Entries Tagged 'Parenting' ↓

I would assume that it is only natural for parents to try to protect their children from their greatest fears. Our past traumas that haunt us just can’t possibly happen to these fresh, new lives. Untouched. Unscathed. Perfectly perfect, with no worries at all. It should come as no surprise to anyone, then, that when I make Mac N Cheese for dinner, I scream for everyone to clear far, far away when I retrieve the rolling, boiling pasta from the stove.

“Hey, back OFF. I don’t want you to get hurt like Mommy did. BACK! OFF!” And they always do. Mommy’s puckered scar makes for a fantastic safety lesson.

Ironically, for work, I had just written all sorts of articles about firework safety. All sorts. Did you know that one innocent sparkler can reach temperatures as high as 2000 degrees? Well, I did. And I had smugly decided we weren’t going to buy any fireworks this year, dammit. We were going to watch other people’s fireworks from a friend’s driveway. We should be safe enough.

When I was burned, I remember what my skin looked like immediately afterward. Red raw and then white, white, white, with skin peeling. A horrid memory for a three year old. But there it remains, tucked in my history, while my mother wrapped me in an old baby blanket. With flashing lights at the end of my front walk. And my father running up from a taxi parked at a hasty angle. I don’t remember much else, however. Except for the smell of Ivory soap, which they used to scrub it clean nightly. If I smell it today, it makes me gag. Horrid stuff. I don’t remember the screaming, but I remember that soap. Oh, and the dingy, nude-toned ace bandage, wrapped and wound and ragged about my left arm.

My youngest stepped out from behind the car while I sat comfortably in a friend’s chair in her driveway. It was almost dark and there were kids everywhere. But I knew it was him. And he had a sparkler. His face, lit by the sparks, was alive and THRILLED. So, what thoughts raced through my head? Well, these: 2000 degrees. He’s so excited! Am I a horrible Mommy if I take it away?

It took only those few seconds of thought for it to happen. A tiny spark jumped onto his arm. He’s never held a sparkler before, so jumping sparks are not normal. Or ok. So, instinctively, he flicked the sparkler. Down. And coals from that 2000 degree sparkler shot into that small spot where a little boys crocs meet his ankles. One actually slipped under. And stuck.

I thought his screaming was from the small spark. I was embarrassed. I was annoyed that I had to chase my screaming child up the driveway. Really, all over one little spark? I had no idea about the coals embedded in his feet.

But I did once we pulled him inside, terrified screaming bouncing off the vaulted ceilings, and stripped his shoes off. And there it was. Red raw, large patches of white, and peeled skin. And so much screaming.

I’m not going to say I handle panic well. But I have done ok-ish with emergency situations before, going into a zen-like, partially denial-based, ”it’s all going to be fine” trance.

I didn’t this time. This time I panicked and had to stop my own scream. I asked someone “what do we do?” And cried and grabbed my child and pulled him away from everyone trying to treat him as if he JUST NEEDED ME. I could fix him, no one else.

It happened to be that the guy with the goofy, over-sized, red, white and blue top hat at the same 4th of July gathering we were at was an ER doctor. Somehow, our pediatrician was called. Somehow, this 4th of July guy called in meds for us. I heard “3rd degree” and “burn unit” though. I most certainly heard those words. And I thought of Ivory soap and felt sick.

We see a plastic surgeon on Friday. And my running, wild boy is now wrapped in those very same dingy, unraveling ace bandages. His left foot is the worst. I have actually found myself saying “You got a burn just like Mommy!” As if that is something to be proud of.

My mom was in the kitchen, with her back turned, when I decided to crawl onto the stove, attempt to bypass that boiling water, and make a grab for donuts.

I was in a folding chair with a beer when he emerged behind that car with a sparkler handed to him by… well, it could have been anyone that night.

