Mundane Stuff
Babygirl declared yesterday, “I gotta wash the dishes!” And she did. She stood on a chair at the sink, sprayed water, moved dishes from one sink to the next, cracked a glass and got her clothes wet. What fun she had. This time around, I am wiser and I let her practice doing chores in the hopes that one day, she will actually do the chores with a smile on her face.

When I started motherhood with a set of twins, I didn’t encourage this sort of thing because the mess of two children playing in water at the sink is not really just twice the mess of one child. It’s more like four times the mess. And they fought over everything. They still do.

Right now, one of the twins is working on spelling while the other works on literature. What puzzles me is that they choose to work on the crazy yellow couch in the golden living room rather than in their room, where I painstakingly set up separate study areas for each of them. I always forget that they are not me. If I would adore my own separate study area, they will hate it.

I Blame Paris Hilton
What’s up with people carrying their little yappy dogs into stores around here? Two times in the past week, I’ve seen someone clutching a pointless little dog in their arms while they shopped–once at the grocery store! What’s that all about? Does everyone think they are the exception to the rule?

An anonymous person made the following comment on my blog a moment ago: Why not just be happy for what God gave you and shut up for a while! Did you know there was a war on and plenty of women are losing their children every day. How about grabbing yours, thanking God, and stop whining!

Frankly, it’s impossible to take an anonymous commenter seriously and comments like this always crack me up.

But to answer the questions:

Question: Why not be happy for what God gave you and shut up for awhile?
Answer: Your question presumes I am not happy, which is a false presumption. Furthermore, is happiness really the point of life? I think not. Finally, if I shut up, who would write my blog entries? Were you hoping I would ask you? I don’t even know your telephone number!

Question: Do you know there is a war on?
Answer: Well, yes, I did. In fact, a friend on my street is expecting her first baby in three weeks. Her husband is serving in Iraq and will miss the birth.

Question: How about grabbing yours, thanking God and stopping whining?
Answer: How about you find a blog you feel more comfortable reading? How about you sign your name to your comments, you big coward?

Thanks for stopping by.

Oh, but before you go, I have a question for you. Do you know how to use a question mark? Or did you fail grammar in elementary school?

(Yeah, that was kind of unnecessary, wasn’t it? But at least I’m signing my name.)

Tonight, I stretched out next to YoungestBoy and read him a long library book. I had a sudden flash of nostalgia for those days when I could feel a baby squirming inside. How I loved being pregnant. After so many years of infertility, the shock of tiny in utero knocks always delighted me. Always.

When I was pregnant, for the first time ever, I admired my body. Instead of hating the imperfect contours of my body, I found myself in awe of my body’s functions. I stroked my swelling belly–which before I’d always despised because it was never flat. Ever. Now, I adored my round stomach. When I could feel the baby swirl around and hiccup, I exulted in my participation in a miracle.

How can you not want to participate in a miracle as often as possible? I totally understand those women who repeat this experience over and over again. But even if I had a choice, I’m not sure I would make the choice to be open to unlimited pregnancies. Maybe I’m selfish–though God knows, that isn’t an easy state in which to remain when one is a mother–but I do hope to have a life beyond my children.

I see myself as the planet and my children as my orbiting moons. It seems like some mothers function more like the chocolate shell on a dipped cone. Their ice cream children melt and they are a pointless, broken shell. The children are the center and somehow, when the children grow-up, those moms are empty. Of course, this is entirely speculation since I am in the midst of the chaos of child-rearing and having an empty nest sounds appealing. (I know, Suzanne, is probably making a clucking sound right now at my short-sightedness. I should probably sit on my hands and quit pontificating.)

I want to read an entire novel during the daytime, but beyond that, I have private dreams and aspirations that do not involve my status as a mother. I once said that being a stay-at-home mother is not what I am, it’s what I do. I don’t define myself by my day-to-day activities, but by my internal self, the part of me that thinks and daydreams and reads and observes. That’s the part of me which is often drowned out by the noise in my household and by the row after row of demands. That’s the part that stays up late at night.

As I approach forty (in January–send gifts!), I wonder about my life in a few years. Will I school the boys for the next six years? Will they go back into public school? Will I go back to school and pursue a career? Will I forfeit the satisfaction of a much-dreamed of career for a job that merely pays the bills instead? Will I ever write for publication? Will the laundry all be clean and put away on the same day? Or will the laundry baskets always overflow? And why, oh why, do Goldfish crackers crumble into a thousand pieces when they are crunched into the carpet?

In a way, I’ve never felt like the mastermind behind my own life. Obstacles have determined my course more than anything else, obstacles like available jobs for my husband, my dad’s death, our infertility, money woes, my children’s learning issues. It’s as if I’m a Pac-Man, working my way through the maze, not heading the direction of my choosing, but scurrying away from monsters who will eat me in a quest for fruit (magic pills?) which will keep me safe for a moment.

