What parenting sometimes means....

Let's face it.  Parenting (albeit magical, wonderful, deeply moving and life-shaking) is just really hard sometimes. 

Especially when you parent a child who looks like this in her class photo:

 

Who just this morning stood in my closet crying loudly and yanking down some of my shirts because I wouldn't let her wear a tank top to school when it was fifty degrees outside. Because her dress just didn't feel right with a shirt underneath and she tells you this in a high pitched shout as she flails dramatically on the ground.

 

Or when you have a child who looks like this in his class picture:

 



Who makes this particular ridiculous face at you even as you try to tell him some serious etiquette or other parenting type rule. 

Yesterday was one of those days where I wasn't really at my best, as a mom.  My intentions were good. I picked them up from school, excited to see them both and immediately was met with a semantics argument from Lucy
Lucy: Do you know what I'm going to do?
Me: Yeah?
Lucy: (crossing her arms haughtily) Yeah? You DO know what I'm going to do? Okay, what am I going to do then?
Me: I don't know what you're going to do. Tell me.
Lucy: Well, you said 'yeah' so you know what I'm going to do!
Me: I didn't mean, 'yeah' like I know what you're going to do. I mean 'yeah' like 'what' What are you going to do?
Lucy: I don't want to tell you now.

I threw up my hands and just sort of drifted away as she went back to the playground. But what I wanted to say was this:
You know WHAT, sister! I don't give a &#!% what you're going to do!

Being a parent sometimes means keeping the things you really want to say inside your head.

Then Coen came running up to me to say he'd been invited to play at a friend's house.
"I'm sorry." I said, "Not today honey, your Baba and Papa are coming over." (my parents who were generously coming to be with my kids so Tad and I could both attend to our extracurricular plans)
I was met with immediate anger and then big time tears.  He went over to the other side of the playground and sat with his arms folded.

He got over it. But got mad again when no friends were outside to play with, and again when I wouldn't let him drag my parents back to our neighbors so they could watch him jump off the swing, and then again when it was time to come in. And then again when he was in his pajamas and he saw friends outside and wasn't allowed to join them.

Being a parent sometimes means making unpopular decisions that people get really mad at. 

In addition to all this, my sensitive boy has been going through his 1-2 times a year nighttime neuroses where he can't sleep because he's "thinking about things he doesn't want to think about" and I try to be patient and lay with him and rub his back and tell him that everything is okay and that the world won't end or Tad and I won't die or 4th grade won't be as scary as he thinks it will. When what I'm really thinking is this:
Honey, everything is fine. Look-the moon is out, the stars are glimmering; Daddy I are both home. Now shut the #*@% and go to SLEEP!!!!

Being a parent sometimes means that you don't get to sit down and relax until you're unconscious and don't even know you're relaxing.

It's a hard job. It's a twenty-four hour job.  And it's a job I chose.  And I love it. And sometimes I want to call in sick from it.  But since I can't, I have half-assed parenting days like I did yesterday.  But there's always today and tomorrow and tomorrow. 

Being a parent means you are a human being who is trying her best to be all the things a parent should be.
Being a parent means that even though you have a bad day, you're still the parent and you get to try again another day.
And.
Being a parent means, even with all the hard stuff, you get to look at those two pictures above and know your kids are totally weird and wonderful.
And that's pretty great.

One morning at my house.

6:00 a.m.

"Maaaaaaama!"

From my bed where I lay, I can hear Lucy calling in a drawn out-yet not too loud way.

"Maaaaaaama!"

Tad unwraps himself from me and goes upstairs.  I hear him go up. He is upstairs IN Lucy's room.  But then I hear her again.

"Maaaaaaama!"

He comes back down and wraps himself around me again.  "Sorry. She's been calling you like that for a while now."
"But didn't you just go in her room?"
"Yeah. She just ignored me and kept on calling you."

"Maaaaaaaama!"

