Driving home from ice skating this winter -- ah, ice skating, the subject of many blog notes on my phone, some of which may someday be turned into blog entries -- we pulled in behind an ambulance. Its rollers weren't on, but it was lit inside. And, in this tiny mobile theatre hurtling down the freeway, someone was lying on a stretcher and talking to the EMT.
We passed in a blink. I thought He'en wouldn't notice, but she did. She said, "There is someone who is sick in there. I wish I could make it better." (Every time I am tempted to think she is a complete sociopath, she surprises me with a burst of empathy.)
So we talked about what she could do. And we talked about how, sometimes, there is nothing you can do. Well, we concluded, there is always one thing we can do. Always, we can pray.
Now, as previously established in this blog, my theology is shaky and my faith often equally so, although admittedly less so since the arrival of my offspring.
But I have undertaken to raise these children. There may come a time in their lives when they have nothing to hold onto except faith. Faith in something, faith in anything. Despite my own misgivings in the religion area, I feel that I should give them some avenue for hope in case they need it down the line. Some, um, cross-denominational faith training.
So, shamelessly relying on my memory of the Cliff Notes on To Kill a Mockingbird, I told He'en that she could pray. She could pray for courage for the sick person, and pray for strength for the sick person and their family, and pray for wisdom for all the people helping the sick person so that they would know the best thing to do.
I explained that you don't just pray for things you want, because God doesn't work that way, but that you can pray for the ability to get through it all, on your own behalf or anyone else's, because God definitely works that way.
I tried hard to put it all in five-year-old language. Then, feeling that I'd done the best I could, I shut up for a while and concentrated on driving while He'en chewed on my little homily.
She was very quiet for a while, and then,
"I blew him some kisses," she announced with calm assurance.
I nodded, my eyes welling up with Mom-tears, and told her that, yes, I was sure that would help. And I made a little prayer of my own, then, that her faith in something, anything, would always be exactly that strong.
Wednesday, May 7, 2014
Saturday, December 21, 2013
Be Still, and Listen
The long winter nights this month have invited me to lie quietly in the morning, listening to the dog snore, watching the room gradually lighten . . . and grinding my molars in anticipation of Dragon Girl's first YOWL of the day.
She doesn't hold back, this second child of mine. Dragon Girl is not the super-sleeper that her sister was at this age. She has a lot to get done in this lifetime, and nobody is going to slow her down, including the Mama. Accordingly, she wakes with the dawn, and usually a bit pre-dawn for good measure. If I am lolling about in bed and not getting a head start in the Good Morning race, that first wail generates a huge flack pattern on the Mom Radar. It also jolts my adrenaline production in unpleasant ways.
So here I am, waking up cranky and/or way too early, scheming and dreaming about getting that child to sleep longer, when I ran into these Midday Mussar notes from our rabbi.
Of course, I can't make it to the Midday Mussar meditations, because . . . right . . . kids. But I think I might really need the Midday Mussar meditations, because . . . oh, right . . . kids. So -- blessings on our clergy's technophilia -- I scrape the notes when I get a chance. They are just notes, but that's good, because then my mind can go a-wandering between the notes while I wipe the highchair tray and find the Roku remote yet again.
Reb Jamie has written about grieving, but -- as his comments on duality observe -- the very same mediations are deeply applicable to all the BUSY! NOISY! NEW! LIFE! in this house. The Jewish appreciation of duality is just so spot-on:
Our sages teach that during sleep we go through a (1/60) fractal of death. Thus every morning present[s an] . . . opportunity to practice the rouse ourselves from “mourning to an ecstatic dance…that chavod might sing you out [of bed] and may not be silent [like death].” (Psalm 30) With the words of this daily psalm, a melody, a tear, a cupped hand, or the mental image of a small cave, we can begin each day with a reminder to journey through the land of humility [chinah] to engage all life with chavod, beginning with your own.
-- Rabbi Benjamin "Jamie" Arnold
The "cupped hand" reference contemplates a discussion earlier in the same entry here.
Very little silence finds its way into my world of late. Stillness is not popular, either. And some days I am patently lacking in either humility or engagement. Some days it seems that everything around here is noisy, furry, drooly, squirmy, yelly, demanding, wanting, needing, messy, hungry, and/or some combination thereof, and that I am the one-woman service industry for all of it. Some days, I need to work really hard on being present in this parenting endeavor, and not just mentally checking out while I dice up yet another peanut butter sandwich.
Thus, when the factory whistle blows at 5:45 a.m. in the dead dark, I am trying to view that first baby cry as a new life that is "singing me out of bed." It helps. Sometimes it works. At the very least, it makes me feel guilty about being cranky and try hard to cheerfully greet the baby and do better for the rest of the day (my perfect synergy of humanistic Judaism and guilt-ridden Protestantism).
Tonight, at my amazing adopted shul, Rabbi Jamie is leading a Winter Solstice service. Again, in his words:
The Service will feature simple melodies, rich silences, and subtle teaching to turn our hearts to the expansion of light that is coming, enabling us to align our inner cycles (of darkness and light) with the wondrous symmetry and balance of forces in nature -- sun, moon, earth, and soul.
A perfect way to enter the Winter break -- with Shabbat, and community.
I won't go, of course, because . . . oh, right . . . kids. But I will try to honor the solstice by sleeping, waking, and celebrating on this day and this night. And maybe with a little stillness here and there.
She doesn't hold back, this second child of mine. Dragon Girl is not the super-sleeper that her sister was at this age. She has a lot to get done in this lifetime, and nobody is going to slow her down, including the Mama. Accordingly, she wakes with the dawn, and usually a bit pre-dawn for good measure. If I am lolling about in bed and not getting a head start in the Good Morning race, that first wail generates a huge flack pattern on the Mom Radar. It also jolts my adrenaline production in unpleasant ways.
So here I am, waking up cranky and/or way too early, scheming and dreaming about getting that child to sleep longer, when I ran into these Midday Mussar notes from our rabbi.
Of course, I can't make it to the Midday Mussar meditations, because . . . right . . . kids. But I think I might really need the Midday Mussar meditations, because . . . oh, right . . . kids. So -- blessings on our clergy's technophilia -- I scrape the notes when I get a chance. They are just notes, but that's good, because then my mind can go a-wandering between the notes while I wipe the highchair tray and find the Roku remote yet again.
Reb Jamie has written about grieving, but -- as his comments on duality observe -- the very same mediations are deeply applicable to all the BUSY! NOISY! NEW! LIFE! in this house. The Jewish appreciation of duality is just so spot-on:
Our sages teach that during sleep we go through a (1/60) fractal of death. Thus every morning present[s an] . . . opportunity to practice the rouse ourselves from “mourning to an ecstatic dance…that chavod might sing you out [of bed] and may not be silent [like death].” (Psalm 30) With the words of this daily psalm, a melody, a tear, a cupped hand, or the mental image of a small cave, we can begin each day with a reminder to journey through the land of humility [chinah] to engage all life with chavod, beginning with your own.
-- Rabbi Benjamin "Jamie" Arnold
The "cupped hand" reference contemplates a discussion earlier in the same entry here.
Very little silence finds its way into my world of late. Stillness is not popular, either. And some days I am patently lacking in either humility or engagement. Some days it seems that everything around here is noisy, furry, drooly, squirmy, yelly, demanding, wanting, needing, messy, hungry, and/or some combination thereof, and that I am the one-woman service industry for all of it. Some days, I need to work really hard on being present in this parenting endeavor, and not just mentally checking out while I dice up yet another peanut butter sandwich.
