Since I started this blog, more than a year ago, I have published something new almost every Monday, generally in the morning. I’m making a change to accommodate some personal changes. I’m still writing, but I’ll be publishing on Wednesday, instead of Monday.
Thanks to all of you for your support.
Janice
Many of you know that WordPress, the service that manages my blog, recently featured my blog on its homepage. For those in the know, I was “Freshly Pressed.” For those in the don’t know, WordPress is the place on the Internet where I post my blog. Every day, WordPress, the biggest hosting service out there, picks the best of that day’s posts. They say they wade through more than 650,000 posts and who am I to argue.
The Monday before Thanksgiving, WordPress picked my post on gratitude. Now, WordPress promises that they will let you know if they pick your post for Freshly Pressed. WordPress lied to me. I found out I was Freshly Pressed when I checked email that day and saw I had, oh, say 100 emails from strangers commenting on my blog. I was shocked, amazed, astounded and all of those other words I tell my students to use instead of “surprised.”
I did not count how many people hit the like button or made some nice comment about that post. WordPress kept track of the activity on my blog, though. Over the course of two days, I had 3,450 views on my blog. A typical Monday prior to that, I would get about 3,400 fewer.
At the same time . . .
Many of you also know that we are broke. One of the expenses we’ve put off is veterinary care. That same Monday, my daughter was playing with her Littlest Pet Shop figures. “Mom,” she said, looking at something lying on the floor, “is that one of Pogo’s teeth?” It was, indeed, one of our dog’s teeth. Our dog can’t eat soft food without diarrh—oh, I mean—dire circumstances. His teeth are, therefore, tremendously important to me. I checked the checkbook and called the vet.
Vet expenses are one of those things that you think are going to be affordable in the “we can probably pay for it if we eat vegan for a month” category, but always wind up in the “we can only pay for this if we eat hay for a year” category. I never have to have a blood test before getting my teeth cleaned, but my dog does. So, blood test. His rabies vaccine had also expired, so rabies vaccine. Fortunately, he pooped on the waiting room floor, so I was spared following him around with a little plastic spoon to collect fresh turd. So, fecal test. Total: $500.
I got Pogo home and went to my office, where I responded to probably 60 more comments.
At the same time . . .
It was Thanksgiving week. Thanksgiving is at my house. My house was trashed.
At the same time . . .
I’d been training for my first 5K. I needed to find time to run.
Comments answered, I went to the kitchen for a tea refill. Pogo’s face had swelled to the point that his tiny Papillon snout was nearly buried in bulging fur-covered flesh. We went to the vet. Injection to counter allergic reaction: $100 and we still hadn’t done the dental work.
I deal really well with crises; I keep calm. I took my dog to the vet. I responded to the comments. I made the pecan pie. I trained for the run. No, crises don’t faze me. It’s the letdown afterward that’s a bitch.
I woke at 5 am Thanksgiving morning with a migraine. I took a thermonuclear pain pill and went to bed. I skipped the run. The turkey was great.
At the same time . . .
Things were still hoppin’ on my blog. In addition to the humbling praise, I received awards from two other bloggers:
the Versatile Blogger Award
and
the Liebster Award.
Both have strings attached.
Requirements:
• Thank the bloggers who nominated me for the award. Totally up on that; a Southern woman raised me. I’m hoping it’s ok to combine the two. So, thanks to The Waiting, Nevercontrary, Katy Stuff and Aprillbrandon for the Versatile Award and CrudMyKidsSay for the Liebster.
Please check them out. They are great bloggers writing clearly and creatively.
• Pass the award on to 15 (5 for the Liebster) other bloggers. Now, this was kind of a problem as I didn’t really read other bloggers. SHAME! I found them though and they’re listed below.
• List seven things about me you may not know. See FAR below. You don’t know these things for a reason, people!
The blogs you will check out and may like as much as I do.
A Clean Surface: sort of Martha Stewart with a life. Check out how to make a gingerbread house.
A Buddhist in the Rust Belt: just discovered this. It takes some . . . guts to be a Buddhist in Montana.
Kpgarcia: poetry and photos.
Boggleton Drive: really cool comic. Check out this gem.
Teachermother: writing about teaching and mothering. Duh.
Violet Sunday Studio: ART!!
People I want to punch in the throat: kind of like my blog only. The post on the Elf on The Shelf is priceless.
(Crap! We’re only at seven!)
Democratic Party of DuPage County: don’t laugh. There really is one. Is it bad to nominate a blog I edit? So what!
Renovating Rita: she’s got a recipe for latkes. What’s not to like?
Scribblechic: sweet musings on motherhood. (Yes, I can appreciate sweetness.)
Philosopher mouse of the hedge: the selling mistletoe story is about one of the best Christmas stories I’ve heard.
You’ve Been Hooked: tales from a bellman. Really. Funny!
(Twelve . . .almost there.)
The Anvil: Colonel Klink for President?
Kvetchmom: doesn’t every mom kvetch?
Huffygirl: a nurse practitioner on life and wellness
Whew! Done.
Now for the seven things:
1. I match my bra and panties. Every day.
2. I hate green peppers.
3. I watched Jersey Shore. Once.
4. I eat Hellman’s out of the jar.
5. My hair turns orange if I color it myself.
6. I don’t care how my alma mater fares in sports.
7. I was a sorority girl.
Thank you all, from the bottom of my heart, for your kindness and support. I’m loving the wild life on my blog and you’re the reason.
