Category Archives: motherhood

98% housework

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15

So I was complaining on Facebook the other day about how I spend 98% of my day doing housework. Being home every day with a two-year-old and a four-year-old and I don’t know, it just explodes. Entropy, chaos.

Legos everywhere, crumbs on the coffee table, marker on the couch*, small bits of paper under the dining room table, a discarded Pull-Up in the hallway, mountains of laundry, handprints coating every surface to a height of three feet, train tracks wending between chair legs, pieces of cheese in between sofa cushions, books covering the beds, a sticky layer on the floor under the legs of Mackie’s dining chair, dishes in the sink and the drying rack and on the counter, towels on the bathroom floor, woodchips on the stairs, leaves on the rug, spilled orange juice, dismantled homemade Christmas decorations whose separate pieces lie in different rooms, dirty socks whose numbers increase with each passing hour, pirate hats, knight shields, hooks, crooks, cars, capes, mittens on strings (but not inside coats), pencils, game pieces, boxes to board games, chewed-upon straws, flung-aside pillows, doffed pajamas, a sippy cup and two toothbrushes on the coffee table, an open jug of milk on the kitchen radiator, a used Kleenex  and a wrinkled Playmobil catalog on the floor … I could go on. Please don’t make me go on. I haven’t gotten to the dust bunnies who are starting to unionize.

I usually just stand in the middle of the room, slowly circling around, counting to 200.

I know this is supposed to be a part of life with small children, but dang, you guys. I need a shovel just to get from one room to the next. It takes me an hour and a half to cook, serve, eat, and clean up after each meal (and these kids eat like 6 times a day and somehow manage to get food on the walls from six feet away) and the potty training accidents and the baths and the toys and um, Jesus, how do you do this with PETS in the mix? At least houseplants don’t move.

Or talk.

Not that I’m complaining? OK, I’m complaining. But if I vent here then next time I’ll only have to count to 150.

*Title of my next book: Substances On My Couch.  It’ll be 1,000 pages long. I just edited my manuscript to include Highlighter From Daddy’s Work Bag and Halloween Face Paint That Was Not As Well-Hidden As I’d Thought.

You can’t make this stuff up.

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11

So I’ve been growing zinnias this summer. Cubic yard after cubic yard, all zinnias. Yesterday, we’re hanging out en famille in the front yard and Owen is checking out my garden, telling me what to dig up and move and what to save. Very helpful, that four-year-old. He spots a beautiful pink zinnia and I don’t know how or why, but it’s agreed that he will clip it and I will procure a vase for it and he can keep it in his room. We do so. It is lovely.

Cut to the bathroom, I’m brushing the kids’ teeth. Owen expresses excitement about his flower and how he is so excited to keep it forever.

Is this where I should put the foreshadowing?

I, like a dum-dum, casually say, Well, you know it won’t last forever, it’s just a flower, it’ll probably die within the week, but that’s OK, we’ll toss it on the compost heap and cut another one.

Oh my God. He burst into tears. He was wracked with them. I might as well have told him that his puppy had incurable cancer and we’d just kick it to the curb next Tuesday. Sobbing.

“But I don’t want my flower to die!”

Jesus, I had no idea what to say. It never occurred to me (me, the lover of the green babies) to prepare my kids for the death of botanical-type objects. I mean, we pull weeds all the time, we eat the peas right off the vine. I didn’t think that floral deceasement was like, a Topic I had to cover. Obviously I was incorrect.

Thus I began a long schpiel about seasons, and autumn, and the Age of Aquarius, and turn, turn, turn, and compost heaps, and seeds, and appreciating fleeting beauty. He was not soothed. Finally I took him onto my lap and just let him cry.

The moment turned and grew. This was not about the flower, no. This had become bigger. I was witnessing a Moment, a developmental milestone, a watershed of the human experience. This was about death and facing up to it.

After a while I started crying, too. I thought of people I loved who had died. Of fleeting beauty and being powerless to stop time. Soon we were both crying and just clinging to each other, me apologizing for making him sad, him shaking his head and holding on, both of us mourning something that wasn’t even gone yet.

“I don’t like it anymore,” he said, avoiding looking at his flower.

“Do me one favor,” I said to him. “Promise me that you will enjoy it first. We’ll look at it together, and remember how beautiful it was in the garden, and how much fun we had cutting it and putting it in the vase, and how nice it looks here on your toy chest with the sun shining in on it. I want you to remember that, and think about you and me together when you look at that flower, and enjoy it while it is still here with you. Can you do that for me?” And he nodded. And he smiled. And I smiled. And another tear rolled down my face, not gonna lie.