Thus, when the factory whistle blows at 5:45 a.m. in the dead dark, I am trying to view that first baby cry as a new life that is "singing me out of bed." It helps. Sometimes it works. At the very least, it makes me feel guilty about being cranky and try hard to cheerfully greet the baby and do better for the rest of the day (my perfect synergy of humanistic Judaism and guilt-ridden Protestantism).
Tonight, at my amazing adopted shul, Rabbi Jamie is leading a Winter Solstice service. Again, in his words:
The Service will feature simple melodies, rich silences, and subtle teaching to turn our hearts to the expansion of light that is coming, enabling us to align our inner cycles (of darkness and light) with the wondrous symmetry and balance of forces in nature -- sun, moon, earth, and soul.
A perfect way to enter the Winter break -- with Shabbat, and community.
Shabbat Shalom
I won't go, of course, because . . . oh, right . . . kids. But I will try to honor the solstice by sleeping, waking, and celebrating on this day and this night. And maybe with a little stillness here and there.
Saturday, November 2, 2013
Halloween. Is Over.
BWAAA-HAHAHA it's OVER! We are DONE!
For the last three blankety-blank months, every day on the way to school, the carseat has chirped, "Mooom? How yong until Haw-o-ween?"
And for the last three months, every day, I would calculate the countdown. My number would be met by a big sigh. "But dat is sooo yong!"
Not long enough for me, I would think but not dare to say.
This year, we had several parties and several changes of costume. "We" were, variously, (1) a figure skater, (2) a Really Scary Dragon, (3) a Vam-Pie-Uh, (4) a Wicked Witch (twice). I was prepared for this, and unlike Halloween 2012, I totally softballed the costumes this year. Mostly I just dug in the dress-up bin and applied eyeliner in creative ways.
We had a requisite number of meltdowns and a predictable amount of candy rationing. He'en and I went 'round about a haunted house at one party. ("But it's NOT scawwwy! Reawwy!" she protested from her hands and knees as she peered under the partitions. "I don't care. Mommy gets migranes in those things," I announced. Thus, we did not attend.)
But the spookiest, the scariest, the most-anticipated, and the most parentally horrifying, was the Great Pre-K Class Party. I am a Co- Room Mother this year -- the background on that whole deal is quite another entry -- and in conjunction with the other Co- Room Mother we had organized four crafts and a godawful pile of candy. Multiple emails were sent about the party. The teacher said there would be a song, a story, crafts, and treats, in that order.
On the Big Day, DH dropped He'en at school in costume. She could have flown her own broom, she was so excited. Dragon Girl was sick, so I stayed home as long as possible to let her sleep a little. Then I heartlessly bundled her up in a sweater, stuffed some Kleenex in my pocket, strapped her into the front-pack, and got to the school at 10:40, for the 10:30 party start. I figured they would just be settling down to the craft tables and the real help would be needed about that time.
Boy, did I figure wrong. As I walked in, about 15 parents were just getting up from their seats.
Yes, right, seats.
The "story and song" apparently had been a "Halloween Program" and, crappity CRAP, I had just missed it.
A red-faced, teary little witch appeared at my knee with a deeply trembling lower lip: "Mooom! You are YATE. You missed the WHOLE SONG."
*%%$@__#.
And *&^^ too.
The last-minute run to the thrift store, the triumphant acquisition of the Just Right striped tights, the careful application of eyeliner makeup this morning, and even permission to bring a broom to school, all blown away. Gone. Vaporized in one great Mom Failure for which I will never ever be forgiven. Did I learn nothing from last year's Hanukkah escapade?
We were saved from total disaster when another (better-organized) mother tuned into this exchange at just the right time. She had taken a video of the program and gave her phone to He'en for sharing. He'en and I twice watched the video. Then she still clearly had not forgiven me, but she was mollified enough to decorate a cookie and make a treat bag at the craft tables.
We both made it through the rest of the party but I left the school at lunchtime wrung out and awash in Momguilt. I shamelessly signed up Helen for Extended Day on my way out the door, figuring that for our hefty tuition dollars the afterparty sugar crash could be somebody else's problem for a couple hours.
When I picked up Helen in the late afternoon, she was notably more cheerful. But on the way home,
"Mom? I had a sad day." Sniff sniff.
"Oh, honey, I am so sorry." GuiltguiltguiltguiltGUILT.
"Yah. Dake teased me."
...eh? "Jake teased you? Oh, I am sorry to hear that."
"Dake teased me, but 'den I told him iff he could be nice den he could sit wiff' us at yunch. So he was a yiddle nicer 'den."
"Well, good for you, that is good to hear, that he was nice."
"So den' I wasn' sad anymore," she concluded.
Hmmmm. I could not resist asking --
"And was that the bad thing that happened today?"
"Yep."
Craftily and carefully -- "And your day was good after that? Nothing else bad happened?"
"Nope!" She swung her feet with cheerful emphasis as she contentedly bit into a candy corn.
Off the hook. Yessss.
This morning, I tossed a kid-sized costume onto the bannister for transport down to the playroom. Then another. Then a third. And I realized that I had been chanting, with each toss, "Done. Done. DONE." So yes. Done. DONE, I tell you, for another blissful blessed year.
I'm off to go raid her candy.
For the last three blankety-blank months, every day on the way to school, the carseat has chirped, "Mooom? How yong until Haw-o-ween?"
And for the last three months, every day, I would calculate the countdown. My number would be met by a big sigh. "But dat is sooo yong!"
Not long enough for me, I would think but not dare to say.
This year, we had several parties and several changes of costume. "We" were, variously, (1) a figure skater, (2) a Really Scary Dragon, (3) a Vam-Pie-Uh, (4) a Wicked Witch (twice). I was prepared for this, and unlike Halloween 2012, I totally softballed the costumes this year. Mostly I just dug in the dress-up bin and applied eyeliner in creative ways.
We had a requisite number of meltdowns and a predictable amount of candy rationing. He'en and I went 'round about a haunted house at one party. ("But it's NOT scawwwy! Reawwy!" she protested from her hands and knees as she peered under the partitions. "I don't care. Mommy gets migranes in those things," I announced. Thus, we did not attend.)
But the spookiest, the scariest, the most-anticipated, and the most parentally horrifying, was the Great Pre-K Class Party. I am a Co- Room Mother this year -- the background on that whole deal is quite another entry -- and in conjunction with the other Co- Room Mother we had organized four crafts and a godawful pile of candy. Multiple emails were sent about the party. The teacher said there would be a song, a story, crafts, and treats, in that order.
On the Big Day, DH dropped He'en at school in costume. She could have flown her own broom, she was so excited. Dragon Girl was sick, so I stayed home as long as possible to let her sleep a little. Then I heartlessly bundled her up in a sweater, stuffed some Kleenex in my pocket, strapped her into the front-pack, and got to the school at 10:40, for the 10:30 party start. I figured they would just be settling down to the craft tables and the real help would be needed about that time.
Boy, did I figure wrong. As I walked in, about 15 parents were just getting up from their seats.
Yes, right, seats.
The "story and song" apparently had been a "Halloween Program" and, crappity CRAP, I had just missed it.
A red-faced, teary little witch appeared at my knee with a deeply trembling lower lip: "Mooom! You are YATE. You missed the WHOLE SONG."
*%%$@__#.
And *&^^ too.
The last-minute run to the thrift store, the triumphant acquisition of the Just Right striped tights, the careful application of eyeliner makeup this morning, and even permission to bring a broom to school, all blown away. Gone. Vaporized in one great Mom Failure for which I will never ever be forgiven. Did I learn nothing from last year's Hanukkah escapade?