Janice
“You’re mean, Daddy!” my daughter shouted as we walked into the house from the garage. I had just picked her up at a birthday party.
“Why?” he asked, understandably perplexed at being accused of meanery when he hadn’t seen the child in nearly two hours.
“You thought you were supposed to pick me up at 5 and you were supposed to get me at 4:30, so I was the last one there!” She bounded up the stairs with her party goodie bag, no longer angry since she’d laid her grievance at her father’s feet.
“We failed,” I said to my husband in that “what else is new tone” we’ve developed for discussing our parental deficiencies.
“Again!” our daughter yelled from her room at the top of the steps.
Of course, she’s right. My husband and I have failed numerous times in our parenting escapades. I have a friend who insists that you don’t have to be a good parent; you just have to be a good enough parent. Intellectually, I know she’s right. Childishly, I think, “Yeah, she doesn’t have any kids!”
My son likes to remind me of the time I left him in the car on a hot summer day while my daughter and I went shopping. It’s not as bad as it sounds. He was 13 and it really wasn’t all that hot. And it is every bit as bad as it sounds. I forgot he was in the car.
We had gone to the library, the three of us. My son chose to stay in the car while my daughter and I returned our books and got new ones. We had a good time picking out our books. We were having such a good time that I thought we could extend it with a little shoe shopping, as my daughter needed shoes. So, we left the library, holding hands.
We went to the shoe store; she picked out two pairs. The afternoon was so nice and sunny, we decided to top it off with a trip to the candy store. Ours is a real, old-fashioned candy store where they make their own fudge and caramel corn. We picked our treats and started back to the car. I was in one of those mellow moods you get when you’re with your child and everything is peaceful and calm. Then we reached the car. I saw my son hanging out of the window. “Oh, shit!” I thought.
“Where have you been!?” he screamed. Then he saw the shoe bag.
“You went shoe shopping!” he screamed. Then he saw the candy.
“You went to the candy store!” he screamed. “You left your son in a hot car in the middle of summer while you took your daughter shopping for shoes and candy?!”
I did the first thing that came to my mind. I blamed him.
“Well, you chose to stay in the car,” I said as calmly as a guilt-ridden soul will allow.
“Because you were going to the library!” he screamed. “You didn’t tell me you were going shopping!”
“You didn’t have to stay in the car. You could have come in the library.”
“But you weren’t in the library, were you?” he asked. “You were shopping! For shoes! And candy! While I was waiting in the hot car!”
“You’re 13,” I shot back. “You could have gotten out of the car any time you liked. And it’s not that hot out anyway.”
By then, I had gotten the packages and bag of library books into the trunk of the car. My daughter and I were buckling in. It was silent for a few heartbeats.
“You forgot me, didn’t you?” my son said, an eerie calm in his voice. He knew the answer and he knew he could use it to his advantage again and again and again.
“I am done with this conversation,” I said and drove home. My son, however, was not done with the incident. He still isn’t done with the incident. Anytime he needs a little parental guilt to help him get his way, he merely needs to say, “Car” and he’s well on his way to winning any battle.
Most of my failures are far less spectacular. My daughter whines more than we’d like because we will do anything she wants to make her stop. She eats too much candy and doesn’t wash her hair enough. Our son has more failing grades than I care to admit. While I realize that the grade is, in the end, his responsibility, I feel responsible. Also my fault are his lackadaisical approach to practicing scales and his enthusiastic embrace of video games. Did I mention both of their rooms are hazmat sites?
I asked my husband if he ever felt like a parental failure. He related an incident with our daughter. He had tucked her in; she got out of bed for some tremendously important reason. He tucked her back in. She popped out again. He refused to tuck her in a third time, it being far past her bedtime. She looked him in the eye and said, “Most daddies like putting their daughters to bed and tucking them in,” then sobbed into her pillow. I consider this incident a resounding parental success. The girl had already had two tuckings, for crying out loud.
I took a break from writing this just a few minutes ago. My daughter was downstairs having a snack. Apparently, the dinner I prepared failed to fill her sufficiently. I snagged a chip from her, dunked it into salsa and popped it in my mouth. She asked me to sit and play with her for a while. “I have to work,” I said. Not looking at me, she said, “Well, you could go back to work or you could eat chips and salsa with your daughter like a real mom.” I sat and had the chips and salsa.
If I were a better mother, my children would be earning medals and trophies. They would be captains of teams and presidents of clubs. They would volunteer their time helping the elderly and feeding the starving. They’d win scholarships to Harvard and Julliard. But I’m not that mother. Instead, my kids are pretty health, fairly happy and completely loved. I’m a good enough mom and that’s usually good enough.
Some years ago, I asked my children what they wanted for Christmas. Actually, I ask them what they want for Christmas every year, but I’m talking about a specific year. Money was tight, tighter than it had been in years just prior. The children asked for myriad things that we couldn’t afford. I used their lists for inspiration but bought things I could afford. So, instead of the My Little Pony Magical Castle with running water and a hot tub, I got my daughter a smaller MLP play set and some MLP bubble bath.
Christmas morning came and the children woke early, begging to go downstairs. I went with them, anticipating their whoops of joy and excitement. When she got to the tree and saw her gifts arrayed under it, my daughter said, “I didn’t ask for these things. These must be someone else’s toys.” Then she started crying, wondering where Santa had left the things she ordered.