The worst stuff, the stuff that YOU think is the worst stuff, can happen to your children. I get that now. The control we have over their lives is nominal. But maybe, as I am only NOW (over a week later) able to clean his wounds by myself and tell him how great his feet are looking (kind of, not really), I am figuring this lesson out. Our children force-feed us our own demons. They make us deal with it, grow-up about it, handle it. It’s just a burn. On a limb. I lived with mine without incident, he’ll live with his.

My fears, his fears. My healing, his healing. The left side puckers, regrows, scars over, and moves on.

My kids are being watched this summer by their Dad. And now they look like this.

I could probably end this post here. Yep, with Mohawks to show for it, Dad is in charge all right.

But wait. There’s more.

You see, it has been such a 180 for this household. After being home with my boys for 8 years, suddenly I’m the one working all day and my husband has taken on the boys. He’s a college coach and, while he still has to go into work during the summer, he can set them loose in the indoor gym or drop them at swimming lessons on campus. It’s not perfect, he’s pulling his hair out trying to balance everything, but he’s doing it.

And the boys are better off for it.

I read this article the other day about how good roughhousing is for kids. And I see the logic, I do. But I don’t “get it”. When my kids wrestle and yell and pile-drive one another in the carpet, I freak. They laugh and scream and consider it sport while I holler at them to JUST QUIT IT. I look at them like they are insane. I tell them to get ahold of themselves, to CALM DOWN for crying out loud, to get outside IMMEDIATELY. “What is WRONG with you?” I ask. And I probably have a look of such disgust on my face while I shuffle them in a giggling pile out the door. And then I turn around and sigh at the destruction left in their wake. What. The. Hell.

So, now that my husband is home, what does HE do when the pile-driving commences? Usually, he ignores it. Or laughs. Or joins in. Or, if they interrupt him too much, he tells them to get outside too. But he never looks at them like they are wild, unnatural beasts… like I do.

When I come home in the evenings, I find everyone getting along. One pack of boys in three sizes. They are quietly laughing about silly things and seem relaxed into the evening. And (unlike myself at 5:30 pm after a full day of boy-dom), my husband doesn’t seem all that harried. I suspect the majority of their crazies have probably already been expelled. But no more mess than the usual upheaval betrays the madness that probably occurred in my living room only hours before.

So, we must ask. With three boys and then… me… which one of these things is not like the others?

I don’t GET rough-housing. But maybe if I did, maybe if I stopped worrying who was going to crash into the coffee table and split their head open, maybe if I moved with the insanity more often than fight it — it would actually be easier on all of us? A “can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” kind of thing?

Still. I don’t get it. But they do. And they truly seem better off for it, with Dad at the helm setting an example for whatever male-ness they hope to be.

And what do I do? Duck and cover and ask that they NOT jump on the bed while I paint my toes.

And hand out smooshy, lovey hugs when the days is done and they are weary from thrusting out their bony chests and verging on whatever it is they will become.

Parenting lesson learned. Yep, another one.

Somehow, while he waited for his Garbage Can sundae at Applebees tonight (his restaurant choice entirely) - he was still. My birthday boy turned five today, and (ask anyone) this child is never still. But he was. For a quick moment. Leaning up against his dad. Staring out the window at the cars passing by. Considering something. He was still.

Five. So much older than four.

…And I WON’T let that blow my mind.

Because I remember saying once a long while back that when my youngest turned five, I would have deserpate, heartbroken empty nest issues and THAT would be when my babies were officially not babies and a enormous part of my parenting world would shift permanently off its axis and change course forever.

But it’s happened. And here I sit, unscathed and at peace about it, really. I’m just not going there. Nope. Why be glum, after all? There’s too much to look forward to. Plenty of chaotic, uncharted parenting moments ahead. So much to finally be able to do together. All kinds of growing and learning and being a little boy still left in him.

We have sundaes coming, after all.

So, here he is. Very still. Very wonderful. And five.

There was a time when I was a mom home with babies, and all sorts of ideas and thoughts about the world were rolling around in my head. But I had no where to go with these thoughts. No one to share them with. No community for a thinking mom. Just diapers to change and baby vomit to wipe off the floor. And such is parenting. There would be time for thinking later.