We were saved from total disaster when another (better-organized) mother tuned into this exchange at just the right time. She had taken a video of the program and gave her phone to He'en for sharing. He'en and I twice watched the video. Then she still clearly had not forgiven me, but she was mollified enough to decorate a cookie and make a treat bag at the craft tables.
We both made it through the rest of the party but I left the school at lunchtime wrung out and awash in Momguilt. I shamelessly signed up Helen for Extended Day on my way out the door, figuring that for our hefty tuition dollars the afterparty sugar crash could be somebody else's problem for a couple hours.
When I picked up Helen in the late afternoon, she was notably more cheerful. But on the way home,
"Mom? I had a sad day." Sniff sniff.
"Oh, honey, I am so sorry." GuiltguiltguiltguiltGUILT.
"Yah. Dake teased me."
...eh? "Jake teased you? Oh, I am sorry to hear that."
"Dake teased me, but 'den I told him iff he could be nice den he could sit wiff' us at yunch. So he was a yiddle nicer 'den."
"Well, good for you, that is good to hear, that he was nice."
"So den' I wasn' sad anymore," she concluded.
Hmmmm. I could not resist asking --
"And was that the bad thing that happened today?"
"Yep."
Craftily and carefully -- "And your day was good after that? Nothing else bad happened?"
"Nope!" She swung her feet with cheerful emphasis as she contentedly bit into a candy corn.
Off the hook. Yessss.
This morning, I tossed a kid-sized costume onto the bannister for transport down to the playroom. Then another. Then a third. And I realized that I had been chanting, with each toss, "Done. Done. DONE." So yes. Done. DONE, I tell you, for another blissful blessed year.
I'm off to go raid her candy.
Wednesday, October 16, 2013
Striving for Sisterhood (Now a Trio)
This Matt Walsh Blog post -- note, the responsive comments outnumber the population of my hometown -- has me lately thinking about the sisterhood of motherhood.
First case in point: I was crouching on the floor at Target, agonizing over whether I should buy Size 9 or Size 10 purple fuzzy snowboots, when a button nose peered down at me, topped by the tiniest pair of Clark Kent glasses I ever have seen.
"I'm reawwwy FAST," the owner of the glasses announced over the edge of the shopping cart wherein he was riding.
"I'll bet you are!" I automatically looked up with a grin.
"I'm faster than the Fox!" the little Clark Kent continued with great pride.
"Are you faster than all the superheroes?" I temporized, with a cautious glance at the Mama pushing the cart. Because you don't want to be thought creepy for having an extended discussion with somebody else's kid. Even if you are looking at fuzzy purple snowboots yourself at the time. And you don't know if superheroes are okay in somebody else's house, and so forth, and so on. But the Mama is grinning at her child as he continues.
"I'm faster than [mumble] and I run really good, and I have sheets with [mumble] on them but now we live with Grandma so I don't have my sheets all the time . . ."
The cart-pushing Mama interjected with, "Um, she doesn't need to know all that, honey -- "
While little Clark, who has taken a huge shine to me, is informing me that " -- I had to leave them at our house and we live with Grandma now because -- "
Whereupon the Mama got pretty "UHM!" with the kid and he subsided into the cart.
"Oh, they'll tell you everything about everything, won't they:? Mine's five, and she will tell you everything," I blathered, trying to set her at ease.
"Well, yes," she said flatly, "but you don't know me or anything about me."
I paused a second from my vantage point at her knees, still smiling up at her. "Well, I know you are a mother, and I am a mother, and that's enough to know."
Later, loading my purple fluffy snowboots into the car, I so wished that I had added, "And you're clearly doing a great job, if your terrific outgoing little kid is any indication!" Because I have a feeling she might have needed to hear it. So I was not, in Target, the sister I should have been. But, cart-pushing Mama, I am thinking of you and your cute little kid, and hoping that it all works out for you.
That said, and I am sure my own sister will agree, "sisterhood" does not always connote "solidarity."
Second case in point: I am driving through the Starbucks and staring absently from my car window into the outdoor seating area. A Mama is outside, enjoying her coffee. She has three (3) boys in tow: probably ages 2, 5, and 7 or thereabouts.
The boys are all dressed in darling little outfits with sweaters against the summer breeze. They are ranged around the table, swinging their feet and smiling while Mom drinks her coffee. Charming. I glance back at the carseat, where my own offspring has stopped howling only because she is now happily pouring milk onto her seatbelt and watching the drops soak in.
Even more tooth-grittingly, the mama is tanned and toned, wearing a poppy-colored ribbed tank top and a breezy peasant skirt -- in white -- with a big floral print. Her long dark hair is effortlessly tamed in a messy French twist. She is wearing big hoop earrings and carrying some sort of painfully simple hobo bag that is painfully perfect with the whole ensemble.
I turn around to dig out my wallet -- reminding myself to just be grateful for the resources to buy this latte even though I will undoubtedly spill a bunch of it on myself and therefore I have no white breezy skirts in my personal future -- when I hear a wail from the Starbucks courtyard.
All three boys have popped off their chairs and are rampaging around the gated seating area. Two of the three are in complete meltdown mode. The smallest one is under the table, minus his sweater and a few other articles of clothing, drumming his heels and shouting, "I HATE my hat! I HATE my hat!" The whole Starbucks yard sounds like the aviary at the zoo. The Mama, clearly a pro, continues to sip her coffee. The mien that I had previously taken for "smug and haughty" now reads more like "zenlike resignation."
I don't want to wish her ill. We are, after all, sisters in the cause. But I collected my Starbucks and drove off feeling just a little bit better about my own day.
Then there is the third case: Ourselves as Others See Us. I was wandering around Old Navy with both kids in tow (why? I really cannot say). We were having a good day. Dragon Girl was squirmy in the stroller, and He'en wanted the coloring table instead of the leggings selection, but I cannot fault either of them for that.
As we chased around looking for some new He'en pants, I caught the eye of a mother with two girls who were maybe 9, either twins or sisters close in age. I smiled at her and we smiled at me:
I grinned at the mother and asked cheerfully, "How old are your girls?"
"Oh, 9 and 10," she smiled. "They are only 15 months apart."
"Wow, that must be fun!" I said, as I bumbled my bags-kids-stroller-pilfered-crayons load into the dressing room behind her.
Thereupon followed the predictable two-kid dressing-room experience: chirpy discussions with He'en, the baby trying to crawl under the door, trying to hold Dragon Girl while buttoning Helen's pants for her, flicking dustbunnies off of everyone because of course we had all landed on the floor, and so forth. It was all basic Mom-stuff, and everybody was cheerful throughout (except maybe Dragon Girl, who rather fiercely wanted to investigate the loading bay and wasn't shy about expressing it).
Still smiling despite the light sweat, I got everybody out of the dressing room and pretty well lined-up for the checkout. I was feeling mighty smug that we had not only gotten pants, but that everyone had a good time at the store.
At the checkout, I got in line again between the nice mom with the two girls. They were loaded with cool neon sweaters and one had a jazzy pair of horn-rimmed glasses. "Looks like you found some great things!" I said.
"Well, we did, but you, now you sure look busy right now!" she smiled.
"Yes, well, it's the busy time," I smiled back, prying something shiny out of Helen's hand with a no, we're not buying that whispered aside, simultaneously shoving DG gently back into the stroller where another concerted escape attempt was in progress, and digging for my wallet with my third hand.