My children have since been instructed in the ways of Santa. Even when they still believed that their stuff came down the chimney, they knew that Mom and Dad had to pay Santa for the toys. “Why?” they wanted to know. “Because the world is over-populated,” I told them, “and Santa couldn’t possibly make all the toys for all the children in the world.” I think I fed them a line about the elves only making wooden toys; “Santa has to buy all the branded stuff,” I explained.
My son has graduated from wanting really expensive game systems to wanting really expensive musical instruments. We’ve taken to giving him money or gift cards that he can combine with gift cards from family to purchase what he desires. Giving cash and gift cards is so boring, though.
One Christmas, my mother gave my siblings and me really nice fleece sweaters from Land’s End. Each sweater had a surprise in the pocket…a crisp large denomination bill. I decided to use my mom’s idea for my son. I found a cozy shearling-lined hoodie that I knew he’d like. I put a large denomination gift card in the pocket. I put it under the tree. He loved it. He looked for other presents. There were none. “That’s it?” he asked, “a hoodie?”
“It’s nice hoodie,” I said.
“It’s a hoodie,” he said. “I got a hoodie.”
“Put it on,” I said.
“Mom, it’s a hoodie. It’ll fit.”
“Just put it on. It was expensive. I want to see if it looks good on you.”
“Fine,” he said. I figured he’d put his hands in the pockets, the way everyone does when they try on a hoodie. He stood in front of me, arms limp at his sides, disappointment draining from his pores.
“There,” he said. “It’s on. It’s a hoodie.”
“Look in the freaking pockets,” I said.
He looked in the pockets, pulled out the gift card and looked sheepish. But did he say thank you? No.
I’m not freaking out about his apparent lack of gratitude, though. Frankly, I’m a little burnt out on gratitude. There are gratitude societies, gratitude experiments and any number of gratitude websites. Gratitude has replaced grace as the favored state.
All this emphasis on gratitude leaves me feeling like an ingrate. It’s not that I’m not grateful for the good things in my life. I’m just getting really tired of apologizing for expressing disappointment, frustration, anger, sadness, grief, resentment and the range of other emotions we’re told are negative and will eat our souls if we let them.
My sister is an artist and teacher. She’s tenured and has two advanced degrees in her field. Until this year, she had a job she loved teaching the art topics she loves to students who loved them. That’s all changed because of budgeting concerns in her district. She now splits her time between two campuses, traveling between them daily. Her student and class loads have been changed so that she’s teaching students who don’t want to be in school, let alone art.
She’s angry, frustrated and sad. She’s embarrassed to talk to me about it because I don’t have a teaching job. She’s in a crappy situation. Even though I’ve told her it’s more than ok to complain to me about it, I can tell she thinks she doesn’t have that right. At least she has a job, she reasons.
My mother died three years ago. Hers was a long, slowly-progressing illness that every year took more and more of her freedom. At the end, she was on just about every kind of support a life can need and it still wasn’t enough. We chose to end it. Her suffering ended and, for that, we are all grateful. But she’s still dead and it still sucks. And every day that I remember she’s dead, it sucks all over again.
I’ve been a runner long enough now to know it is in repairing the tiny tears running creates that my muscles grow. I am grateful that there is benefit in the training I’m doing. But, I’ve got to do the damage first. Ice and ibuprofen help ease the pain, but only time makes the permanent changes possible.
Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh instructs his followers to be where they are. If you are happy, be happy. If you are angry, be angry. If you are frustrated, be frustrated. If you are sad, be sad. Tell yourself, “This is me being sad.”
When my mother died, there were days I could hardly tell you who I was. There were days I expected to be swallowed whole by sadness. I told myself, “This is me afraid I will be swallowed by sadness.” When I missed her terribly? “This is me missing my mother.”
I will not rush to gratitude through the challenges in my life. I will sit with them; I will honor them. Then I can give myself completely to thanks.
Being a mom is a lot like being in a circus act. The clichéd parallel is the juggler, but that’s not accurate. Jugglers choose to make their lives more difficult. They begin the act with one ball, then add another, then another. While one could compare that to having one child, then another, then another, that doesn’t get to the heart of being a mom. Neither does comparison with the plate-spinning guy. No, he put all those plates up there. No one else is putting plates up there and he damn well knows that the plates are going to stop spinning eventually and will fall. If he’s any good at his job, he can predict pretty accurately which plate will fall when.
For me, being a mom is like being that woman who rides the elephant. No matter how experienced a rider she is and no matter how well she knows the elephant, at any moment a mouse could run across the elephant’s path. Instantly, she goes from a nice sedate ride on Jumbo to trying to wrangle a gentle landing from a raging pachyderm.
I have been riding the elephant for more than 16 years now, since my son was born. In that time, many are the mice that have skittered across my path, wreaking havoc that lasts long past the time they’ve disappeared into the woodpile.
My most spectacular tumbles from the elephant have involved my son. Every year, my sister’s family hosts Christmas Eve. Our son was 15 months old. I am a much more experienced elephant rider than I was then else I would not have allowed my son to stand on a chair and play at the kitchen table while my husband and I got on coats, gathered our contributions to the dinner, etc.
How many stories of children’s accidents include the words, “I looked away for just a moment,” do you suppose? I looked away for just a moment. My son fell from the chair. My husband grabbed the boy from behind and thrust him toward me saying, “Is he ok?” As the child was screaming and his face was covered in blood, I decided that, no, he was not ok.
