Like the Wizard of Oz

October 13, 2008

Somewhere along the way Miles, you learned how to pump on the swing.

I’m not sure when exactly it happened. As is typical of the last child in a big family the small things get lost. Maybe I fail to pay attention.

I never showed you how to swing yourself. That job fell to one of your siblings, I suppose.

Or maybe you just sat there on the swing so long waiting for someone to come and push you that you taught yourself. At least that is what I think when I want to up the ante on my maternal guilt.

Because sometimes the crushing weight of the normal guilt I carry isn’t enough. The feeling that doing it all is a lot of smoke and mirrors. Pull back the curtain and it would be obvious that none of it is being done very well.

*****

I watched the sunrise through my bedroom window this morning with my two feverish babies draped over and around me, effectively pinning me to the bed. They took turns coughing, their sleep fitful and fleeting. I rubbed their backs and kissed their sweaty little heads.

In my head I was running through the list of all the things I had to do for the day. The list is long, some of the things are from last week that didn’t get done. Oh heck, let’s be honest some of the things are still on the list from last month. Sick kids hanging off of me were not a part of the plan. I try not to be annoyed. Try.

We finally got out of bed after watching the squirrels in the trees, something we do every morning. This morning my shoulders and back ache from lying in one position with them on top of me.

I am sitting here now working, well RIGHT NOW I am typing this. My daughter is drawing pictures at the table next to me, narrating everything. I am half listening. Every so often I pause and make non-committal remarks. “Ohhhh, lovely.” “That is great!” “Excellent.”

My son is sitting on my lap, his head buried in my chest, arms wrapped around my body. His hands are stroking my hair which hangs in braid down my back. My yoga pants are stained with paint. The tank top I am wearing is fraying at the hem. No bra, no make-up except for whatever is left from yesterday. My second cup of coffee is growing cold next to me.

My life is nothing but glamorous.

We are rocking back and forth. Rocking my sick child while typing - I am torn as to whether this is a high point or low point in multi-tasking. I tend to think the latter.

Will he remember that I rocked him? Or will he remember that I was always typing, not fully present. Will he remember the smoke and mirrors or the reality behind the curtain?

I think of a conversation that I had with a friend recently. How middle class mothers have taken to manufacturing things to feel guilty about. Our children are fed, clothed, have all the things that money can buy for them. They are safe and loved. Our days aren’t spent toiling away at some sort of horrible job. We have choices. Choices our grandmothers didn’t have. Something that is both a blessing and a curse.

We don’t have many valid worries and so we manufacture them. We worry about plastic water bottles, excessive high fructose corn syrup consumption, toys made in China, their fragile little psyches. And crafts… we should be doing more goddamn crafts. At least that is what all those parenting magazines tell us. We worry about being perfect. When probably, hopefully, in the end none of it is really going to matter.

At least that is what I am telling myself this morning.

Cowboy Tattoos Are Funny

October 11, 2008

Albert Einstein said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. That would sum up this little football team and its coaches perfectly. They lost 35ish - 0. I lost count after a while, because does it really matter?

Did my mother just tell me to kick some one’s ass?

Yes, son, I did. I don’t know what has come over me. I have turned into one of those parents. Also, I apologize for handing you your winter weight underarmour and long socks this morning and telling you it was cold. At 6am when I got up, it was cold. I forgot about that bright shiny thing that would rise in the sky a few hours later.

Random things from today:

1) I had to drop my 13 yr old off early this morning at the football field for practice. When I left the house, my daughter was in the shower and the other kids were getting ready to go to my 9 yr old son’s away game. I came home to discover my 9 yr old had brushed his sister’s hair and put it in a ponytail. Why that makes my heart sing so much I am not sure. He also made her scrambled eggs for breakfast. Yes, I will be taking applications to have your daughter marry him.

2) After the game the kids got food at the concession stand and were sitting at tables eating. A cheerleader from the opposing team went up to one of my son’s friends and asked him if he wanted to go sit under the bleachers with her. He was appropriately horrified by the question. But seriously, what the hell? These are nine year old little boys and girls. It also made me sad for the little girl because where is she getting that from and what if she asks that of the wrong kid?

3) A cold virus has been going through our house. My house is a cacophony of coughing. And you want to know something? Coughing drives me bat shit crazy. I wish I had more patience when my kids are hacking up their lungs, but I do not. I put out carrot sticks and hummus for a snack when we got home this afternoon and the amount of coughing over the food caused me to go and eat my own NON COMMUNAL FOOD standing at the counter completely on the other side of the kitchen. And still I was annoyed.

4) This is photographic evidence of how much my daughter loves going to football games:

Every week I assure her that there will not be any dancing unicorns or candy falling from the sky, and yet she still wants to go. Just so she can ask me every five minutes if the game is almost over. And I can promise to never bring her again.