"It gets so much easier. I promise," she assured me. She just oozed warmth and empathetic concern. Like . . . oozing at the level that might have been appropriate if I'd been whacking one of my kids in the dressing room and she wanted to give me one more chance before calling Child Services.
So I gushed and smiled and thanked her, but I drove home checking the rear-view mirror for frown wrinkles. Her heart was totally in the right place. I give her full credit for proper sisterhood behavior. But . . . do I look that whacked? Or maybe I look like a good Mom who just needs Botox?
"If there is a single point," my own sister said as I discussed this post with her, "It's simply that we're all in this together. Every mother everywhere." And, yes, that's all I really had meant to say.
First case in point: I was crouching on the floor at Target, agonizing over whether I should buy Size 9 or Size 10 purple fuzzy snowboots, when a button nose peered down at me, topped by the tiniest pair of Clark Kent glasses I ever have seen.
"I'm reawwwy FAST," the owner of the glasses announced over the edge of the shopping cart wherein he was riding.
"I'll bet you are!" I automatically looked up with a grin.
"I'm faster than the Fox!" the little Clark Kent continued with great pride.
"Are you faster than all the superheroes?" I temporized, with a cautious glance at the Mama pushing the cart. Because you don't want to be thought creepy for having an extended discussion with somebody else's kid. Even if you are looking at fuzzy purple snowboots yourself at the time. And you don't know if superheroes are okay in somebody else's house, and so forth, and so on. But the Mama is grinning at her child as he continues.
"I'm faster than [mumble] and I run really good, and I have sheets with [mumble] on them but now we live with Grandma so I don't have my sheets all the time . . ."
The cart-pushing Mama interjected with, "Um, she doesn't need to know all that, honey -- "
While little Clark, who has taken a huge shine to me, is informing me that " -- I had to leave them at our house and we live with Grandma now because -- "
Whereupon the Mama got pretty "UHM!" with the kid and he subsided into the cart.
"Oh, they'll tell you everything about everything, won't they:? Mine's five, and she will tell you everything," I blathered, trying to set her at ease.
"Well, yes," she said flatly, "but you don't know me or anything about me."
I paused a second from my vantage point at her knees, still smiling up at her. "Well, I know you are a mother, and I am a mother, and that's enough to know."
Later, loading my purple fluffy snowboots into the car, I so wished that I had added, "And you're clearly doing a great job, if your terrific outgoing little kid is any indication!" Because I have a feeling she might have needed to hear it. So I was not, in Target, the sister I should have been. But, cart-pushing Mama, I am thinking of you and your cute little kid, and hoping that it all works out for you.
That said, and I am sure my own sister will agree, "sisterhood" does not always connote "solidarity."
Second case in point: I am driving through the Starbucks and staring absently from my car window into the outdoor seating area. A Mama is outside, enjoying her coffee. She has three (3) boys in tow: probably ages 2, 5, and 7 or thereabouts.
The boys are all dressed in darling little outfits with sweaters against the summer breeze. They are ranged around the table, swinging their feet and smiling while Mom drinks her coffee. Charming. I glance back at the carseat, where my own offspring has stopped howling only because she is now happily pouring milk onto her seatbelt and watching the drops soak in.
Even more tooth-grittingly, the mama is tanned and toned, wearing a poppy-colored ribbed tank top and a breezy peasant skirt -- in white -- with a big floral print. Her long dark hair is effortlessly tamed in a messy French twist. She is wearing big hoop earrings and carrying some sort of painfully simple hobo bag that is painfully perfect with the whole ensemble.
I turn around to dig out my wallet -- reminding myself to just be grateful for the resources to buy this latte even though I will undoubtedly spill a bunch of it on myself and therefore I have no white breezy skirts in my personal future -- when I hear a wail from the Starbucks courtyard.
All three boys have popped off their chairs and are rampaging around the gated seating area. Two of the three are in complete meltdown mode. The smallest one is under the table, minus his sweater and a few other articles of clothing, drumming his heels and shouting, "I HATE my hat! I HATE my hat!" The whole Starbucks yard sounds like the aviary at the zoo. The Mama, clearly a pro, continues to sip her coffee. The mien that I had previously taken for "smug and haughty" now reads more like "zenlike resignation."
I don't want to wish her ill. We are, after all, sisters in the cause. But I collected my Starbucks and drove off feeling just a little bit better about my own day.
Then there is the third case: Ourselves as Others See Us. I was wandering around Old Navy with both kids in tow (why? I really cannot say). We were having a good day. Dragon Girl was squirmy in the stroller, and He'en wanted the coloring table instead of the leggings selection, but I cannot fault either of them for that.
As we chased around looking for some new He'en pants, I caught the eye of a mother with two girls who were maybe 9, either twins or sisters close in age. I smiled at her and we smiled at me:
I grinned at the mother and asked cheerfully, "How old are your girls?"
"Oh, 9 and 10," she smiled. "They are only 15 months apart."
"Wow, that must be fun!" I said, as I bumbled my bags-kids-stroller-pilfered-crayons load into the dressing room behind her.
Thereupon followed the predictable two-kid dressing-room experience: chirpy discussions with He'en, the baby trying to crawl under the door, trying to hold Dragon Girl while buttoning Helen's pants for her, flicking dustbunnies off of everyone because of course we had all landed on the floor, and so forth. It was all basic Mom-stuff, and everybody was cheerful throughout (except maybe Dragon Girl, who rather fiercely wanted to investigate the loading bay and wasn't shy about expressing it).
Still smiling despite the light sweat, I got everybody out of the dressing room and pretty well lined-up for the checkout. I was feeling mighty smug that we had not only gotten pants, but that everyone had a good time at the store.
At the checkout, I got in line again between the nice mom with the two girls. They were loaded with cool neon sweaters and one had a jazzy pair of horn-rimmed glasses. "Looks like you found some great things!" I said.
"Well, we did, but you, now you sure look busy right now!" she smiled.
"Yes, well, it's the busy time," I smiled back, prying something shiny out of Helen's hand with a no, we're not buying that whispered aside, simultaneously shoving DG gently back into the stroller where another concerted escape attempt was in progress, and digging for my wallet with my third hand.
"It gets so much easier. I promise," she assured me. She just oozed warmth and empathetic concern. Like . . . oozing at the level that might have been appropriate if I'd been whacking one of my kids in the dressing room and she wanted to give me one more chance before calling Child Services.
So I gushed and smiled and thanked her, but I drove home checking the rear-view mirror for frown wrinkles. Her heart was totally in the right place. I give her full credit for proper sisterhood behavior. But . . . do I look that whacked? Or maybe I look like a good Mom who just needs Botox?
"If there is a single point," my own sister said as I discussed this post with her, "It's simply that we're all in this together. Every mother everywhere." And, yes, that's all I really had meant to say.
Sunday, September 29, 2013
On Being a Good Sport
Today’s soccer lesson really started last night. “I don’t WAN’ to go ta sawkka tomowwow,” with a little chin-quiver. I thought she had rallied by bedtime, when she tucked her pink blanket under her chin and announced, from under her princess canopy, “Tomowwow I yam goin’ to take da ball AWAY fwom dat tall girl.”
But the morning did not begin well. Exhausted from three days of nonstop fun with her grandparents, she overslept and wasn’t hungry for breakfast. She was cold. She didn’t want a sweater. I found her new Spyder fleece with the glittery spider on it. That was much better. And so forth. And so on. Although I allowed gobs of extra time, we still barely made it to the car.
Then, as we were in the car, waiting for DH to join us, he opened the door and growled, “You’re on your own. We have a broken water pipe. The basement’s flooded.” PLOMPF went the door and away went DH.