Jump ahead to the year 2008. I was a very new blogger. I had just discovered (and started stalking) all sorts of mom bloggers and political bloggers and – gasp – political mom bloggers. One in particular rose to the top. Her name was Joanne, otherwise known online as Pundit Mom. And when she wrote, I just… got it.

That summer fate stepped in and determined my path as a blogger I very randomly won a contest through BlogHer to go to the BlogHer conference in San Francisco. It was my first overnight away from my children and I arrived there wide-eyed and ready to stalk myself some amazing bloggers. I listened intently to Lesbian Dad on a panel and pushed my way to the front to meet her. I fell off my seat laughing, tackled, and forced an introduction on Deb on the Rocks. I cried listening to and (via a couple glasses of wine) jumped in front of Moosh In Indy to tell her that she was so F-ing brave. And then, it happened. The last morning, at breakfast, Pundit Mom happened to sit down at my table. We introduced ourselves. She gave me a pin with her logo on it. Oh. My hero. That conference had officially been made.

Since then I have come to realize the power of the internet and the many super amazing smart women who live there. Pundit Mom and the Momocrats and various writers at BlogHer gave moms like me at home with their babies access to real politics happening in the moment. Before heading onto CNN to debate some topic or another, Joanne would tweet and ask what questions we had for the panel. The Momocrats would ask their readers what questions we had for Hillary Clinton before heading into a press conference. Moms, just like me with no way to be where they were, had access. And a voice.

And, since that morning over a bagel, my friendship with Joanne has grown. More conferences came. More conversations over meals. More shared ideas and ideals. More smart women, both online and off. She had a book she was writing, she said. I was thrilled for her. Could she use one of my blog posts? Oh my goodness, of course.

Honored is not even enough of a word to describe how I felt.

Joanne’s book has recently been published and in it she describes the extraordinarily influential political space women are carving out for themselves through social media, preconceived notions of women and mothering be damned. And she does it with the help of an incredible network of women she calls “Mothers of Intention”. Mothers, like me, who are not official political experts but actually, whoda thunk it, HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY.

This morning I opened up a PDF file from Joanne. It was the final draft of the book. My hard copy was in the mail. And there I was, amoungst these unbelievable women whom I have looked to as my conduit for change and voice and action for years. I am only one voice amongst so so many. But, once again, SHE MADE MY VOICE COUNT.

Do you see what this must mean to me? She changed my perception of motherhood. I, like a crazy woman, thought parenting meant my ideas and ability should be back-burnered. I thought you can’t parent AND think. She switched that all around and made me realize that, as a parent, I had a unique and important perspective. I had the same concerns as many mothers and we should pick them up and put them out there and get them heard, dammit. We are raising this country and that actually matters. She spelled it out quite clearly to me that mothers are kind of a big deal, even way over on Capitol Hill.

So. The book is in the mail. And I’ll be back here, of course, to freak out about it some more when I have resting here next to my laptop. Until then, check it out on Amazon. And, of course, you know… buy it. And maybe find your inner Mother of Intention. She’s in there. I swear she is.

You know what? I should not sit down to my computer, still in my work clothes, with kids yelling all around me, and throw down a post like a lump of potting clay needing to be molded into a frenziest sweat right after work.

Well. Ok, sometimes I guess I should. Because this here blog is WAY cheaper than therapy.

But really? Later on in the night, once the kids are in bed and I’ve stopped caring about the laundry… I know it’s fine. And THAT’S when I should write my post.

Or maybe after I’ve made a dozen cupcakes for my soon-to-be five year old and I feel like parenting seems a wee more under control than it did the day before. Maybe that’s a better time to write. With a nice batch of perspective sitting warmly on my plate.

Whatever.

The bottom line is that cupcakes simply make everything better.

So there.

Once you have children, going back to work is not simply just a choice. It requires a pinwheeling, interconnected number of mechanisms to all turn and spin in exactly the right direction before any parent can simply just step away from their children and go back to work.

