reported that they’d seen a crashed car, a broken utility pole, and downed power lines trapping the driver of the car inside. We figured it would take all day for the power to be restored. A call to the utility company confirmed a large area of power outages.

My fabulous teenage song leader began leading the children in the songs they’ve sung all week. Someone began to hunt for batteries to power a portable CD player. I realized we’d need a portable DVD player for the theater area. I called home to ask my husband to ready ours for pick-up, then ran home and picked up the paper I’d forgotten and the DVD player. Of course, I couldn’t photocopy the letter without electricity.

And as it turned out, the DVD was stuck in the regular DVD player. Without power, we couldn’t get it out.

I called a couple of churches, located a DVD we could borrow and prepared to go pick it up. And then, the unexpected happened. The power came back on.

And the rain stopped.

And eighty-two children enjoyed their final day of Vacation Bible School. Afterwards, to celebrate, I drove my kids to McDonald’s before going home. Big mistake. The intersection where the car had crashed into the power pole was still blocked. Four utility trucks worked to replace the pole while several police cars blocked the road and officers directed traffic. McDonald’s couldn’t give us pop with fizz or a milkshake.

And YoungestBoy really wanted to dip his fries into a milkshake. I shrugged off his disappointment with a glib promise to make milkshakes at home. Later.

Late in the afternoon, while I was helping my husband pack for his business trip, YoungestBoy appeared in the room. With stern determination he said, “Mom, do you want to know the new name I have for you?”

Puzzled, I turned to him. “What?” I said.

“Liar, liar, pants on fire!” he said. I did not laugh, but I wanted to. “You said you were going to make milkshakes and YOU . . . DID . . . NOT!” he proclaimed.

I said, “Is this day over?”

He said, “No.”

And I said, “Well, there you go.” And there he went.

My husband chuckled and then I laughed, too. Liar, liar, pants on fire! The might sound disrespectful to some, but when delivered with the righteous indignation a rosy-cheeked seven-year old can muster up, it amuses me. He amuses me. He saunters through life with such good cheer and confidence that it makes my heart glad.

Even if I am Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire.

In other, less entertaining news, we dropped off my husband at the bus stop (to take an airport shuttle) and went directly to the pool. At seventy-five degrees with a light breeze, the late afternoon was perfection. Babygirl had the pool to herself and danced and twirled and floated around. I wanted it to last forever–the sun on my arms, her crooked smile, the chlorine-blue water–and yet my head hurt and I was looking forward to her bedtime, too.

And now, the moment is gone–poof–and she’s asleep and the house is quiet except for the hum of the computer fan. Tonight I’ll pretend that I can sleep in, but the truth is that Babygirl will be awake around 7:00 a.m., ready for action, or at least ready for Cheerios. And so it goes.

I’m So Lucky

My daughter wakes up too early, especially when I don’t need to wake up early. This morning, I lifted her from her crib around 6:30 a.m. I shouldn’t complain–our twins routinely woke up at 5:30 a.m. when they were small. I used to vow revenge–I said I would wake them up early when they were teenagers by vacuuming outside their bedroom door and making a racket in the kitchen, but now that the reality of them actually sleeping in has arrived I savor the quietness. Sometimes they are still dozing at 9:30 a.m. Now I know why adults might choose to rise early–to outsmart the teens.

Anyway. Back to this morning. I was so annoyed and tired. I was curled under the covers while she sat near my feet, watching Sesame Street.

Every few minutes, she’d ask, “Whatcha doing?”

And I’d mumble, trying not to move my lips, “Sleeping.”

“And what I doing?” she’d say.

“Watching t.v.,” I’d mumble again.

When I finally gave up and headed for the shower, I suggested, “Hey, why don’t you go watch a video?” And she said, “No. I want to watch you.”

“I’m so lucky,” I said. But I didn’t really mean that. As the boys would tell you, “Mom’s using sarcasm again.”

I’m ashamed that I so often take my life for granted. I want silly things–solitude, thinking time, to shower without an audience and to brush my teeth without a certain small someone turning off the water before I’m finished rinsing. I look right past the blessings I have and concentrate on how crowded I feel, how stuck, how sick I am of having little people breathing on me and blocking my path in the kitchen.

My daughter, though, doesn’t know about that stuff. When I finished my shower, she was waiting for me and she gleefully hollered, “YOU’RE SO LUCKY!”