One minute, my elephant was on its way to my sister’s house, the next it was on its way to the hospital. Four hours later, I had learned that my son is virtually impervious to pain and my husband is a rock when it comes to getting a toddler through a CAT scan. I also learned that a divorced oral surgeon is not just ok with spending Christmas Eve stitching up a little guy, but welcomes the excuse to not shop for his ex-wife.
Four hours seems to be the requisite amount of time to spend in the ER with a child as evidenced by another elephant crash, this one when my son was three. We lived in Oak Park, which seems to have an inordinate amount of deadly nightshade growing wild. It’s actually kind of pretty with its little purple flowers followed by small berries that turn a brilliant red. Still, with “deadly” in its name . . . well. I did my best to eradicate it. I tried pulling it, thinking myself tremendously environmentally responsible. After an hour of barehanded nightshade pulling, I felt distinctly queasy and more than a little dizzy. A little research revealed that nightshade will kill you, but first it will make you feel queasy and dizzy. Further, pulling it merely signals it to grow, grow, grow. I got out the Round Up and got rid of the weed.
Cue ominous music. I did not get rid of all of the weed. My son found it as I was readying to ride my elephant to a business meeting.
“Mommy,” he said, displaying a handful of nightshade berries. “What are these?”
“Oh, honey,” I said. “You must never, never eat these. They will make you very sick.”
He started spitting immediately. I immediately took him to the hospital. I recall having a rather nasty “Screw the meeting; my kid just ate poison” call. Four hours later, I learned that the only cure for nightshade is to wait it out, treating the cardiac symptoms as they emerge. I also learned that modern toxicology tends to focus on illicit drug overdose. The ER doctor had no idea what nightshade was or even what it looked like. She was fascinated. I was appalled.
I can’t recall a time when my daughter caused such a dramatic divergence in the elephant ride that is our life. My son seems to inspire disruption when I am in motion. My daughter has elephant repose radar. I sit down to read a book and within minutes I hear, “Mommy! Come here!”
“What is it?” I ask.
“I need you!” she says.
“Why do you need me?” I ask.
“I want a hug.”
So, I set the book down and go give my daughter a hug. The variation on this theme is I sit down to read a book and she comes flying into the room, shouting, “Huggy!” and lands in my lap.
Last night, the elephant lumbered to my office with me intent on writing this post. My daughter, you may recall, has trashed her room so utterly that she now sleeps in said office. I thought we could quietly share the space, so I began writing. She began reading a history of Ancient China. She began pointing out interesting facts about Ancient China and asking for assistance with complicated words like “foreign” and “conquered.” The elephant crashed, depositing me on the daybed next to my daughter.
We read “Ancient China” for a while, lying next to each other. When the elephant stirred my “I should be working guilt,” I kicked it soundly. Then I tucked my daughter in and kissed her goodnight.
Naperville is supposed to have the best library in America. Now, I’m sure that this ranking is determined in such a way that there are at least three asterisks. Still, it’s a pretty good library. There are three branches, all of them fairly convenient to my house. I can check out a book from any branch and return it to any other. They even have these totally automated checking out thingies that make cool beeping noises when you scan your books. When I go to the library alone, I get a secret thrill over not having to share the scanning fun with my kids.
We use the library at lot since we’ve been trying to live like church mice instead of fat cats. Just about every book or movie we want is there for the picking. Even if we have to wait a bit, the online hold system will let us know the minute our media is available. My son has assembled a large enough music collection that he believes he is entitled to an iPod with a much larger memory. I laugh at him.
Even with all of its wonderful conveniences, I miss the library of my childhood. It probably didn’t have near as many books; I don’t recall it being all that big. The catalog was kept on index cards. The music was all on vinyl. I have a particularly fond memory of my sister, headphones on, belting out “da na na na na na na na” for the entire library’s amusement while she listened to the theme song from “Peter Gunn.”
The fact that my sister could cause a ruckus gets to the root of my problem with the Naperville Public Library.
It’s loud.
The library my sister and I used as children was quiet. It was as quiet as, well, a library. One strolled the stacks silently. If you happened to be at the library with a friend, or sister, hand signals and really exaggerated mouthing of words stood in for talking. Whispering was reserved for communications at the circulation desk. Any noise louder than a sniffle was met with a “Sh!,” hissed from the nearest librarian.
Walk into the Naperville Public Library and you would hardly know you are walking into a library. There are people talking in the lobby. There are people talking at the library catalog computers. There are people talking in the stacks. There are people talking at the tables. And they are all talking with their regular talking voices.
This is how bad things are at the Naperville Public Library: there is a Quiet Reading Room. Having a quiet reading room in a library is kind of like having a coffee drinking room in a Starbucks. I understand why they need the room, though. People talk on their cell phones in my library.
When my son was little, we went to the library often. I would take him to the children’s department and read him books. See, it’s ok to read books—quietly—in the children’s department. Lots of the kids can’t read yet. Even when they can read to themselves, kids still like to be read to. I like to be read to. I don’t think you’ve had the complete Harry Potter experience until you’ve had the books read to you by Jim Dale.
At the risk of sounding like a crank, parents today just don’t care about proper library manners. My kids make fun of me when I talk like this. My son sucks in his lips and pokes out his lower jaw, giving himself an oldman-ish toothless grin. Then he says, “Back in my time . . .” It’s very funny and I get his point, but when it comes to libraries, I’m not bending.