“I don’t WAN’ to go ta sawkka,” He’en writhed in her carseat. She probably thought a basement flood sounded a lot more exciting. Truth, I did also by that time. But we had a deal: she had begged and pestered for soccer, so she must attend at least three of the five lessons. I reminded her of the deal – more chin-quivering – and off we went.
She grumped and fussed in the car. She dragged and scuffed into the school gym. She drooped and hid behind me as the other kids found soccer balls and did warmups. But! After securing my ironclad promise to participate during the parent-participation portion of the lesson, she seemed to rally. With good cheer, she marched in the little line of kids around the perimeter of the basketball court (designated today as the soccer field).
At this point I breathe a little inward sigh of relief and pick up my phone as the kids begin their first drill. I hear He’en snottily complaining to the coach about how she can’t find her ball, and some other kid took the red ball, and God-knows-what-else, but I just open my Kindle app and pretend she’s somebody else’s kid.
About four sentences into my Lindsay Buroker e-book, however, I hear a sustained wail and glance up to see He’en flat-out on the floor. She apparently collided with somebody during the Red Light. I pause a moment to see if this is standard He’en-drama or something more meaningful, but the other kids have cleared the floor and now I will look like a real wanker if I just let my kid lie there and/or yell, “woman up!” from the sidelines. Plus another little girl is in tears, apparently being a sympathetic type, and is running to He’en to comfort her, so now we have wailing kids littering the field and the lesson at a standstill.
The other mom scoops up her sympathetic bundle and gets her off the field. So I, with an over-the-shoulder apology to the coach, likewise scoop up a sobbing He’en and carry her out of the gym with hot tears seeping into my neck.
Outside the gym, we try taking deep breaths.
“Are you hurt, honey?”
“My fin-gah,” she gasps between sobs. I covertly peer at her finger and it indeed is very red and angry-looking. Damn. Don’t be broken, finger.
“Ok, let’s walk outside and look at the trees and take some deep breaths of the cool air. We will find a rock to sit on, and I will look at your finger.”
Nods and sobs.
I take her outside and we find the promised rock.
“Now, put your hands out like this. Can you spread your fingers apart? Can you make a fist?”
To great my relief, she does all of that, albeit gingerly.
“Ok, let me touch your finger.”
She allows that too and I carefully manipulate the suspect digit. Thank God, not a broken finger.
“Did you get the wind knocked out of you when you fell?”
She doesn’t know, so I tell her about how it feels to get the wind knocked out of you and then imitate that first breath you take when you can breathe again. She almost giggles at the goofy noise I make. She almost looks sane again.
“So let’s go back in there.”
Flinch. Quiver. “I don’t WANT to play sawkkah. I want to go HOME.”
Well, heck. I don’t want my kid to be a quitter, but the odds of having a good lesson after this are nearly nill. And, yet, she has to learn to power through a bad day. I think and think. Again, I earn the big bucks by deciding where to push and where to concede.
“You don’t have to play, but I want us both to watch. There may be skills that you can learn by watching. You can sit in my lap if you want.”
She consents to that, and we trail back into the gym. “We’re just going to watch for a while,” I mouth to the coach. She, having made a career of dealing with other people’s children, nods in perfect understanding.
We watch a few exercises, and then He’en tugs at my arm and whispers – as I had hoped -- “Okay. I wan’ to play again. But only if you come WIF’ me.” Fine. At least she is on the field.
Happily, we are just in time for the next exercise: Clock Soccer. Parent-volunteers stand in a circle, each with a child or two behind them. The kids run once around the circle and then stop behind their parent. After a couple dry runs, it is attempted with soccer balls.
He’en does not run the first time. She is afraid of falling, she says, and huddles behind me with her face buried in the back of my shirt. On the second drill, she listlessly trots around the circle and then comes back and attaches herself to my pants pocket. I bat her away in time for a third drill (with a soccer ball). Sulking over being pried loose, she refuses to participate. On the fourth drill, I make her stand there with the other parents and I dribble the ball around the circle myself, trying not to knock over any little kids. On the fifth and final drill, He’en takes the ball four steps and then returns to hanging on my pockets. Again, I detach her, making me her most unfavorite person.
The next drill is one-on-one. He’en has been dreading this for two weeks: in her first lesson, a taller, stronger girl scored three goals on her in quick and fierce succession. He’en is still not over the indignity. “I ohn-wee [only] want to play if I can be da Bwankos,” she announces to me. Then she trots up to her coach and asks if she can have one of the orange jerseys. (I sneak back to the sidelines and resume pretending that she is not my kid.)
The coach puts off her request until the end of the team selections. But, at that time, she gently and wisely hands He’en the coveted orange jersey and matches her against a little girl who is similarly sized and has been intermittently refusing to play unless one – and sometimes both – of her parents is on the field with her.
Clutching the jersey but still not entirely appeased, He’en comes off the field to me with her chin again a-quiver.
“You said YOU would pay wif’ [play with] me.”
“And I will, Helen, when they call our numbers.”
Glower. “But you don’ haff . . . you need . . . but you are not a Bwanko.”
“Well, I know I am on your team, honey. I don’t need an orange jersey.”
He’en is in a fierce mood today, however, and this simply is not tenable. Before I can say, “that’s not my kid,” she is back at the coach’s knee, plucking at the coach’s shirt and demanding a jersey for “my mawm.” Unbelievably, the coach has an extra orange jersey in hand and ready. It is four-year-old sized, however. “I usually just tuck it in my pants,” the coach advises me over the kids’ heads. I nod and begin to follow suit. But He’en is having none of it.
“You have to WEAH’ it,” she hisses.
“But I will wear it here on my pants . . .”
“NO! You SAID you would pay and WEAH’ it. You POM-issed.” A little tear rolls down one cheek.
I hold up the jersey and stare at it. It’s still four-year-old sized. I am seriously wishing I’d taken up Helen on her demand to go home ten minutes ago. But I hadn’t, and now I am stuck with my own stupid lesson about good sportsmanship. So I stuff the jersey into my bra on top and into my jeans on the bottom. It covers my front like a lobster bib.
“How about that, Helen?”
She nods with grudging satisfaction as the other moms behind me – those with normal kids, apparently – launch a patter of appreciative commentary along the lines of, “You go girl!”
“I checked so much dignity at the door of that delivery room,” I sigh back to them as He’en and I jog toward the “field.”
He’en is matched three times in one-on-ones against her opponent. The first time, we run onto the field together and He’en gets the ball away from the other girl, who is a beautiful fragile sylph of a creature with long black hair and big dark eyes. Giggling maniacally, He’en kicks a goal . . . into her own team’s net.
“That’s great,” I encourage her, “but you need to try for the other team’s net – that one down there.”
He’en instantly stops on the field and runs to the sidelines as the other little girl intercepts the ball and starts to nudge it downfield with the help of her own mother. The coach whistles our match to a stop and I join Helen on the sidelines. She has a choice few words for me.
“I yam not goin’ to play again. I don’ wan’ you telling me what to do.”
“But, Helen, the game has rules.”
“I kicked da ball into the goal. I got a goal.”
“Well, you did. But it was your own team’s goal. If you want me to play out there with you, we’re going to play by the rules and try for the other goal.”
She doesn’t have the vocabulary for “the hell we are,” but I can see it in her eyes. And, sure enough, the next time they call our number, she refuses to take the field.
“Number fives!” the coach carols.
I pause on the sidelines and look back at Helen.
“Number fives?” the coach looks questioningly at me.