And I heard her. That time, I actually meant it when I said, “You’re right. I’m so lucky.”

I am so lucky.

Counting Down

Come close. I can only whisper this. Shhhhh.

I can’t wait until my twins are old enough to leave home. Only six more years.

I’m not kidding.

This afternoon at 2:30 p.m., Babygirl woke just as my husband took the twins to their meeting with their mentor teacher. I’d secretly hoped she’d sleep longer so the house would be quiet all at once. It was not to be. Instead, her long-legged, lean body wobbled on my left knee while I clicked and clacked on the computer keyboard and discovered that the twins had done very little work for the day.

We are on Week Five, counting down to the end of the school year. They must accomplish a great deal of work so we can end on schedule. It’s not optional. Each day this week, they need to do eight lessons. Today, TwinBoyA did three lessons successfully. TwinBoyB did four lessons, all wrong. He failed two assessments and skimmed over his literature to such an extent that he missed had no idea when the Middle Ages were and what the Crusades were.

I typed out a letter to each child explaining what they’d accomplished and what they needed to finish before they could play or watch television. Upon their return, TwinBoyA read his letter and cheerfully finished five more lessons. TwinBoyB exclaimed at the unfairness of life, stomped his feet, cried a few dramatic tears, declared he would not do anymore work and furthermore told me firmly, “DO NOT TALK TO ME ANYMORE!”

I search my heart and find that I will not miss this. As my husband left (I can’t remember where he went), DaycareKid and CuteBaby woke. YoungestBoy returned from school. The two neighbor boys showed up and I told them they could only play in the back yard. The baby needed his bottle, so I sat on the floor feeding him while TwinBoyB babbled on and on, struggling to find a way to avoid actually reading his science material. He took the assessment four more times after failing it the first time. Finally, he understood that the inner core of the earth is the inner part.

At one point, I was trying to get to the laundry room to put YoungestBoy’s baseball shirt into the dryer, but I kept getting distracted. CuteBaby needed a diaper change. The phone rang. Babygirl wanted shoes on. I need to pee. Oh wait, the laundry room . . . oh, I need to fold that basket of stuff.

Then I smelled the unmistakable odor of a half-potty-trained kid gone wrong.

“Did you p o o p in your pants?” I asked DaycareKid.

Big brown eyes looked innocent and he said, “No.”

I said, “Come here.”

I felt his backside and found a solid little ping-pong ball of it hanging in his brand new Spiderman underpants. Why do kids think no one will notice this personal problem?

(Well, this is a rambling story, isn’t it?)

At 5:20 p.m., I carted CuteBaby upstairs to hand over YoungestBoy’s baseball shirt to my news-watching husband and he said in surprise, “He’s still here?”

Yes. Him, DaycareKid, Babygirl, TwinBoyA, TwinBoyB, YoungestBoy, and Neighbor Kid One and Neighbor Kid Two. I was trying to feed YoungestBoy an early dinner, answer the phone, hold CuteBaby, wipe DaycareKid’s nose, shake off the leech-like grip of Babygirl, boil potatoes and not go insane. The daycare moms both came at once, the phone rang again, my husband left with YoungestKid, but not before bumping the car into Babygirl’s trike which was abandoned at the car bumper by DaycareKid on the way to his own car.

Yes, yes, yes . . . we’ve been over this before and I should be am savoring these crazy days of mothering. But I can’t see how I will miss TwinBoyB’s antics and his complete lack of interest in all things academic. I sat in the living room at 7:00 p.m., going over his literature lesson with him. He is fully capable of reading his student guide and the accompanying literature book, but he most often won’t do so without eagle-eyed supervision.

Why? Why? Why? (I say this while flailing my arms in the air, clutching great snarls of my own unruly hair and foaming–just a little–at the mouth.)

Maybe this is like transition in labor. You know, that point where you think, “I absolutely cannot do this. I changed my mind. I’m not having a baby.” You are too far in to change your mind and there is no choice but to carry on, breathe in, breathe out, focus on the end result, maybe scream a little and clutch the sides of the birthing pool and look into the eyes of the women in the room who know that they did it and you will, too, and someday, you’ll forget just how much it hurt. Maybe even tomorrow.

I hope so. I’m looking into the eyes of those of you who did this and lived–and I’m talking about having twelve-year old boys who hate school. We’ll be okay, right? Right? I can do this, right?