These gears, large and small, each slotted into the other, turning in one impossible synchronized motion, have somehow come to life, and churned into motion for me. And left me impossibly grateful.

It takes so many people, at various times of the day, to make sure this entire process just somehow… goes.

It takes my children to agree to these changes, to gladly step into line and try a new, much longer, much busier routine.

It takes my husband to slide in, where I’ve stepped out, and maintain the momentum of parenting before and after I come home.

It takes random friends who help without warning, for no apparent reason, for nothing really other than simply loving my kids. The friends who bring my son home and let him watch cartoons on their couch. And the friends who find my son at school and hug him out of the blue.

It also takes new office mates. Who patiently train me and confidently slip new responsibilities over the desk to me and laugh with me and somehow, without saying a word, convince me that I am ok without my children. These people make me want to come back to work – and not run out of there, scoop up my children, and hustle back home where we were so safely before.

All of these pieces are in motion, carefully clicking and spinning through each day. And each day I come home, kick off my new heels, wrap myself around my children and think: it’s working.

Because before I had children, the only motion I had to worry about was mine. But when I had them, I could not fathom how I could make it all work again. It required too many people, too many possibilities, too much time not being with my boys. They were part of my machine, I was responsible for making them go. No one else.

But you see, as time goes on, and lives grow, and my children become more complex beings – their lives are not my life. Theirs is their own motion. And while it might be up to me to keep all all these gears in play – they run on their own accord, thank you very much. They have their lives and, it seems, I have mine.

So there you have it. This is working. Slowly. The gears slip now and then. I have to kick the rust off certain spots. And make sure the speed of each runs just so. But it is running itself. As my children, and the people they affect, fuel their own motion without my help.

Ok then. Once again. I am being reminded that I am simply along for the ride in this parenting business. And maybe I was being rediculous about worrying in the first place when mothers everywhere do this without the luxury of waiting to jump back in. I probably should have known better.

Regardless. I am truly besides myself, gasping and grateful, that this impossible mechanism of daily life for four individuals is working. It’s working! Really working, afterall.

This is what happens when you forget to take dinner out of the freezer but don’t want to deal with hoards of people at the store but your kids are starving and you need to get all kinds of MacGyver on the meat defrosting process.

Yes. Those are frozen meatballs. In a black pot. On my other oven western facing front stoop, defrosting in the surface-of-the-sun-kind-of-hot Florida afternoon.

What was I to do? The kids were starving. It’s all I could think of. Hot water was doing jack. They were too frozen to separate. So. There they went.

And here I post while I wait.

I’m betting it works fanTAStically too.

…What?

Don’t judge! Don’t tell me I’ll attract alligators or the neighbors dogs. Don’t cringe about what kind of bugs might fly into it while it sits there. I NEED TO GET DINNER READY PEOPLE. So… shush.

And bask in my Mommy McGyver mastery while my meatballs bask in the Florida sun.

So. Anyone want to come over for dinner? Thinking it will be de-lish and ready in about an hour…

This past Saturday, we arrived at baseball at 7:50am. As in 7:50am in the morning. Color me not so chipper or chatty that time of day. But early hours don’t matter to a pack of boys. And while I settled my sleepy limbs onto the metal bleachers, I watched and wondered.

My seven year old had walked up to the dug out with his baseball bag slung over his shoulder. Two or three boys were there too. Gear was dropped and they all exchanged a quick glance. Now, I’m not sure if little boys are psychic, or have some electric charge when they meet – exploding into something far greater than their own singular power – because not one second had passed before they all took off. Running, screaming, streaking by, hollering who was it and where base is.  Boys from a cross-section of schools, from varying neighborhoods, all seem to know the unwritten rules of how to run, chase, and expel that thrumming charge trapped in their limbs.

First thing in morning, or late in the evening as the street lights come on, boys do this. They meet, connect, and explode. No discussion, no concerns, no awkward name exchanges. Why bother.