6) The opposing team had a girl on it. And as enlightened as I like to think that I am, it really bothered me to hear the coaches shouting things like, “Hit her!” “Get her!” “Knock her down!”

7) Someone today told me that they were getting cowboy tattoos. Thankfully, I misheard. Because I burst out laughing.

The Teen Years Just Got Easier

October 10, 2008

Threatening to whip out this little photo for future dates has assured me a smooth ride through those teen years.

Liz wrote yesterday about her daughter wanting to wear play make-up and her uneasiness with it all, an uneasiness I think that most of us raised to be good feminists share. Where is the line between over sexualization of little girls and playing dress up? I don’t have an answer. Like Supreme Court justice Potter Stewart said when talking about pornography, I know it when I see it, but can’t easily define it.

I wasn’t allowed to wear make-up until high school. I wasn’t allowed to get my ears pierced until I was 13, though I finally begged and pleaded enough to get it down to 12. I couldn’t shave my legs until junior high, and trust me my people need to shave their legs. I also wasn’t allowed to wear colored nail polish. Combine all of this with a school uniform that consisted of a plaid skirt that came below the knee and knee socks and you can see why the boys were beating down my door.

“Just hold still, Miles. It isn’t going to hurt.”

I am just beginning to navigate these waters with my daughter. She already got her ears pierced. She is allowed to paint her nails whatever color she likes. She has a little make-up case, filled mostly with chapsticks, glitter lip gloss, and samples I got and rejected. I guess you could make the argument that I allow her to wear ugly make-up.

My line in the sand has more to do with clothing choices. My daughter will dress like a little girl, dammit, not a Bratz doll. And I will say it right here, right now, my daughter will never wear a pair of short shorts that says “Juicy” across the ass.

“I don’t wike dat stuff on my wips.”

Also, I figure that as long as my daughter and son are wearing the same make-up that we are still firmly in the playing dress-up camp.

Fried Green Tomatoes

October 9, 2008

This recipe makes me think of turning lemons into lemonade. Taking the green tomatoes that haven’t had time to turn red because OMG SUMMER IS OVER AND HOW DEPRESSING IS THAT and making them into something yummy.

Turning this:

Into this:

Over at Work It, Mom! today.

The Girls of the House

October 8, 2008

Yes, I know my mums are looking kind of dry and possibly dead. They are supposed to be “Hardy Mums.” I thought that hardy meant they could withstand my neglect. I guess not.

I have kept all of my children alive and watered so that should count for something, right?

Breaking My Rule of No Crap on the Fridge

October 7, 2008

The kids are loving the word magnets so much that I bought two more sets for them. Doesn’t playing with them count as reading or phonics or something?

I’m sure in a few days I will regret it because the visual overload will be too much for me to deal with. Or the kids will begin fighting over the words in front of the fridge, instead of, you know, other places in the house. Or my 7yr old will put the words up really high so that his little sister can’t reach them. Oh wait, that one has already happened.

Hopefully they will be a little more literate before I reach my breaking point, open the back door and begin tossing random words outside.

How to Tell It Is Sunday

October 6, 2008

1) I am at the football field
2) In the rain

And writing about it all makes it sound far more boring than it actually is. We have had a lot of fun, crazy parents and all. Never ending rain and all.

This weekend at the game I let my 9yr old and his friend take turns using my camera. They got some interesting photos. I like seeing the things that children chose to photograph. I like seeing things from their vantage point. Even if it means they miss the shots I would have taken.

At one point my 13 yr old son had a great play right in front of us. We were all screaming and cheering. I turned to my son’s friend and said, “Did you get a photo of that?” He looked at the camera in his hands, looked back at me and said,”Uh, no.”

But they got other shots. Like the one above which makes it look like both teams are chasing after the ref.

Or this one, which compositionally is a great shot. The only thing that would have made it better is if it were a photo of a kid on our own team that we actually knew. But why be picky.

Three Years Nine Months

October 2, 2008

Dear Miles,

Three years nine months is the age of crazy. Your personality resembles that of a schizophrenic crack head. One minute you are on the top of the world, the very next you are so upset that you have no choice but to scream and make sure that everyone in a two mile radius knows of your displeasure.

You have developed a really bad habit recently of standing in front of me whenever I am talking to someone, either in person or on the phone, and interrupting me as I talk. I have tried ignoring you, but you just up the ante and start smacking my stomach. If I ignore that you reach up and grab my boobs. That one is harder to ignore. Turns out being felt up by a three year old is really distracting for all involved.