Okay, then. Okay. Tomorrow’s a new day, a new opportunity to accidentally squish slugs while I’m walking in the rain and a new chance to get this mothering thing right.

The Longest Walk

Yesterday, Babygirl and I walked around our circle. You’d think that two healthy human beings could cover one-tenth of a mile in a reasonable amount of time, but no. Not when one of those human beings is two and a half. (I asked her, “How old are you?” and she said, without pause, “Twenty.”)

Babygirl jogged at first. Then she did a bear-crawl and became distracted by a black ant. We stopped to gaze at the Gnome-Lady’s house. She has twenty-seven gnomes strategically placed around her front yard. I convinced Babygirl that the Lady would not want her to walk on the rocks to see the gnomes.

We were nearly half-way around the block. Then came the puddles. Babygirl stooped to look down the storm drain. She jumped in the puddle. Because she is close to the ground, she noticed a ladybug crawling along. I placed the newsletter I carried near the ladybug so the bug would climb onto the paper. I thought we might take the insect home, but it flew away.

A few houses later, Babygirl saw rocks. She stopped and stuffed her shorts pockets full, awkwardly crossing her right arm across her small body to put the rocks into her left pocket.

When we finally reached home nearly an hour later, I emptied ten rocks from her pockets.

As someone said recently, the days are long, but the years are so short. Before I know it, she really will be twenty. I hope we’ll still take meandering walks together, even thought she might be wishing we’d go a little quicker and I’ll be the one stopping to poke at ladybugs.

Let’s Run Away Together

I saw Brooke Shields on a couple of different television shows this week, hawking her book, Down Came the Rain. And I really wanted to be sympathetic to her, I did, but I couldn’t because how can you feel sorry for an almost 40-year old woman with such long, lean calves and such well-groomed eyebrows and that dimple right by her pretty mouth?


Brooke on Oprah’s show. Posted by Hello

Did you see how good she looked when she left the hospital with her newborn? On my best day, I didn’t look that good. I never will. And after I gave birth? I was just a mushy-bellied, red-eyed, crazy-haired woman who smelled like baby spit-up and dried breastmilk.

I know–of course, I know–that post-partum depression is a real malady suffered by scores of women, but her descriptions of the dark days didn’t touch me at all. I felt a whole lot more sorry for Andrea Yates, the mom who systematically drowned her five children in a bathtub. I related more to the straggle-haired mom who snapped than to the smooth-haired beauty who didn’t want to pick up her newborn.

I know. Aren’t I a terrible person?

I suppose the truth is that I’m just jealous of Brooke’s beauty and wealth and extreme tall leanness. She is only a few months younger than me and it hardly seems fair that some people get more than their fair share of . . . well, everything. I hate myself for feeling so uncharitable.

But while I’m at it, let me also say that I bet women who are honest-to-God (but unpublished) writers who have something valid to say about post-partum depression, even though they are not gorgeous movie stars who had a traumatic experience . . . I bet they are peeved that Brooke Shields got a book deal about this topic as a result of her fame and good looks. Okay, right, so Brooke Shields went to Princeton and she’s smart, too. Like that makes me feel any better. As my dad would say, please don’t confuse me with the facts. I know I always narrow my eyes at people who get book deals even though they are not writers, per se.

As for Jennifer Wilbanks, the so-called “Runaway Bride,” I feel a great deal of sympathy. In fact, she has inspired me.

I told my husband, though, so he wouldn’t call the FBI. I challenge women everywhere: See how far from home you can get with $150 and a bad haircut.

I leave first thing tomorrow.

(Okay, okay, only in my dreams. But wouldn’t it be an interesting exercise? And then we could compile all the experiences into a book and call it “The Runaway Woman,” and it’ll be on the best-seller list and then we’ll all become rich, rich, rich and we’ll go on Oprah, but before the show, we’ll get makeovers and then we’ll look fabulous and afterwards, Oprah will take us out to lunch and we’ll all be Best Friends and go on a cruise together. And they all lived happily ever after. The End.)

A Place of One’s Own

I hate to admit my shortcomings, but I have to start by saying that I never read Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own. But the title of that book appeals to me as an introvert, as a hermit, as a girl with a messy house because of the slobs kids who live with me. I crave solitude, some days more than others.

Babygirl is suffering from another cold, which means that I am also suffering from her cold. Futhermore, she’s insufferable and determined to skip her nap each afternoon. The other day, I gave up and by 5:00 p.m., she was shrieking and kicking in her crib, throwing the Mother of All Fits. Impressive, yet . . . annoying.