Let’s. Just. Run.

And boys who actually do know each other well seem to double, maybe triple, their charge together. Add their emotional joy into that connection and stand back. The wired circuit they make crackles and pops, hugs become room-wrecking wrestles and declarations of love bubble out with yelps about who has the biggest “stinky head”.

Is it any surprise that my own energy flickers and threatens to blink out? They drain power, expand and light up the world with their moment of unharnessed, stripped down, unrelenting  force.

Boys are daunting and dazzling. Overwhelming me with their output. Almost impossible to gather up and contain.

There is no walking. Jumping, skipping, leaping, spinning and so much running. But walking? No.

Curbs can’t be left unbalanced on. Railings must be hung from. Stairs jumped off. Trash cans hidden behind. Brothers tackled. And grass, rolled in.

Still, mothers must have some vague polar attraction. Because they do follow along in a jumbled, unorganized, frenzied pack. Maybe it’s fruit snacks in our purses or promises of snuggles when no one is looking, but they still come along and attempt a roughly translated version of minding.

So when their breaker trips and their limbs finally power down in the late hours, I breathe and hope they sleep enough in preparation of another flood of current the next day. But their quiet, sleeping bodies folded into knees and elbows beneath a cool sheet keep me there. These boys, with so much potential and power, maintain my own momentum. My attempts to insulate their charge are laughable. As I abate, they surge. My negative to their positive. So we connect and move through our days – pulling, pushing and moving the other along. Our circuits are complete.

This post should really be some sappy homage to new beginnings. Because both my brother’s wife and my husband’s sister are expecting babies right now. As in this moment. (One is partly dilated and the other is in surgery for a C-section.) So exciting. So much to hold on to and celebrate about BABIES and Spring and new things and… oh yeah, me going back to work next week.

But I need to stay grounded. My wits must be kept carefully in check. I have lots to do and just getting super weepy and going via my usual route of over-thought, over-wrought utterly “enough already” will get me no where right now.

Still. My sister in law, the one who is partly dilated but not in actual active labor, is sitting home right now. And bored. She is a working mom in a pretty “wow” executive position. She is used to going constantly, on weekends too, in heels and suits with blackberry abuzz. But, thanks to a child now wedged in her birth canal, she’s had to make the decision to stay home and wait for him. It’s a big change for her.

Meanwhile, I am scrambling to get my ducks in a row to go back to work. No, I can’t pick any time for a parent teacher conference. No, I can’t pick up my child on early release day. No, I can’t offer any more volunteer hours at my son’s school. But maybe my husband can once things slow down for him?

My sister in law and I are swapping lifestyles – we are staring wide-eyed at the other and asking “how do you do it?” (Please, please, please – share some of that executive know-how and calm confidence if you could.)

But again. Let’s be cool. Let’s not get all melancholy. That helps nothing. I have all kinds of odds and ends to tie up still and only a few days to do it.

There is absolutely NO point in obsessing over the fact that my four year old has gotten into some kind of crying fit skirmish on both days of his first full week at school so far.

And nothing will come over wringing my hands about how much more clingy my seven year has become since he was sick, launching himself into my arms whenever he sees me, sneaking into my bed at night.

Nope. Let’s just not go there.

Let’s stay organized, get those last articles in, make those last couple appointments, organize my black hole of a closet, and feverishly cheer two new babies into the world…

I need to be cool. I can’t be allowing myself to feel the kind of throat clutching, heart wrenching emotion I absolutely could feel. (Because, oh my goodness, it’s right THERE.) That does nothing.

So, really. Hooray for new beginnings. This spring has many. There is so much to be grateful for! Because don’t misunderstand me. I am extraordinarily grateful. When other moms look at me like I am NUTS for going back to work, I look at them like they are nuts for not thinking I am super lucky to have this chance to GO back to work.

Me = jackpot.