I go upstairs and find my little wriggling girl wide awake in her bed.  Smiling. 

"Hello."
"When will it be morning?"  She asks me, despite the sun streaming in through her windows.
"It is morning."
I lay out her clothes for her.  I go in Coen's room and wake him up.  Lucy follows me and sits cross-legged on the floor, watching me wake him, as if it's a show.  Which...it sort of is.  He is very slow to open his eyes and when he finally does, says "Mama?" three times, but never finishes his thought.

A bit later, when I'm downstairs getting breakfast ready, Coen comes in the kitchen with a notebook.
"Mama! Look what I made!"
He opens it up and reads through recipes he's written himself, telling me he wants to test them in our kitchen soon.
Coen's Chicken
Coen's fruit smoothie
Coen's dipping sauce
Pretty cool.

Then Lucy comes down with her button down dress hanging wide open.  She gestures to her self, squeaking.  I start to button her up and then she wildly wriggles out of her dress and puts it on backwards.
"That's backwards, honey."
"This is how I want to WEAR it."
"But..."
She dramatically takes it all the way off and looks at me.  Humphs.
"Okay!"
So I button her dress in the back with the collar in front. 
"Which way do you want the sash tied?" I ask her.
She starts flailing around inside of her dress, sticking her arms out of the spaces between the buttons, unbuttons the dress and then throws it on the floor.
"I don't WANT to wear this dress at ALL!" She says and flounces upstairs to get another.

After breakfast (uneventful) I kiss everyone goodbye.  Coen runs into the playroom.
"Mama!" he shouts from there.
I go in. "Yes?"
"What kind of music should I play?" He asks me, seated at the piano.
"How about leaving music. I'm going to work now." I give him a kiss.
"No, do you want breakfast music or dinner music?"
"Oh. Breakfast."
And so he plays "breakfast music" and I leave the house to the sound of it and head off to work.

I love the sound of my kids saying "Mama." And sometimes I can't stand the sound of my kids saying "Mama."  But they are both, in their own ways, wonderfully weird and incredible children.  And I am so glad I AM their Mama.

And that's just one morning at my house.

GMOs and Genocide

Sheesh.

That's quite a title. Sorry. Hope I haven't depressed you already.

Last night, Tad was at the Brewer game (which went 14 innings, incidentally) and I was on the couch finishing a novel that I'm reading called The Sandcastle Girls by Chris Bohjalian.

(Here I would say "spoiler alert" but the word 'spoiler' seems a bit trite for this epically romantic and crushing tragedy, but having said that, If are reading or planning on reading this book, I will be giving away a bit of the premise that unfolds itself toward the end.)

The novel, in short is a historical work of fiction that is set during World War I, in the little known Armenian Genocide.  It is also a love story.  What got me rattled (and is sure to haunt me for days or weeks--which is why I usually read lighter, shallower literature) is this:  The story is of Elizabeth, a Bostonian who goes to Aleppo help out with the victims of this horrible crime. There she meets Armen, an Armenian engineer who was separated from his wife and baby daughter and believes them both to be dead.  He and Elizabeth fall in love.  He comes alive again after his own tragedy.  Over the span of the novel, he leaves to fight in the war and then again returns.  What we find out is that his wife Karine is still alive struggling under the weight of her own loss, and she is looking for him.  But she is too late.  She commits suicide near the novel's end after finding Armen and Elizabeth in a joyful embrace when they finally come together again.  There is much, much more to the story. But the thought of her still alive and love and what it all means was overpowering to me.

So, I got on Facebook.  That should unrattle me, right?

And I click on a post by a friend about the GMOs every one's talking about and I think about capitalism and chemicals.  I think about my children and their nutrition and cancer and death and loss and I am back to the world of Armen and Elizabeth somehow in all this.