Back in my time, children didn’t scream in the library, even in the children’s department. They didn’t run in the library either, or chase their siblings. Elderly patrons didn’t fear for their hips because a rug rat could come barging out the front door at any minute. And parents didn’t shout at their children to get them to stop running.
Back in my time, no one wrote in a library book. I’ve checked out books that I really wanted to read and found it impossible because some blockhead thought it would be ok to write in the book. Even though said blockhead wrote very lightly and in pencil, as if that would make it ok, my eye was inexorably drawn to whatever blockhead had underlined. Reading the book became an exercise in analyzing blockhead, pondering who would underline this particular sentence when I would have underlined that one. I knew it was time to return the book when I became angry that blockhead didn’t see the book my way.
Back in my time, no one dog-eared pages. I once thought that the books I was reading that looked like they’d been to the kennel were used books, maybe donated by some charitable book lover. Recently, though, I checked out a brand-spanking new volume that was still on the best-seller list. I know the library got this book fresh. There were dog-eared pages. For crying out loud, ANYTHING can be a bookmark. Sure, fancy bookmarks are fun but a magazine subscription card works as well. So does a Target receipt or even an unwrapped mini-pad.
I realize that everyone in Naperville pays taxes to support the library, but, people, that doesn’t mean you own the books, can talk in the stacks or can let your kids use it as a playground. While I refer to the library as “my library,” I know that I share it with hundreds of thousands of other people. Back in my time, everyone knew that.
“Dear husband,” I said, “it’s been a year.”
“No!” he answered. “Really?”
“Yes. A whole year at the end of this month,” I said.
“But what about that time our daughter had a sleep over and our son didn’t come out of his cave for hours?”
“Oh. My. God,” I said. “It hasn’t been a year for THAT! And don’t tell me it feels like it!”
“Well, then I’m at a loss,” he said.
Normally, I’m the one who forgets anniversaries, particularly my wedding anniversary. I got married on either the 16th or 17th of October. Never can remember which. So, whenever anyone asks me when I got married, I say, “Saturday. It was a Saturday.” My husband has the PhD in History. He remembers the date and rolls his eyes when I don’t.
It has been a year since I started writing and publishing Snide Reply. At the risk of sounding like a Holiday Letter, I thought I’d go through some of my old posts and update you on some of the more popular. For those who jumped on the Snide wagon later in its run, I’m including links to the original posts.
I started running just a couple of months before I started blogging. At that time, I could run about 3 miles. I am writing this having run 9 miles this afternoon. Of course, I can barely get out of my chair to hobble to the kitchen and refill my teacup.
I still don’t have an attractive website. I have a really cool domain name and I have a website. The two shall not meet in my lifetime. See, the website is totally lame. I built it myself when I had no idea where my life was going. That happens when you make plans and life does that mice and men thing with them.
I have a better idea where my life is going these days so maybe it’s time to re-tackle the website. To my endless stupefaction and glee, I am now a parent columnist. Me! The self-admitted queen of parental immaturity. Ok, so it’s only been a couple of weeks, but a girl has to start somewhere. Look at Jenny McCarthy! Her parenting qualifications are . . .what? Oh, yeah, she posed naked and had a baby. Do you think T. Berry Brazelton ever posed naked?
The worst I’ve done is go commando thought the pharmacist who knows has moved on to Wal-Mart. Actually, I may be going commando again soon. And my husband had to skip the briefs at least once. Laundry used to be his responsibility and lawn mowing was mine. We tried to get our son to do the lawn-mowing thing because he hated doing the litter box thing. He wanted nothing to do with the lawn because it was, as he said, “outside.”
“Look,” I said. “you either mow the lawn or you do the laundry.” Ha! I thought, now I have him.
“Cool!” he said. “I love laundry! Laundry smells awesome!”
So, now my husband mows the lawn and my son does the laundry. We have realized, though, that having a teenage boy with ADHD responsible for keeping us in clean undies was probably not our best parenting move. Many is the time a load made it into the washer and stayed there . . .and stayed there . . .and stayed there. Our son has learned that laundry only smells awesome if it makes it from the washer to the dryer in fewer than 24 hours.
The portal to hell is still outside our front door. The dog is still insane. The cat is on a diet. So far, so good. He hasn’t broken anything out of spite. He may have taken a nibble or two out of the fish, though, which is looking rather ragged of late. The end is likely near, as evidenced by his tendency to swim sideways. I predict he’ll go to the great toilet bowl in the sky before the end of the year.
I’m still a pretty bad Buddhist, according to my kids. My son pointed out to me just a few days ago that a good Buddhist probably wouldn’t call the driver who cut her off a “freaking idiot.” I’m better about the cyclists who fly past me on the prairie trail. I no longer mumble obscenities at them. I am saving my obscenities for the people who are treating the prairie as their personal cutting garden these days. My daughter suggested I try out a nearby trail that runs through an equestrian center. I’m pretty sure even Buddha couldn’t keep his cool running behind horses, but then again, it would definitely keep me mindful and aware.
As my episodes on the prairie illustrate, I still have anger issues. I still hate liver, read crap and get jealous, too. But, I haven’t taken a serious trip to Funky Town in a while. My son is ok with “Spithead” and no one has puked around here lately. My kids are still pikers when it comes to sibling rivalry.