Does anyone fully feel like the controller of their own destiny? Do people actually live lives according to a grand plan? Am I the only one without a road map? Do some people get to fill in the blanks and not just pick between “A”, “B”, or “C”?

(I just realized that I sound like an atheist. I believe God has a plan for my life, but sometimes, just occasionally, I wish He would give me a road-map so I could pack adequately for the journey. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.)

I also think that perhaps learning to enjoy the ride, especially the so-called detours, is probably the point of all of this. After all, if you never leave the freeway, you never experience the worlds’ best drive-in and other joys on streets where the speed limit is 30 miles per hour.

Last night, we had dinner with two other couples at someone’s house. Everyone was older than me and, in fact, it seemed that one of the men has had nine lives. Each story began with a different description, like “My roommate at Dallas Seminary . . . ” Or “When I lived in New England . . . ” Or “Back in Seattle . . .”

I felt so completely beige, as if I had nothing interesting to say because I’ve had no interesting experiences (which is not true, not really, but “interesting” is in the eye of the beholder, isn’t it?). And when you are a mother who stays home and takes care of her children, people assume you are a blank, dusty chalkboard. Sometimes you are, but I like to think there is more to me than fixing grilled cheese sandwiches and refereeing fights over Nintendo.

Fortunately, I have a stock answer to the question he asked: “What is your favorite movie?”** And I hated both of his favorite movies (“Somewhere in Time” and “Chariots of Fire”), but I wisely kept my mouth shut.

The conversation was lively and soon we’d spent three hours chatting and so my husband abruptly said, “Oh my, it’s 11 p.m., we must get home to our babysitter.” And we all left at once since we rode in the fancy-schmancy vehicle belonging to our dinner companions.

Tonight, I went to dinner with three women friends from church. I was by far the oldest at this dinner. I could be the mother of one of the women, in fact, if I’d had a child while I was a teen. Because I have a two year old, I find myself rubbing shoulders with other mothers of two year olds, but they are usually more than ten years my junior. I am so haggard and aged.

I asked S., “How long have you been married?” And she said, “Ten years.” D. has been married seven years, and A., a mere one year. I’ve been married seventeen years. That’s a long time.

After dinner, I ran a few errands and ended up shivering at the local outdoor produce store, searching for a pumpkin to carve. From the road, it looked like there were a bunch of pumpkins, but upon closer inspection, they were all rotten and cracked and mushy. I had neglected pumpkin hunting earlier, so I settled on two medium white pumpkins and one oblong orange pumpkin. The pickings were mighty slim, which is what happens if you wait until October 30th to find a pumpkin. Lesson learned.

We may or may not go to church tomorrow. Babygirl is recovering from a sudden and vicious cold. I think she’ll be all right, but you never know. But this is my favorite night of the year, better than Christmas Eve! It’s the night we get an extra hour of sleep . . . or in my case, an extra hour to read! (Now, please, someone send the memo to my children. They usually fail to observe the “extra hour of sleep” rule and just get up at the regular time (which is now an hour earlier!).

————————————–
**My favorite movie? “Schindler’s List,” which is profound on so many levels. I love the story of redemption it tells.

At this very moment, I have four extra kids in my house. All four of them have working mothers.

The neighbor boys are always here, unlelss they are at daycare. I found out their daycare provider is a the same woman who always brings ten kids to our church’s summer program–which on one hand, is great. On the other, critical, pessimistic hand, I calculated that she is making an estimated $70.00 for each day they are at our program. And our program is free, so she’s earning at least $350.00 that week while doing nothing at all.

The other boys who are here today have a working mother, too. She pays her nanny $10.00 an hour. That means, her nanny is earning at least $20.00 while I am watching her kids.

How is this fair?

Signed,
The Big Whiner

At 5:40 p.m., I was hunched into a small, blue, first-grader-sized chair. Next to me, Miss B. sat quite comfortably. She is the first-grade teacher, a small woman with a quick smile and teeny-tiny little hands that reminded me of my college roommate. (My college roommate was 4 feet 10 inches tall and wore a size 3 shoe. I am 5 feet 7 inches tall and there’s nothing size 3 about me.)

Miss B. began by telling me what a joy it is to have YoungestBoy in her class. She told me how once, at the beginning of the school year, she found him disoriented in the hallway, lost. She reminded him where the room was and he laughed and said, “Oh yeah! Short term memory loss.” We both laughed out loud.

Then she pulled out a paper which listed an assessment of his knowledge so far. He excells in every area–except penmanship. He needs to work on that. But today, he received a Student of the Month award for “Amazing Writing.” He loves math and shows an unbelievable aptitude for numbers.