And then Mackie, fresh from his bath, walks up to the two of us.

“Mommy crying,” he said. “Noney crying.” He looked from Owen’s face to mine and back. We were both snuffling and wiping our eyes. Then Mackie stood back, in all his tiny naked two-year-old glory, and yelled, “My penis is big!”

Thereby demonstrating at a very early age an understanding of the purpose of potty humor.

Nightly routine

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13

It is impossible, and I think you’ll agree with me, to check on them and tuck them in at 11 p.m. and not tear up a little, thinking of the yawning gap between the mother you wanted to be and the mom they ended up getting. Their faces all odd and smooth in sleep, their limbs looking even longer and coltishly akimbo, completely innocent and deserving of slo-mo big-bosomed MAMA kind of mothering, homemade pies and wide-open arms, instead of the snapping and eye-rolling one they did get, who snarls a little too easily and does not appreciate their sheer miracle-ness nearly enough while they are awake, but rather lets the million tiny guilts of a day coalesce into two fat tears each night.

Upper and lower fun zones

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5

The boys spent their first night in bunk beds last night: Owen up top and Mac down below. I was a nervous wreck, sleeping with one ear open for any ‘thunks,’ but they both did fabulously.

The beds are hand-me-down’s from Iain’s family. Owen has been talking for ages about getting bunk beds, and Cormac was about 1/8th of an inch away from being able to climb out of the crib, so we decided we’d risk the transition.

Let me tell you, the best part of parenting is being the Wish-Fulfiller. The kids were psyched. Mac loves being in his big boy bed — he arranges his books and pillows just like he’s seen his big brother do it — and Owen loves the joy and privilege that comes from having his own “crow’s nest.”

So. Thumb’s up so far.

In which I play hairstylist

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5

Yesterday, as I was brushing my teeth, Cormac grabbed the mousse from the bathroom counter, indicating that he wished to apply a little product to his bedhead. So I dispensed a little fluffy white goop into his palm, and he immediately slicked it onto his hair, in the manner of a 50’s greaser. The kid’s a natural. He just needs a little black comb tucked in his back pocket. (Note to Santa.)

Naturally, I saw an opportunity. When you have sons, you take what you can get when it comes to grooming. Plus, there’s no one around for me to practice my french braiding on.

So I plopped him on the counter, in front of the mirror, and went to town.

He sat still for a pretty long time, long enough for me to try several iterations of a New Wave hairdo, even submitting to the hair dryer, declaiming “Noise!” with alacrity. I eventually settled on a combo style that involved a Flock of Seagulls flip on the top and a cute, curly little ponytail in the back.

The fact that I can put my toddler son’s hair in a ponytail is probably evidence that he needs a cut. But I say, the fact that I can put my toddler son’s hair in a ponytail AND HE LETS ME is proof that he does not need a haircut. In fact, if he’d just let me put a dress on him I won’t ever need to get pregnant a third time to make that daughter. I can just play dress-up on the one who isn’t into Batman yet.

A good reason to stash Ziplocs in the car

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2

Sometimes you find yourself on your knees in a McDonald’s bathroom, wondering how on earth you ended up on such a dirty floor doing something so gross.

In my case, the chain of events went something like this:

Girl meets boy, they fall in love, marry, and have two children. Girl picks up son from preschool, stops by ATM to take out toll money, drives another 500 feet to post office, unbuckles everybody, drags two kids and package through blinding snow to make shipment, hears first child say he has to pee — and this is the fatal mistake — says “uh-huh, can you wait five minutes?” drags kids back to car, rebuckles everybody to drive quarter mile to gas station for fill-up and then another quarter mile to fast food restaurant, again dashing through blinding snow, one hand gripping each of her children, bursting inside the double doors, dripping with melted snow, hair all in her face, the very picture of bedragglement, when she notices eldest son, the preschooler, is most certainly, most noticeably not doing the Pee-Pee dance.

Next thing you know she’s squatting down right there in front of the stall in the women’s room, trying to remove the preschooler’s soaking wet underwear without taking off his shoes (or his pants) and really, really trying to not touch anything, including the floor, the walls, or the aforementioned wet underwear, and begging her youngest child to show the same restraint, though that one gleefully runs his tiny dimpled hands over every surface to a height of about three feet.

So, kind of like that, is how that goes. Perfect 45-minute intro to a four-hour road trip to Nana’s house, no?

I’m a little slow on the uptake

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9

I have been thinking a lot lately that my Self of 10 years ago would probably have punched my Self of today for being content puttering around the house, SAHMing and whatnot. (Though she would have playfully punched me on the shoulder for finally learning to knit — you should have seen the scarf I knit for my friend Jeff in college. It was like a trapezoid, that was on acid, that had a run-in with a goose.)