I am overjoyed to report that the shed never went up. The cosmos aligned in a gigantic “I told you so,” when my neighbor hired someone to survey the property line. I left the hot pink flagging tape which proved the line did, indeed, fall exactly where I said it did as long as possible. We found, in fact, that we have a lot more property than we thought we did. My neighbor and I have entered a sort of cold war, though. He no longer speaks to me and his children run like rabbits whenever I come out of the house. I’m thinking it just needs a little more time and a lot more of me being the nicest, most cheerful person I know how to be. Stop laughing; I can be very cheerful.
I’ve made lots of people laugh in the past year. I think I’ve made some cry. I know I’ve hurt feelings, unintentionally of course. Still, I’m more careful about what I write and how I phrase things. There are certain things I’ll never write, at least not here and not as non-fiction. But I’ll keep writing and I hope you’ll keep reading.
Thanks, from the bottom of my heart, for a truly wonderful year.
I keep coming home from work to find my family in a great mood. The kids are getting along wonderfully. Maybe everyone is playing Monopoly. Maybe they are all in the kitchen doing homework together. Regardless, everyone is smiling and interacting beautifully.
It’s really starting to tick me off.
Not too long ago, we had dinner together every night. Studies showed that kids who ate nightly family dinners were less likely to drink, do drugs, smoke, get depressed, have eating disorders and begin reading sooner. If studies showed it, I was all for it.
So, I made sure we had dinner together every night. When we first started family dinners, I had visions of me in the kitchen, rattling the pots and pans, with the kids around the table, peacefully completing their homework. As dad entered our charming abode, the kids would put their homework away and promptly start setting the table.
I was delusional. What I get on the nights I’m home for dinner is my son popping down from his cave around 5 to ask what’s for dinner. News of the night’s meal is met with “Awesome!” or “You’re freaking kidding me!” Fried chicken? “Awesome!” Grilled salmon with a butter dill sauce? “You’re freaking kidding me!” He has learned to replace “You’re freaking kidding me!” with “I’ll make myself a pot pie.”
My daughter is usually either playing at her friend’s house, or, on a day when she needs a break, watching TV and scattering five million Littlest Pet Shop figurines around the family room.
Sometime between 6 and 6:30, I start dinner. I call my daughter to do her homework. I bang on the ceiling for my son to come unload the dishwasher.
Silence. I remain alone in the kitchen.
I call to my daughter again. I bang on the ceiling again.
Eventually, my son bounds down the stairs, growling, “What!?” if it’s a “you’re freaking kidding me” dinner or “Is dinner ready?” if it’s an awesome! dinner night.
“Have you done your homework?” I say.
“I’ll do it later,” he says.
“Then you can unload the dishwasher,” I say.
“Later. I have to do my homework.” And he’s off to the cave.
“It’s time to do your homework,” I say to my daughter.
“I don’t have any,” she says, plopping on the couch.
“I need you to clean up your Littlest Pet Shop things so we don’t have to look at the messy family room during dinner,” I say. Ok, I probably actually say something like, “I need you to pick up all of your things in the family room. I’m sick of living in a pig mess.” I give myself Good Mom points for saying “I need” instead of just going straight for “Pick those toys up before I throw them all away.”
At this point, we have a meltdown. My daughter begins crying that I am mean. I don’t particularly care if she calls me mean. With me, it’s all about tone of voice and my daughter has a tone somewhere between a car alarm and a banshee’s wail.
“Fine!” I yell. “Don’t clean up the toys, but I’m going to throw away these things you’ve left on the kitchen table if you don’t come get them right now.”
She doesn’t move; she doesn’t flinch. Eyes glued to the TV she says, “Ok.”
By the time my husband gets home, I have generally had two fights with my daughter over toys and homework. My son, being 16, is far less predictable. We may be laughing and joking when dad comes home, or I may have left the house, mumbling something like, “I bet Mexico’s nice this time of year.” I pretend I am so eager to see my husband that I had to come meet him at his bus stop. I’m sure he has an inkling that I’m eager to see him, but maybe not for the reason he’d prefer.
So, when I come home from work and find that dinner has been made and eaten with no fuss and the entire brood is happily doing homework, playing cards or just hanging together, I want to strangle someone.
I am convinced that my kids love Dad best and it’s not just the difference in dinnertime that provides my evidence.
Take, for example, how our son treats each of us. My husband is affectionately known as “Daddy Poo-pookins.” He gets head rubs. He gets hugs.
I am known as “Big Dumb Mom” and it is said in a voice something like the Hulk’s. I get woken at 6:15 a.m. every morning and told, “I’m leaving.” This is code for “Come downstairs and say ‘goodbye to me’ .” I do, giving my son a hug that he accepts standing completely still. When I kiss him, he turns his head so that the kiss lands not on his cheek, but somewhere between his neck and his chin. I tried not giving the hug, and just saying “goodbye” once. My son glowered at me, refusing to budge until I gave him the unreturned hug.
My husband wakes at 5 every morning and doesn’t get home until 7:15 at night. On the weekends, we let him sleep. This means that he stays in bed until 10 a.m. The children tiptoe past the bedroom door. When I tell them to “get your father out of bed,” they balk.
Recently, while I was taking a nap after getting about four hours of sleep the night prior, my daughter came skipping in the room, jumped on me and said, “Mom, you only have ten more minutes to nap.” Then she left.