So I have now begun sternly saying, “No” to you whenever you interrupt me. The first few times you looked at me like I was nuts. What is this word you are directing at me, woman? And you proceeded to headbutt my pelvic bone and have screaming hissy fits that were probably even worse that being molested by a three year old. I look like a very mean and inattentive mother now since you continually test me. But at least now you stop and wait patiently to say, “Mom, mom, mom” over and over again.

You dress yourself now. I want to tell you this so that one day when you are grown and look back at photos of yourself you don’t go on and on about how your mother dressed you in crazy clothes. You did this to yourself. You pick out your own clothes and your latest obsession is to wear red baseball socks. With shorts.

If anyone asks you why you are wearing baseball socks you answer, “Because I am a BASEBALL guy. Duh.” I know I shouldn’t laugh when you say “Duuuuuuh.” I know that it is rude. But I can’t help it. It absolutely kills me every time.

The other night I was telling you to pick up your toys but you were more interested in watching the Misadventures of Flapjack on television.

So you said to me, “Why don’t you just shut-up!”

There was a collective gasp in the room from everyone but you.

“Miles, that is very rude. You do not tell Mommy to shut up. Do you understand? I was TALKING TO YOU”

And I swear to God, Miles, you looked at me and said, ” Well, why don’t you just SHUT UP!”

I ushered you off to a time out while giving your siblings the stink eye for laughing, though truth be told I was laughing on the inside. You sat in the corner crying and quietly saying over and over, “Well, just shut up!” As if the whole incident could have been avoided had I just stopped talking to you. Which I suppose is true.

You love to talk. And talk and talk. I am not sure what else to say about that other than my ears hurt.

Is This A Mid Life Crisis?

September 30, 2008

Last week I read what Susan wrote about being happy and it resonated with me. (Look a dreaded -ated word) Then my friend Journey Mama wrote about the same thing. Every time I think of these words she wrote: I sit and think about small regrettable things, it brings tears to my eyes.

That is precisely what I do at night when quiet has finally fallen over the house. When I have yelled at the ceiling for the last time. And people have decided to finally shut up and go to sleep.

When I consider how short tempered I was with one of my children, when a smile and a tiny bit of compassion would have been the better choice.

I think about the heavy sighs I let out and the moments that I felt I was being inconvenienced and how I let everyone know this with my actions.

I think about the words I didn’t say. The words I should have said. The missed opportunities for saying I love you, though one could argue that anytime is a fine time to tell the people around you that you love them.

I think of the moments that passed me by because I was trying to do that one last thing and my heart breaks a little.

My daughter told me today that I am a great cleaner. Please just stab me through the heart with my dull broom handle, I think it would hurt less.

I think of all the little ways I fail.

I think about what it means to be happy. Especially lately.

I am content. I suppose. I have many, many things to be thankful for. More things than I can count. I am not depressed. I am not UNhappy. I have moments where I laugh with my children or friends until I think my sides will burst. And moments where I am filled with so much love that it has no choice but to escape from my eyes like a safety valve. Though the tears of joy are awfully close to something else. What exactly, I am not sure.

I think the only way to describe it is the acute realization that this is it. This one shot at life is all we get and OH MY GOD it is passing me by. I was going to write just now that at the age of (almost)forty I am not where I imagined I would be at (almost)forty. I thought I would be wiser. That I would have it more together. I thought I would know, well, stuff. I also had no idea what gravity would do to a body.

But I realized, as I was typing, that I had no concept of forty way back when. That seemed so positively old that surely you must have already done most of what you wanted to do. And now you were just sitting back with your Geritol and Depends waiting for your dirt nap.

Instead I find that I am just faking it. I definitely know less than I thought I knew at twenty. And do you know what that means? At this rate I will NEVER know what the hell I am doing.

Maybe I need to start wearing my hair in a comb over, buy a convertible, and throw away all my disposable income on lap dances. It seems to work for men, right?

No Space For This Milestone in the Baby Book

September 29, 2008

Yesterday we were talking about Halloween and the kids were planning what they want to dress up as this year.

My oldest son casually says that he is too old for trick or treating. Which I guess he is. At 5′10 he kind of looms over the toddlers and small children. Last year he had said he was only going to see how happy his baby brother would be trick-or-treating. Something we both knew wasn’t entirely true.

But it was more the way he said it yesterday, like it was just completely matter of fact. I had thought he would have held on to this last vestige of childhood while I had to pry it away from him kicking and screaming.

“Will you come and walk around the neighborhood with us? You know to see the joy on your little brother’s face when he realizes he is getting free candy?”

“Uh, I think I will stay home. I can see the joy on his face when he comes home and shares his candy with me.”

So really I guess he has become the proverbial lazy teenager and realizes it will be less work for the candy to just come home to him.