Anyway, my point is that it took me a long time to realize that raising children and creating a home are not worthless pursuits or somehow less valuable than a life spent working one’s way up the chain of command at a newspaper. There is no line in the sand that says You are This or You are That. There is no such thing as Mommy Wars; motherhood is merely parenthood, and most humans enter that reproductive phase of life at one point. Taking a few years out of one’s work career (if that’s what I end up doing) is merely one person’s path through parenthood, not a Statement or a Track or a Cause

Too much of parenthood in this country is minimized as soccer mom work, joke fodder rather than seen through the lens of family and connection. Every one has parents; everyone comes from somewhere. Most people (I think most, statistically) will create a family of their own one way or another, or find themselves as a caregiver to someone else at some point, be it spouse, child or aging parent. It’s narrowminded and dangerous to assume that child-raising belongs to women and women belong at home; likewise it is narrowminded and dangerous to assume that raising children and staying at home are lowly, marginal or worthless activities. They are human activities.

Life is a ripple, or a wave, or a ribbon. Time bears you forward into different circumstances, doing different work that affects the larger society or culture as a whole. Arranging words on a newspaper page is one such service to your community. Teaching the children of that community about manners and love and respect and compassion is another.

To my Self of 10 years ago, I would say this: After critically thinking about so much, and fighting back over so many things, don’t overlook this. Motherhood is not the M word. Talk to me in 10 years. Get some of that stuff out of your system, take a step back, listen, think — and move the yarn forward if you want to purl.

Holy ad nauseum, Batman!

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4

Ah, you remember Halloween, don’t you? My kids won’t let me forget it.

Every morning, as soon as breakfast is done and they’ve played with all the toys in their room, the boys come running up to me with their Halloween costumes in hand, begging me to help them dress up. It’s way cute, honestly.

But if I have to re-tie that Batman costume one more time, so help me God. Owen puts it on first thing in the morning (over his “Bruce Wayne clothes”) and I have to fit it on him and tie all the different pieces and then untie all the different pieces and take them off every time he goes to the bathroom or has something to eat and people, that’s like 17 undress-redress times every day! I’m but one woman! Only these two hands!

Plus Mackie tugging at me saying “Bee! Bee! Beebeebeebeeeee!” until I put his bee costume on him and then he immediately dribbles milk from his bottle all down the front. I don’t even think dry cleaning is going to save that thing now. Five whole dollars were spent on that costume, I feel like telling him, so you better shape up and take proper care of your belongings! Babies in China would LOVE to dress like a bee every day!

My point is that I’m a stone cold bitch, I guess is what I’m saying. I just wish their irrepressible cuteness could be taught to tie knots. Then I’d get all the entertainment and none of the arthritis.

That’s unheard-of in this house.

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10

I’m going to tell you this, but you have to promise you won’t get jealous.

You know how the kids always wake up between 6:09 and 6:15? Usually screaming their fool heads off about something, so that your dreams are pierced by a sound far worse than any clock-radio could produce?

Yeah. This morning I didn’t get out of bed until — and please notice the excited italics here — 7:45 in the a.m. And then only because I figured somebody had to be hungry.

I first awoke at five after seven, which is itself a luxury, of course. What met my ears were not cries of “Ma! I want my cereal!” or “Waaaaaah!” but the hushed giggles of two hooligans in cahoots. I waited patiently, eyes closed, buried nose-deep under the quilt, praying to the Almighty that I could stay there just a little longer. I was certain, because history had evidence to back me up, that it would be a matter of sheer seconds before the wailing set in.

It did not.

The unmistakable thump of the crib hitting the wall issued forth. Springs bounced. The giggles escalated into shrieks of laughter. I peeped one eye open; surely something awful was happening. Perhaps an early-bird intruder, hopped up on some Colombian joe and reeking of McMuffin, had just broken in with kidnapping on his mind. But then: why the giggles? Even a bacon-bearing burglar would surely arouse some sort of suspicion in these kids.

The laughter subsided to whispers and giggles again. I could hear pages turning. Presumably some other stuff happened but I believe I dozed off for half an hour then.

Next thing I know it’s twenty to eight, and I’m still warm and cozy in my bed, and further emanances from the children’s room seemed to indicate their continued safe presence. I realized that the goobers must be starving for their Apple Jacks and YoBaby, so I reluctantly left my nest and opened their door.

Two bright, smiling heads popped up above the crib rail. A more beautiful sight I have never, ever seen. My sons, my two sons, playing together. By themselves. In the morning.

It’s enough to make a girl give up complaining altogether.