Another recent incident gave me a window of opportunity into why Daddy Poo-pookins gets away with parenting murder while Big Dumb Mom gets the shaft. At the grocery store, my son snarls when I suggest a store-brand alternative to his favorite cereal. “It will taste like (insert disgusting noun modified by equally disgusting adjective).” Son and husband came home from the grocery store last night with store-brand frosted wheats. I snarled at my son.
When my son explained that Daddy Poo-pookins would get mad, I said, Big Dumb Mom gets mad. “But he really means it,” my son said, “you’ll change your mind.” And he’s right. I will change my mind, given a good enough argument. Throwing away generic frosted cereal has taught me that some things are worth a little flexibility. By the way, I’m looking forward to saying, “I told you so” about the cereal.
When I was pregnant with my son, I read that “What to Expect When You’re Expecting” book. It did a very thorough job of informing me about what I might expect, month by month, as my pregnancy progressed. I, of course, zeroed in on the things that could go wrong in any given month and spent the entire pregnancy wondering when disaster would strike. I came to think of the book as “What Terrible Thing To Expect When You’re Expecting” but had a hard time keeping away from it nonetheless.
My son was born and no terrible things happened. So, I immediately purchased “What To Expect The First Year.” I have since renamed the book “What Your Baby Should Be Doing This Month That Every Other Baby But Yours Is Already Doing.” I subtitled it, “All The Exotic Diseases Your Child Probably Won’t Get But It Couldn’t Hurt To Worry About Anyway.”
Still, very soon into parenthood, I realized things were happening that no one had warned might happen. It began with the nurse placing my son in my arms and I felt . . .confused. When I first saw my son, I thought, “Wow, his head is cone-shaped on one side and block-shaped on the other.” Oh, I’d heard that babies weren’t particularly cute when they first come out, but block-and-cone headed? Nope. I’d also heard that childbirth was beautiful. Sunsets? Those are beautiful. The prairie on a crisp, fall day? Yup. Childbirth? Not so much.
Many people in my life happen to have babies either coming soon or already in their arms. I have gathered together the things I learned the hard way; things I wish I’d known before the babies hit the fan. You can thank me later.
You will be covered in truly grotesque substances on a regular basis. You probably have cute little fantasies of changing the diaper of a smiling, gurgling cutie. But if you have a boy, prepare yourself for projectile urination. Keep that little firehose covered or you’ll wind up the subject of ridicule for years to come. My son still gets a kick out of having peed all over his aunt when he was just five days old.
While we’re in the diaper region, I should mention that poop from breast-fed babies doesn’t really smell all that bad. Kind of like old buttered popcorn. Poop from bottle-fed babies is another story. Think standing downwind of a thousand camels.
The other end of your child is dangerous, too. I know of a dad who held his six-month old above his head so he could see her darling face smiling down at him. She had just been fed. She spit up just as he opened his mouth to smile back.
Your child will hurt you. My dad is a Republican. His child (me) grew up to become a Democrat. But that is not the kind of hurt I am talking about.
Your child will quite literally hurt you. When she was about 13-months old, my niece was standing on her changing table facing her mother, who was dressing the little darling. My sister says that my niece started shaking excitedly then dove into my sister’s shoulder and took a gigantic bite. Because my sister is sensible, she screamed then said, “That hurts Mommy.” My niece pulled back, started shaking again and dove for the shoulder again, probably thinking, “I can make Mommy scream!”
My son made Mommy scream when he was about two. Toddler hands are generally covered with a toxic mix of germs and sticky things. On top of that, they tend to be sweaty in the summer. My son grabbed a handful of my hair one day and wouldn’t let go. I screamed. I said, “That hurts Mommy.” He kept pulling. I screamed, “You’re hurting Mommy.” Maybe he was thinking, “I can make Mommy scream!” or maybe his sticky, sweaty hands were glued to my hair. He did not let go. I screamed, “Let go of my hair! Now!” He did not. This lead to . . .
You will hurt your child, once. I smacked his sticky, sweaty toxin-covered hand. He let go. He cried. This lead to . . .
You will feel like the worst parent in the world. I have felt like the worst mother in the world many times since the hair-pulling incident, but have never smacked my children since. I know other parents who have smacked their children once; they felt like the worst parents in the world.
You will feel like the worst parent in the world, even when you are being the best parent in the world. When I worked at a full-time, permanent position in Chicago—otherwise known as a real job—I got to talking about disciplining children with some of the African American women I worked with. They told me that white parents are wimps. One of them even mimicked a white parent, saying, “ ‘Now, Timmy, don’t touch the crystal vase again’.” “You know,” she said, “that Timmy is going to touch that vase again.”
I vowed that I would not be a pansy parent. So, when I was in a store with my son one day and I told him that we would be leaving the store if he did a particular thing again, we left the store when he did the thing. My son did not go gently. He screamed. He kicked. He threw punches. I didn’t even try to make him walk; I dragged him by one arm out the door. People stared at us. People thought I was a terrible parent. I felt like a terrible parent. But soon, I was able to take my child to the store and have him behave appropriately.
Maybe someday, I’ll gather all the wonderful things to expect with your wee—and not so wee—ones. I’m pretty sure you’re ready for those, though. But there was one truly wonderful, absolutely amazing, totally unexpected thing no one told me about.