But, if you know me, you know I have all kinds of writer’s mushiness hovering just under the surface. HOWEVER. If you were expecting my usual, emotional, super-drama posts oozing with sentimentality about my boys and our days together and all that we’ve had… if you were expecting that today, right now? Well.

There’s nothing to see here.

Back to my check list.

(And really, truly, I am so SO frigging excited, HOORAY for babies!)

You know how when you’re in a certain frame of mind, you keep seeing the same thing everywhere? Like spotting pregnant women when you’re trying to get pregnant or cuddling couples when you miss your sweetie? Today I saw moms battling through their days on the front lines of parenting everywhere I turned. And I realized, quite suddenly, that I wasn’t one of them. Not in a permanent, never catch a break, Chinese water torture kind of way anyway. And it sort of blew my mind.

It all started while I was waiting in a crowded waiting room. I was watching the mom across me with her baby. Usually a mom like that would see me back. We would nod and smile and ask each other how old our babies were. I kept waiting for our eyes to meet. I kept smiling at her son. She talked to the lady with the baby next to her, but me? Nothing. And that’s when I realized the deal. I didn’t have a baby with me. I was just another person, a person who probably didn’t get it anyway.

Whoa.

When my appointment was over, I jumped into my car, turned up the radio, and headed over to Barnes and Noble. I sat there amongst the stacks paging through various books. It was quiet. No rushing. Nobody tugging at me, no one verging on a melt down. I paid for my purchases and left.

But as I pushed through the doors, I saw more mothers by the fountain outside the store. Meeting, chatting, rocking their strollers back and forth, sipping coffee, disheveled, ponytails, all in it together. I walked by. I wasn’t part of this.

In Target I circled the grown-up clothes, considering office appropriate options. I looked at my leisure. But all around me, it was on. Babies screaming, children tantruming, rolling and pleading on the carpet. I saw one toddler beam his sippy cup off the floor and, while his mom scurried after it, he upended the bag of goldfish he had been snacking on. Her face – tight, colorless – said it all. But my attempts to help her were rebuffed. I was an outsider. I wasn’t in it right then. I had no diapered, sticky-chinned, napless wee one in the seat of my cart. How could I possibly understand what she was going through? How dare I consider myself part of this?

At check out, a pregnant mother searched everywhere for a gift card she had counted on to buy her kids shoes. Through her purse, through her pockets, she was frantic. And while she searched, her toddler proceeded to untie the back of her shirt while her preschooler took her searching as a cue to entirely unpack her purse. Change clinked through the holes in the cart, a lip gloss rolled under the cash register.

But I was two people back. I was not part of this. I was only an observer.

Now. Before I get all solemn and reflective here, I actually returned to the front lines only a couple hours later. My four year old, with yogurt stains on this pants and glitter in his hair, found his place by my side on the way into the grocery store after school pick-up. And he, being exhausted by his day, decided he needed a snack, water AND one of those ginormous child-friendly shopping carts that I hate with a passion crash into everything. Unable to provide him with all three, he lost his mind right there and then.

Pinwheeling arms, spitty howls, dirty tear streaked cheeks, time outs, trips to the water fountain, hugs.

And there they were all around me. The observers. The people who didn’t get it. I don’t care how many children they had once upon a time, I wasn’t about to look up at them and meet any one’s sympathetic stares. They weren’t in it right then, right there. How could they possibly understand? How dare they try.

My trips to the front lines are certainly less frequent now – and that means a very unfamiliar shift for my identity. There will be more of me, just me, finding my way through the day. And there won’t be a child erupting besides me explaining, defining who I am or what I do either . So I guess it’s my job to make sure I know how to be just me now and maybe use my new perspective to be a better parent when I do revisit the front lines.

Well, enough of these deep thoughts for this Friday afternoon. I hear my kids calling me over for a round of “Just Dance”. Before I go dust off my “running man”, I will say just this. No matter how much of me is on my own these days, those boys of mine still define an enormous part of me. It’s just that, kind of all of the sudden, they aren’t all of me.

Huh.

Like I said, mind-blowing.

Have a good weekend.