I had to outlast her today. I put DaycareKid to bed at 1:00 p.m. Then, at 1:30 p.m., I rocked CuteBaby to sleep. I allowed Babygirl to watch “one more show,” until 2:00 p.m., and then I used the remote control and clicked off the television and said in a cheery voice, “Time for night-night!”

“No night-night,” she said as she slid off the bed and went to push the power button on the set. I aimed the remote and clicked it off again. I picked her up and deposited her back on the bed. She began to cry.

Ever resolute, she climbed down again and pointed her finger at the power button. I scooped her up and dropped her back into bed.

The soundtrack I like to call “Toddler Mahem” (aka screaming, crying without tears, shrieking) accompanied this dramatic mother-daughter struggle. She hollered, screamed, chanted. At one point, she turned around so she could kick me as I laid with my back to her, feigning sleep. As if I could sleep through the racket. She did not enjoy my immobilizing her ankles.

In the midst of this, I telephoned my husband, just so I could say, “Hey, I wanted to share the joy of motherhood,” while holding the phone to my tantrum-throwing girl, but he was at the post office and said, “I’ll call you back.” Now, what fun is that? When he called back, I let the answering machine pick it up because I was busy ignoring the pitiful cries of my only daughter.

At one point, she begged to go to her brother’s bed. I counted on my fingers, silently, one, two, three, four, five, then said aloud, “NO!” I did this about ten times in a row. We had quite a rhythm going for awhile, but it sure added to her fury. So I shut up and drowned out her distressing cries by promising myself grand promises: The second my husband comes home, I’m going to go . . . but I couldn’t think of where I would go. Where could I go? I began to fantasize about a place where moms could go, a living room where you could get a Diet Coke with Lime and read a People magazine without anyone interrupting or getting snot on your clothes. A neighborhood Moms Only clubhouse where kids weren’t allowed and husband dared not enter. A place where nobody knows your name–“Mom!”

And then it hit me. What I really want is an apartment of my own. Not just a room, but an entire apartment . . . a place where the carpets would stay clean, where the bathroom counters would never be smeared with toothpaste and the toilet rims wouldn’t be peppered with pee. I don’t need a big apartment, either. A one-bedroom would be fine, as long as the bathroom has a gigantic tub with jacuzzi jets. (Hey, I’m dreaming–I can have a big fancy tub if I want.) I want a place where I don’t have to constantly clean up messes I didn’t make, a place where the fridge holds premium ice cream and fresh lemons, a place where the remote control doesn’t disappear every single day.

After thirty-five minutes, Babygirl stopped screaming. I gingerly stepped out of the room and heard CuteBaby’s angry screams. His short nap had ended and he was indignant to find himself alone. Luckily, he’s a sweet, easy-to-please baby, so a bottle cured all that ailed him and he happily rolled on the floor while I watched “Dr. Phil.”

Soon my three boys returned, one of their friends came over, Babygirl and DaycareKid woke up and the pace picked up. As usual.

But I kept my promise. When my husband arrived home (at 6:30 p.m.)–incidentally, while I was vacuuming–I said, “I’m leaving.” I realized I’d been the one to handle bedtimes for a solid week–he’s been gone for one reason or another every night–so I grabbed my keys without regard to my frightening hair and make-up-less face and practically sprinted out my front door.

I had premium ice cream (Cold Stone Creamery Rocky Road), wandered the bookstore, picked up sixty-four dollars worth of stuff at Target and returned home in time to watch “Survivor.” Only one more day until the weekend comes.

Unfortunately, my husband has an obligation all day Saturday and Sunday is church meeting day. But one day, I’ll have a place of my own. (I wonder if they’ll allow pets in the nursing home?)

Keeping Promises and Making Kids Cry

While Babygirl napped this afternoon, I decided to take my couch-potato, GameBoy-playing sons for a hike. I took them back to the trails at Point Defiance, which were so lovely that even the memory of Babygirl weeping and wailing as she hiked did not deter me.

The air was still, cool. The boys chattered incessantly as we briskly walked down the trail to the beach. I’d point out the trilliums and they wouldn’t quite yawn, but really, all they wanted to do was find a good stick. I described the process of decaying tree trunks and new growth and they scarcely blinked. I used the word “ecosystem,” but it didn’t spark any flicker of recognition.