The other little girl and her father take the field.
“Helen, that’s our number; are you coming out?”
“No,” she growls, folding her arms.
“It’s . . . um, it’s just me this time,” I call across to the coach.
Undaunted, the coach carries on. She probably has seen it all. “All right then! Number fives!” and TWEET goes her whistle.
I play a little gentle dribbling with Helen’s opponent and then -- of course -- let her score a goal against me. Delighted, she grins at me and then heads upfield with her father. Helen glares from the sidelines. I surrender the field without making any eye contact with my churlish offspring. Take that, crabpatch.
On the third and final round, Helen is ready and willing to play again. With no help from me, she channels all her frustration into snatching the purple soccer ball from her tiny opponent. She dribbles it down the field and smacks it into the correct goal. The other little girl, defending, bursts into tears. He’en shoots a triumphant glare at me with a smile that I do not like at all.
I turn He’en around by the shoulders and make her say, “good game,” to her sobbing opponent, and I remind her how she felt last week when the tall girl took the ball away three times. I am not sure any of it makes a dent. I feel bad for the other little girl; the orange jersey is starting to itch; I was really over this whole thing twenty minutes ago; and whose freaking idea was it anyway that four-year-olds should be capable of competitive sports?
With my last reserves of patience, I accompany He’en through the last drill. The coach saves “kicks on goal” for the end. Each team lines up in front of its own goal, and the kids take turns sinking that ball into the net. Everybody gets at least one goal if they have to throw it in. I look forward to this moment with great joy, primarily because I know the end of this soccer hour is near.
After several goals, the kids are all smiles again, and the coach calls for her jerseys.
“Better get out there, Helen. She has stickers,” I counsel with blank exhaustion. Maybe there will be one bright glimmer in this dark morning. I peel off my itchy lobster bib with great relief and He’en surrenders it for me. The kids collect their balls and gather around the coach. They exchange high-fives with the other kids in the class.
Just as I am zipping my purse and wondering whether it’s really déclassé to bring a flask to next week’s session, I see Helen angling toward me with an air of great purpose. She comes right in to hugging distance and starts to pluck at my shirt.
“Helen . . . ” I am just about to chide her for picking at me yet again when I look down and realize what she is doing.
“Dere,” she smiles, affixing a neon-pink smiley-face sticker to my shirt collar. “Dat is your sticker. You did a gweat job today, Mom.” She received two stickers and has given me the big one. For herself, she has kept only a small pink star.
I am drained, frustrated, cranky, and deeply moved. I want to say that she did a great job, too, but a) that would be a total lie, and, b) I can’t get the words out anyway because I am weeping a little. So I just hug her and hug her. Oh, this child, this child of my own.
I had no idea it was so hard to be a soccer mom.
But the morning did not begin well. Exhausted from three days of nonstop fun with her grandparents, she overslept and wasn’t hungry for breakfast. She was cold. She didn’t want a sweater. I found her new Spyder fleece with the glittery spider on it. That was much better. And so forth. And so on. Although I allowed gobs of extra time, we still barely made it to the car.
Then, as we were in the car, waiting for DH to join us, he opened the door and growled, “You’re on your own. We have a broken water pipe. The basement’s flooded.” PLOMPF went the door and away went DH.
“I don’t WAN’ to go ta sawkka,” He’en writhed in her carseat. She probably thought a basement flood sounded a lot more exciting. Truth, I did also by that time. But we had a deal: she had begged and pestered for soccer, so she must attend at least three of the five lessons. I reminded her of the deal – more chin-quivering – and off we went.
She grumped and fussed in the car. She dragged and scuffed into the school gym. She drooped and hid behind me as the other kids found soccer balls and did warmups. But! After securing my ironclad promise to participate during the parent-participation portion of the lesson, she seemed to rally. With good cheer, she marched in the little line of kids around the perimeter of the basketball court (designated today as the soccer field).
At this point I breathe a little inward sigh of relief and pick up my phone as the kids begin their first drill. I hear He’en snottily complaining to the coach about how she can’t find her ball, and some other kid took the red ball, and God-knows-what-else, but I just open my Kindle app and pretend she’s somebody else’s kid.
About four sentences into my Lindsay Buroker e-book, however, I hear a sustained wail and glance up to see He’en flat-out on the floor. She apparently collided with somebody during the Red Light. I pause a moment to see if this is standard He’en-drama or something more meaningful, but the other kids have cleared the floor and now I will look like a real wanker if I just let my kid lie there and/or yell, “woman up!” from the sidelines. Plus another little girl is in tears, apparently being a sympathetic type, and is running to He’en to comfort her, so now we have wailing kids littering the field and the lesson at a standstill.
The other mom scoops up her sympathetic bundle and gets her off the field. So I, with an over-the-shoulder apology to the coach, likewise scoop up a sobbing He’en and carry her out of the gym with hot tears seeping into my neck.
Outside the gym, we try taking deep breaths.
“Are you hurt, honey?”
“My fin-gah,” she gasps between sobs. I covertly peer at her finger and it indeed is very red and angry-looking. Damn. Don’t be broken, finger.
“Ok, let’s walk outside and look at the trees and take some deep breaths of the cool air. We will find a rock to sit on, and I will look at your finger.”
Nods and sobs.
I take her outside and we find the promised rock.
“Now, put your hands out like this. Can you spread your fingers apart? Can you make a fist?”
To great my relief, she does all of that, albeit gingerly.
“Ok, let me touch your finger.”
She allows that too and I carefully manipulate the suspect digit. Thank God, not a broken finger.
“Did you get the wind knocked out of you when you fell?”
She doesn’t know, so I tell her about how it feels to get the wind knocked out of you and then imitate that first breath you take when you can breathe again. She almost giggles at the goofy noise I make. She almost looks sane again.
“So let’s go back in there.”
Flinch. Quiver. “I don’t WANT to play sawkkah. I want to go HOME.”
Well, heck. I don’t want my kid to be a quitter, but the odds of having a good lesson after this are nearly nill. And, yet, she has to learn to power through a bad day. I think and think. Again, I earn the big bucks by deciding where to push and where to concede.
“You don’t have to play, but I want us both to watch. There may be skills that you can learn by watching. You can sit in my lap if you want.”
She consents to that, and we trail back into the gym. “We’re just going to watch for a while,” I mouth to the coach. She, having made a career of dealing with other people’s children, nods in perfect understanding.
We watch a few exercises, and then He’en tugs at my arm and whispers – as I had hoped -- “Okay. I wan’ to play again. But only if you come WIF’ me.” Fine. At least she is on the field.
Happily, we are just in time for the next exercise: Clock Soccer. Parent-volunteers stand in a circle, each with a child or two behind them. The kids run once around the circle and then stop behind their parent. After a couple dry runs, it is attempted with soccer balls.
He’en does not run the first time. She is afraid of falling, she says, and huddles behind me with her face buried in the back of my shirt. On the second drill, she listlessly trots around the circle and then comes back and attaches herself to my pants pocket. I bat her away in time for a third drill (with a soccer ball). Sulking over being pried loose, she refuses to participate. On the fourth drill, I make her stand there with the other parents and I dribble the ball around the circle myself, trying not to knock over any little kids. On the fifth and final drill, He’en takes the ball four steps and then returns to hanging on my pockets. Again, I detach her, making me her most unfavorite person.
The next drill is one-on-one. He’en has been dreading this for two weeks: in her first lesson, a taller, stronger girl scored three goals on her in quick and fierce succession. He’en is still not over the indignity. “I ohn-wee [only] want to play if I can be da Bwankos,” she announces to me. Then she trots up to her coach and asks if she can have one of the orange jerseys. (I sneak back to the sidelines and resume pretending that she is not my kid.)