All too soon, it was over and she asked if I had any questions. I didn’t. But I wanted to clutch her half-sized hand and beg her to tell me more about my brilliant, darling son. I wanted to sit on that little chair and compare stories and discuss his cuteness, his charm, his unintentionally hilarious comments. I told her one story about last Friday. I’d rented a video game for him the night before, so Friday morning he came to me and said, “Mom. My nose is stuffy. And (small fake cough) I think I should stay home.” I said, “Really?” and kind of laughed and he said, “Okay. Well, that cough was fake.”

I told Miss B. that I’ve come to the conclusion that if I only had YoungestBoy, I would be a smug parent, a condescending parent, one of those mothers who thinks she is the reason her child is so . . . everything.

But, I have the twins, and they have challenged me every step along the way. They hate to write, their handwriting is illegible, they dragged their feet through every grade. The other day, they actually came to blows over Play-doh. They are average. Average is all right, but average is not perfect. And that’s okay. At least that’s what I keep telling myself.

If I only had YoungestBoy, I would claim credit for him. But I have his brothers. They keep me humble, while he buoys my spirits.

And it’s not all about me, anyway. My job is to keep them safe, to nourish them, inside and out, and to help them reach their potential. Sounds simple, right? If only.

I sometimes think I’m the only mother who looks around at the bedlam and the mess and thinks, Am I doing all right? Is this how it’s done? Have I ruined my children already? Is it too late? Why did I ever think I would be good at this? Would they be better off without me? Sometimes I long for the days when I worked for Blue Cross–at least then, I got a regular job review and a raise. I could measure my productivity against the company standards. At the end of the day, I could walk out to my car and not look back. Of course, back then I was a clock-watcher and I yearned for the days I have now.

I just thought I’d have perfect children who would love to play checkers (without fighting) and read by the fireplace and sit quietly at the dinner table where they’d eat brussel sprouts and discuss scripture verses. I thought they’d be darling marionettes and I’d be the master puppeteer, handling all those strings without ever getting tangled.

It turns out that life can’t exactly be planned, children are individuals, not accessories, and the kitchen counter will always attract stacks of paper. And that’s okay. As long as some of those papers have YoungestBoy’s name on them and a shining star from his teacher to show that she is extremely impressed. (He’s mine! I gave birth to him! Isn’t he sweet?!)

To file under “Ideas Which Failed”:

Remove all lamps from twin 11-year-old boys’ room in effort to make them sleep.

Next plan? Barbituates. That’s not illegal, is it? Ambien?

You can send a kid to bed, but you can’t make him sleep. This is one thing I know for sure.

At 6:45 p.m., I said to my mother in the kitchen, “We have to go check the moon.” And I snatched up Babygirl and we hurried outside. When I saw that the moon was partly obscured by a shadow, I ran back down the driveway and alerted the boys so they, too, could see the last lunar eclipse until 2007.

We stood in the street and watched the shadow creep so slowly across the nearly full moon. Babygirl was not content to sit on my hip, but wanted down. Disregarded good sense, I placed her on the street and she toddled off in her footy-pajamas to peer at the moon from a closer vantage point.

The boys sat in kitchen chairs they’d carted outside. They kept up a steady, inane chatter. Behind us, the twin girls who are seniors in high school snapped photographs and the flash illuminated the shrubs and probably our backsides, too.

When the moon was fully engulfed by the shadow of the earth, we waved bye-bye and went back inside where we warmed our noses and toes. Except for me. My toes stayed perfectly toasty in my black scuffs, which are perfectly acceptable to wear in the street while watching a lunar eclipse. Trust me. I know.

A few weeks ago, I herded my kids into the car to go to the bank and realized a few miles down the road that I was still wearing my black suede scuffs, a distant cousin of the house-slipper. They are all cozy and lined with something a sheep probably lost its life over. I wear them all day to keep my feet warm and my socks dry. But when I leave the house, I change into actual shoes with laces. It seems only right.

But maybe not.

Apparently, it has become acceptable to wear slippers in public. Did I miss a memorandum or something? Last night, I stood in line at the video store behind a woman in scuffs that appeared to be crocheted out of pink yarn. In walked another young woman wearing hot pink leopard print plush scuffs (paired with some clown-like spandex–we all turned to watch as she sauntered by). In Target the other night, I saw another pair of slippers–and not in the shoe department, either, but on a harried-looking woman’s feet.

Is it just here? Is it just me? Or are people everywhere throwing caution to the wind and wearing their slippers in public? What’s next? Pajamas?

If you see a woman in a battered, lilac-colored robe with gigantic pockets full of tissues, that would be me. Testing the new boundaries of fashion. Check out my slippers! They almost look like shoes!

Babygirl and TwinBoyA reading happily together. Her choice? “Uh-Oh, Gotta Go!” His choice? “Charlotte’s Web.”