The tide was low today and so the beach stretched out before us. TwinBoyB nearly fell on his head as he carelessly scrambled down the last ten feet of the trail. Then he slid on his bottom as he tiptoed across a fallen log. He finally screamed, “I HATE WALKS!” I ignored his outburst and carefully picked my way down the stairstepping roots of the giant beach-side tree.

We meandered down the beach. TwinBoyA was intent upon finding “aquatic life,” as he called it. We immediately came upon a pink and blue sea star. YoungestBoy held it and I photographed it. Then we discovered symmetrical holes in the rock, which turned out to be mudstone which contained oblong-shaped clams called piddocks. The piddocks opened like gaping bird mouths. If touched, they’d squirt and then sink back down into their holes.

We found rocks which crumbled in our hands and then it dawned on us that the rocks had broken off of the soaring walls of the bluff which bordered the beach. I think the rock was probably gypsum–it was soft as a bar of soap. We each carved our names into the rock wall. We could break the rocks with one hand, as if they were chalk.

TwinBoyB began to complain and suggest that we turn back. He is a whiner extraordinaire and always has been. His complaints are so tiresome and have ruined many an adventure. Today was no different.

We eventually turned back and found the roots of the tree which marked our trail. As we began our ascent up the trail, I said, “Children who do not complain will get a treat! Children who complain will get no treat!” I did not want to hear any bellyaching as we climbed back up the steep trail. I prompted YoungestBoy to tell the twins where we’d have our treat (Dairy Queen).

And then we trudged uphill. Although the trail was quite steep in places, it was not impossible. TwinBoyB immediately began a tirade of complaints: “I’m tired!” “I hate walking!” “Why did we have to do this?” “My legs are going to fall off.” “I’m going to explode!” “I think I am going to die. Seriously. I mean it.”

I realized that this boy would get no treat or my words would have no value. I even commented out loud and so in a great dramatic performance, he collapsed in tears and slid on his bottom on the path. His brothers were shouting encouragement and giving him their walking sticks. He cried, his face red, his attitude stinky. I dreaded what was about to happen. His brothers were frantic, cheering him on.

Just as we reached the parking lot, I mentioned that he would not get a treat. He wailed and gnashed his teeth, begging for another chance, for mercy. “Mom, what do I have to DO?” I said, “You needed to walk without complaining the whole way.”

His tantrum reminded me of Babygirl’s fit the other day. By now, his brothers were desperate. “Mom, PLEASE, you have to give him another chance!” YoungestBoy went so far as to suggest that if I’d been in his class the other day, then maybe I would have learned to think how I might feel if I were in another person’s shoes. TwinBoyA cautioned me, “Mom, God is frowning on you! Whatever happened to mercy and compassion? Huh? Huh?”

I said, “Look. I told you the rules. I made a promise. I have to keep it. He made a choice, a bad choice, and I’m sad for him, but I can’t break my promise.” At that point, TwinBoyB broke into a mournful yell, “JUST KILL ME! KILL ME NOW! I WANT TO BE DEAD!”

I stopped the car. I said, “Get out. When you’re finished, you can get back in.” He stopped screaming and looked at me through narrowed eyes. I started the car again, he started crying again and the TwinBoyA, in a great show of moral support, burst into loud weeping. He hid his face behind the sleeve of his fleece jacket. I think he was faking.

Behind me, YoungestBoy joined the chorus, sobbing so hard he could barely speak his accusations aloud. “You are so mean!” I turned to see tears running down his pink cheeks. All three boys were now crying in unison.

I wanted to roll my eyes. I wanted to laugh. But I calmly pulled the car over–again–and warned everyone to stop. I explained again why TwinBoyB would get no treat.

I think they expected me to crumble–and how I wanted to collapse under the weight of their collective disapproval–but I held steady. I pulled into the drive-through lane of the Dairy Queen and said, “What do you want?” to YoungestBoy. Then I asked TwinBoy A. I ordered a hot fudge sundae and two Georgia Fudge Mud Blizzards (one for me, one for TwinBoyA) and told TwinBoyB that I was sorry he didn’t get a treat.

He accepted his fate without a sound. TwinBoyA rose to the occasion and shared his whole treat with his brother. Before we’d gone a block, the sound of pleasant laughter filled my car.

I can only hope TwinBoyB learned something. I know I did. I need new hiking companions.