The coach puts off her request until the end of the team selections. But, at that time, she gently and wisely hands He’en the coveted orange jersey and matches her against a little girl who is similarly sized and has been intermittently refusing to play unless one – and sometimes both – of her parents is on the field with her.
Clutching the jersey but still not entirely appeased, He’en comes off the field to me with her chin again a-quiver.
“You said YOU would pay wif’ [play with] me.”
“And I will, Helen, when they call our numbers.”
Glower. “But you don’ haff . . . you need . . . but you are not a Bwanko.”
“Well, I know I am on your team, honey. I don’t need an orange jersey.”
He’en is in a fierce mood today, however, and this simply is not tenable. Before I can say, “that’s not my kid,” she is back at the coach’s knee, plucking at the coach’s shirt and demanding a jersey for “my mawm.” Unbelievably, the coach has an extra orange jersey in hand and ready. It is four-year-old sized, however. “I usually just tuck it in my pants,” the coach advises me over the kids’ heads. I nod and begin to follow suit. But He’en is having none of it.
“You have to WEAH’ it,” she hisses.
“But I will wear it here on my pants . . .”
“NO! You SAID you would pay and WEAH’ it. You POM-issed.” A little tear rolls down one cheek.
I hold up the jersey and stare at it. It’s still four-year-old sized. I am seriously wishing I’d taken up Helen on her demand to go home ten minutes ago. But I hadn’t, and now I am stuck with my own stupid lesson about good sportsmanship. So I stuff the jersey into my bra on top and into my jeans on the bottom. It covers my front like a lobster bib.
“How about that, Helen?”
She nods with grudging satisfaction as the other moms behind me – those with normal kids, apparently – launch a patter of appreciative commentary along the lines of, “You go girl!”
“I checked so much dignity at the door of that delivery room,” I sigh back to them as He’en and I jog toward the “field.”
He’en is matched three times in one-on-ones against her opponent. The first time, we run onto the field together and He’en gets the ball away from the other girl, who is a beautiful fragile sylph of a creature with long black hair and big dark eyes. Giggling maniacally, He’en kicks a goal . . . into her own team’s net.
“That’s great,” I encourage her, “but you need to try for the other team’s net – that one down there.”
He’en instantly stops on the field and runs to the sidelines as the other little girl intercepts the ball and starts to nudge it downfield with the help of her own mother. The coach whistles our match to a stop and I join Helen on the sidelines. She has a choice few words for me.
“I yam not goin’ to play again. I don’ wan’ you telling me what to do.”
“But, Helen, the game has rules.”
“I kicked da ball into the goal. I got a goal.”
“Well, you did. But it was your own team’s goal. If you want me to play out there with you, we’re going to play by the rules and try for the other goal.”
She doesn’t have the vocabulary for “the hell we are,” but I can see it in her eyes. And, sure enough, the next time they call our number, she refuses to take the field.
“Number fives!” the coach carols.
I pause on the sidelines and look back at Helen.
“Number fives?” the coach looks questioningly at me.
The other little girl and her father take the field.
“Helen, that’s our number; are you coming out?”
“No,” she growls, folding her arms.
“It’s . . . um, it’s just me this time,” I call across to the coach.
Undaunted, the coach carries on. She probably has seen it all. “All right then! Number fives!” and TWEET goes her whistle.
I play a little gentle dribbling with Helen’s opponent and then -- of course -- let her score a goal against me. Delighted, she grins at me and then heads upfield with her father. Helen glares from the sidelines. I surrender the field without making any eye contact with my churlish offspring. Take that, crabpatch.
On the third and final round, Helen is ready and willing to play again. With no help from me, she channels all her frustration into snatching the purple soccer ball from her tiny opponent. She dribbles it down the field and smacks it into the correct goal. The other little girl, defending, bursts into tears. He’en shoots a triumphant glare at me with a smile that I do not like at all.
I turn He’en around by the shoulders and make her say, “good game,” to her sobbing opponent, and I remind her how she felt last week when the tall girl took the ball away three times. I am not sure any of it makes a dent. I feel bad for the other little girl; the orange jersey is starting to itch; I was really over this whole thing twenty minutes ago; and whose freaking idea was it anyway that four-year-olds should be capable of competitive sports?
With my last reserves of patience, I accompany He’en through the last drill. The coach saves “kicks on goal” for the end. Each team lines up in front of its own goal, and the kids take turns sinking that ball into the net. Everybody gets at least one goal if they have to throw it in. I look forward to this moment with great joy, primarily because I know the end of this soccer hour is near.
After several goals, the kids are all smiles again, and the coach calls for her jerseys.
“Better get out there, Helen. She has stickers,” I counsel with blank exhaustion. Maybe there will be one bright glimmer in this dark morning. I peel off my itchy lobster bib with great relief and He’en surrenders it for me. The kids collect their balls and gather around the coach. They exchange high-fives with the other kids in the class.
Just as I am zipping my purse and wondering whether it’s really déclassé to bring a flask to next week’s session, I see Helen angling toward me with an air of great purpose. She comes right in to hugging distance and starts to pluck at my shirt.
“Helen . . . ” I am just about to chide her for picking at me yet again when I look down and realize what she is doing.
“Dere,” she smiles, affixing a neon-pink smiley-face sticker to my shirt collar. “Dat is your sticker. You did a gweat job today, Mom.” She received two stickers and has given me the big one. For herself, she has kept only a small pink star.
I am drained, frustrated, cranky, and deeply moved. I want to say that she did a great job, too, but a) that would be a total lie, and, b) I can’t get the words out anyway because I am weeping a little. So I just hug her and hug her. Oh, this child, this child of my own.
I had no idea it was so hard to be a soccer mom.
Tuesday, August 6, 2013
The Culture of Children
Our preschool day has ended. I am dragging into the house the smaller child, the lunchbag, the go-bag, assorted crafts, an empty milk carton, a Starbucks cup for the recycling, &c., &c., when DH emerges from his downstairs office.
He surveys the bright pink rubble lining our entryway and immediately inquires: "Why is there a dried-out pork rib bone in her go-bag?"
(Oh, we had carrion in the go-bag? I hadn't noticed. No, really. I hadn't.)
"Uh . . . well . . . I don't know, honey, but we'd better leave it there. I am sure there is a good reason, and I am certainly not going to be the one to -- "
At this juncture, He'en bursts in from the car, utterly aglow and caroling: "MOM! I found a DINAH-soah bone! Inna SAN-box!"
Aha. Told you so.
We lovingly installed her archeological triumph on the porch. It sits right on top of the giant petrified tree trunk that my husband bought several months ago through Craig's List. That, also, lives on the porch. With the recent addition of a Magical Bubble Making Machine, the porch is getting very exciting indeed.
Nothing prepared me for -- and nobody warned me about -- the culture of children. By "culture," I do not mean (only) the runny noses, grubby hands, and general petri-dish-ification of your entire living space. I mean the separate universe inhabited by people who undertake to breed. Travel is not the only way to broaden the mind; you can stay right here and embark on a 20-year cultural journey with new language, new foods, different clothing, and an entirely separate gestalt from the cheerfully child-free family living right next door to you.
I recently read an Architectural Digest profile of a designer couple's weekend home. They flee the maddening rush of the Big City to spend time together, they say, listening to classical music, shopping at the farmer's market, and cooking Moroccan food.