You will fall completely in love with your child. I don’t mean that you will love your baby; you will. I mean that you will hold your child and wish you could inhale her. You will touch your baby again and again just to feel his warm fuzzy head. You will be fascinated by toes, cheeks, hands. You will tip toe into the nursery just to get another peek at the little person who has changed your life forever.
Theon trudged through the snow . . .
The door to my bedroom flew open. Theon stopped trudging through the snow. I closed the book on my finger, holding my place.
“Mom, what do we have to eat?” my son asked.
“The same things we had the last time you asked. Go look,” I answered.
“Meh,” he said, shutting the door.
Theon trudged through the snow . . .
“Mommy, can I watch TV in your room?” my daughter asked, opening the door then climbing into my bed.
Theon again stopped trudging. I closed the book on my finger.
“Where is your daddy,” I asked, it being 9:00 p.m., a half hour past her bedtime, and it being her daddy’s job to put her to bed.
“He’s downstairs, playing cards on his computer.”
“Husband,” I shouted. My daughter ran from the room, forgetting to close the door.
Theon trudged through the snow . . .
“I checked,” my son said, having returned from his foray in the kitchen, “we don’t have anything to eat.”
Theon stopped trudging through the snow again as I closed my eyes and willed my son away. I decided to ignore him. My son, not Theon. Theon started trudging again. My son didn’t leave.
“I’m bored,” he said.
“Theon trudged through the snow,” I said.
“Can we watch TV together?”
“Theon trudged through the snow,” I said, louder.
“We haven’t had mother-son bonding time in so long,” he pleaded.
“THEON TRUDGED THROUGH THE SNOW!” I shouted. He persisted. My son, not Theon. Theon was losing the battle for my attention.
“Pweeze, Mommy?” begged my bearded, 15-year-old son, puppy-dog eyes looking up at me, as he had flopped down on the bed beside me.
Theon stopped trudging as I set the book down to watch TV with my son.
While my son may have insisted that we hadn’t had mother-son bonding time “in so long,” the same scene plays out every night.
I no longer live a life. I live lifus interruptus.
When I lived alone, I never really thought about interruptions. Oh, the cat would have a hairball here and there and I’d occasionally get an unwelcome phone call. But the advent of the answering machine and, subsequently caller ID, freed me from unwanted distractions—except the hairballs, of course.
My husband was the first to bring interruptions to my attention, as in I would make them and he would resent them. I didn’t think of my comments on his monologues, I mean, contributions to discussion as interruptions, but lively responses to his thought-provoking speech. He thought of them as interruptions. I tried to stop inserting lively responses. Eventually, I was able to allow him to completely finish expressing a thought, holding my lively responses in abeyance. Unfortunately, by the time he had completed his thought, I had forgotten my lively response, leaving me responseless. This led him to believe that I was uninterested in his thought. In fact, at some point in his thought, I had a thought of my own that connected to his. So that I could remember my own thought, I stopped listening to his and began repeating my own in my head, over and over again. At that point, I figured out that I had figured out how to interrupt him without interrupting him.
My children will interrupt anything, at any time.
Making a dinner that my son has been grumbling for for hours? He’ll interrupt three or four times to ask when the dinner will be ready. I remind him that it will be ready much more quickly if he’ll stop interrupting me to ask when it will be ready.
Talking on the phone? My daughter will interrupt to provide further proof that she will grow up to become a molecular biologist as she points out a wound smaller than the point of a pin. My son has learned that phone calls are only to be interrupted if he is bleeding or on fire.
Locked doors don’t deter my children; they have discovered that knitting needles are effective in unlocking our locks. I discovered their discovery while taking a bath.
There are levels of interruption, as well. Recently, I realized everyone in the house was occupied. I snuck up to my office to write. I wrote 23 words. Only 23 words before my daughter interrupted me. I don’t even recall why, because immediately, my son interrupted her interruption to tell me he was bored or hungry. I don’t remember which.
I have grown so accustomed to being interrupted that I have developed the habit of leaving off the last word of sentences. I refuse to believe that this is a memory issue caused by my age. No, I have gotten used to not being able to finish a sentence, so I never finish sentences any more. It may be that I won’t even be able to speak at all soon. Last night, I opened my mouth to speak just as my son said, “What are we having for dinner?”
I have even begun interrupting myself. In writing this post, I have found it absolutely essential to take a bath, Google how to clean sticky dirt from a stair rail, attempt to clean a stair rail, start dinner, make a cup of tea, read some of a novel, and put away my daughter’s clean laundry. It normally takes me two hours to write a 1,000-word post. So far, I’m at 3 ½ hours. Not a good trend.
The worst of the interrupting avalanche is in my bedroom. It’s not what you think. I haven’t been able to sleep through the night since my kids started sleeping through the night. In addition to getting up to use the bathroom, I am now awakened by the need to either remove the covers or replace the covers. Every night, usually three or four times, I am treated to the sensation of my internal temperature regulation mechanism (ITRM) being nudged up a few notches. Covers off. Soon after, the ITRM gets nudged back . . .too far down. Covers on. Repeat. Of course, I still need to replace covers due to spousal cover removal. It’s covers off, covers on all night, every night.
On top of it all, I’ve developed insomnia. I look at this as a blessing though. At 2 a.m., I’m unlikely to be interrupted, no matter what I’m doing. Finally, Theon can trudge through the snow to wherever he was going.
© Copyright 2011 by Janice Lindegard, except Theon trudged through the snow Copyright George R. R. Martin
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