Yeah. I remember those days. I can even say that I miss those days.
But I'll bet their porch is achingly devoid of magical bubbles, fossilized flora, and real live genuine DINAH-soah bones.
He surveys the bright pink rubble lining our entryway and immediately inquires: "Why is there a dried-out pork rib bone in her go-bag?"
(Oh, we had carrion in the go-bag? I hadn't noticed. No, really. I hadn't.)
"Uh . . . well . . . I don't know, honey, but we'd better leave it there. I am sure there is a good reason, and I am certainly not going to be the one to -- "
At this juncture, He'en bursts in from the car, utterly aglow and caroling: "MOM! I found a DINAH-soah bone! Inna SAN-box!"
Aha. Told you so.
We lovingly installed her archeological triumph on the porch. It sits right on top of the giant petrified tree trunk that my husband bought several months ago through Craig's List. That, also, lives on the porch. With the recent addition of a Magical Bubble Making Machine, the porch is getting very exciting indeed.
Nothing prepared me for -- and nobody warned me about -- the culture of children. By "culture," I do not mean (only) the runny noses, grubby hands, and general petri-dish-ification of your entire living space. I mean the separate universe inhabited by people who undertake to breed. Travel is not the only way to broaden the mind; you can stay right here and embark on a 20-year cultural journey with new language, new foods, different clothing, and an entirely separate gestalt from the cheerfully child-free family living right next door to you.
I recently read an Architectural Digest profile of a designer couple's weekend home. They flee the maddening rush of the Big City to spend time together, they say, listening to classical music, shopping at the farmer's market, and cooking Moroccan food.
Yeah. I remember those days. I can even say that I miss those days.
But I'll bet their porch is achingly devoid of magical bubbles, fossilized flora, and real live genuine DINAH-soah bones.
Monday, August 5, 2013
Time for the Little One
I am almost giddy with freedom, having dispatched He'en to day camp, DH to an overnight business trip, and Dragon Girl to her crib for a morning rest. I hear a few warbles from upstairs, so we will see if that last . . . well, lasts.
With Sister away on family vacay and Dragon Girl not yet eligible for any summer camps, I've enjoyed spending more time in my house and with the kids. I feel that the littlest one has been getting the short end of the stick lately, though. So often, we are running from one activity to the next, or I am circling the house trying to chip away at whatever chunk of the local chaos has lodged into my path that particular moment. And because DG is so good at playing quietly with her toys, she is most often left to her own devices to do that if we are at home.
This morning, however, was a special morning. He'en was eager to go to camp. She got up early, ate, dressed, and strapped herself into the car seat. Woot! Teeth and hair both went un-brushed, because I was not about to harsh that mellow by prying her out for personal grooming. I hurriedly put the breakfast food away and tossed Dragon Girl into the car, still in her pajamas. Per her usual, DG was fine with that, chirping happily at He'en and drinking her morning milk on the drive.
With that hasty departure behind us, Dragon Girl and I found ourselves at loose ends after dropping He'en at her camp. It is a perfectly gorgeous Colorado summer day complete with light cool breezes and sparkling sunlight. I realized that I had a change of baby clothes in the car, so we went straight to the park. After an in-car change and some sunscreen, I bundled her little warm squirmy self into the baby swings and we had a very giggly interlude of swinging. Such fun to tickle her feet when she swung toward me! Unlike He'en, Dragon Girl has loved the swings from the first moment she saw one.
When swinging paled, I toted her around the park and we landed under the play structure, where the wood chips were still pretty dry after last night's rain. I found a little purple bucket and a fat pink plastic hoe that another child had left lying around. She merrily landed and put chips into the bucket, then out of the bucket, then more into a bucket, then found some very large chips and burbled at me while waving them in the air: "See what I have?" She tried putting the end of one in her mouth, then hurriedly whipped it out with a little grin and an "uh-UH!" when she saw me watching.
"Yes," I grinned back, "I am watching YOU!" Giggle. Crawl. Giggle.
Wood chips were good for nearly a half-hour, after which we had another swing session (this time sitting in the big swings on my lap). More giggling. Then a big yawn broke up the giggles, so we headed to the car. She cheerfully accepted the carseat and a little scrap of milk left over from the morning commute. All the way home, I heard quiet sucking noises and the occasional shuffle of a bare foot on the carseat fabric.
She was dozing by the time we arrived home. I lifted her out of the seat and she snuggled onto my neck with a good strong clutch of soft baby arms. Then to the crib, where I deposited her with kisses and cuddles. She lofted her rump into the air and started to close her eyes, then opened them again and looked at me from the mattress. A big smile lit her whole face, and she floundered up to a sitting position, cooed at me, then snuggled down into her mattress again.
My littlest little bit! I am working out our fall schedules and I will have to schedule times like this with her. They are precious; she is precious. I don't want to miss a moment.
With Sister away on family vacay and Dragon Girl not yet eligible for any summer camps, I've enjoyed spending more time in my house and with the kids. I feel that the littlest one has been getting the short end of the stick lately, though. So often, we are running from one activity to the next, or I am circling the house trying to chip away at whatever chunk of the local chaos has lodged into my path that particular moment. And because DG is so good at playing quietly with her toys, she is most often left to her own devices to do that if we are at home.
This morning, however, was a special morning. He'en was eager to go to camp. She got up early, ate, dressed, and strapped herself into the car seat. Woot! Teeth and hair both went un-brushed, because I was not about to harsh that mellow by prying her out for personal grooming. I hurriedly put the breakfast food away and tossed Dragon Girl into the car, still in her pajamas. Per her usual, DG was fine with that, chirping happily at He'en and drinking her morning milk on the drive.
With that hasty departure behind us, Dragon Girl and I found ourselves at loose ends after dropping He'en at her camp. It is a perfectly gorgeous Colorado summer day complete with light cool breezes and sparkling sunlight. I realized that I had a change of baby clothes in the car, so we went straight to the park. After an in-car change and some sunscreen, I bundled her little warm squirmy self into the baby swings and we had a very giggly interlude of swinging. Such fun to tickle her feet when she swung toward me! Unlike He'en, Dragon Girl has loved the swings from the first moment she saw one.
When swinging paled, I toted her around the park and we landed under the play structure, where the wood chips were still pretty dry after last night's rain. I found a little purple bucket and a fat pink plastic hoe that another child had left lying around. She merrily landed and put chips into the bucket, then out of the bucket, then more into a bucket, then found some very large chips and burbled at me while waving them in the air: "See what I have?" She tried putting the end of one in her mouth, then hurriedly whipped it out with a little grin and an "uh-UH!" when she saw me watching.
"Yes," I grinned back, "I am watching YOU!" Giggle. Crawl. Giggle.
Wood chips were good for nearly a half-hour, after which we had another swing session (this time sitting in the big swings on my lap). More giggling. Then a big yawn broke up the giggles, so we headed to the car. She cheerfully accepted the carseat and a little scrap of milk left over from the morning commute. All the way home, I heard quiet sucking noises and the occasional shuffle of a bare foot on the carseat fabric.
She was dozing by the time we arrived home. I lifted her out of the seat and she snuggled onto my neck with a good strong clutch of soft baby arms. Then to the crib, where I deposited her with kisses and cuddles. She lofted her rump into the air and started to close her eyes, then opened them again and looked at me from the mattress. A big smile lit her whole face, and she floundered up to a sitting position, cooed at me, then snuggled down into her mattress again.
My littlest little bit! I am working out our fall schedules and I will have to schedule times like this with her. They are precious; she is precious. I don't want to miss a moment.
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