So I see, on the TV, that the Brewers have gone into extra innings and I can no longer wait up for Tad and I go to bed.  And I think about the loss of love and how that would feel.  And my mind is off.  And suddenly I'm inadvertently imagining losing Tad and when I hear distant sirens I imagine them at Miller Park, some tragedy occurring there....  And I shake the thoughts off but they return as I feel myself falling closer to sleep.  As I fall asleep I absently imagine a police officer coming to the door bearing horrible news.... 

I wake up with a start and hear the front door.  It sounds like knocking.  I tear out of bed and run to the door and there is Tad.  My heart is pounding and I know I look panicked.  He grabs me. 
"I'm sorry. That door is so loud. It's okay. I'm home."
And I feel my pulse slow down with his arms around me and I breathe.
"I know how that feels. I'm sorry."  He says. "I'm here."

I know I know nothing of war and of genocide. And I know I am an extremely privileged person, in my life and my family and my neighborhood and my experience and all of it.  But the love I have for Tad and for my kids (as is the love that you have for your own I am certain) is as wide as the world. And sometimes just the thought of that being taken is terrifying. So I'll buy healthy foods for my family and do my research and hope hope hope for the best.  Because there is hope. And there is spring. And there are people upon people who care for others everywhere and do their best to live that way.

And the next novel I read will likely be lighter.

Pizza and Movie Night

Monday evening 5:00

Sunday nights are Pizza and Movie night at our house.  Except Memorial Day weekend. Then, it's Monday.

After this weekend, my kids were ready for it.  See?

Friday, Coen and all the other third graders at Highland presented exhibits they researched and created for an event at the Milwaukee Public Museum.  At the end of the day, he and his good friend (and research partner) Dylan were on the playground at school begging me and Dylan's mom for an overnight.  So Dylan's family picked Coen up from our house at 5:00 and he got an overnight while Lucy got a night in with just Tad and me.

Coen and Dylan and their Corn Snake Exhibit

Saturday Coen got dropped off at 9:00 and we all went off to watch him play in a 10:00 and then an 11:00 soccer game.  My parents came to watch and then took us out to lunch at Honeypie Cafe in Bayview, followed up by some quick thrift shopping.  We met my sister and her family a few hours later, at 4:00 at Hart Park and then all went out to dinner at Cafe Hollander and dessert at YoMama.  All four of us crashed early that night.

Highland Honeys Triathlon team (Photo: Janet McMillan)

Sunday I biked to Hart Park and then went on a three-mile run with some Highland mom's to train for our Triathlon in August.  Then biked back to find my family wanting to go on a bike ride.  We biked to Dairy Queen after lunch on the porch.  The children ran around the neighborhood--Lucy alternately digging in the dirt and playing the the baby two doors down and Coen having some sort of epic battle with several neighborhood boys (it looked a little Lord of the Flies-ish) for two hours.  Then Tad went off to Madison to see a friend for the night and the kids and I went to an anniversary party.
We got home around 9:00 and my children were asleep within five minutes of my going downstairs after reading to them.

Needless to say, Monday we had no qualms about remaining indoors and in our pajamas the whole day through.  Tad returned  around 10:00 a.m. to find Coen, Lucy and I about to try playing the game of Life (his old board game) and he joined us.  By the time we were even remotely interested in getting out, it was nearly time for pizza and movie night.  So in we stayed. 

Pizza Before Baking

Pizza After Baking

Tad and I finished the night off by watching the new Arrested Development and eating ice cream.  I think I was sleeping within three minutes of us going to bed.

I'm ready for next weekend already.

Butterflies

When I was in Estonia, in the Peace Corps, I was on a bike ride with my Estonian friend Olavi.  I was screeching as we were riding down a gravel hill and it was my first time on a bike since I was fifteen. 
Olavi looked back at me, grinning, "Do you have lullabies in your stomach?"
I laughed "Butterflies, Olavi! Butterflies! And I don't have butterflies in my stomach, I'm just terrified!"
He laughed back.

But I do get butterflies in my stomach from time to time.  When I was young, I got them seemingly for no reason at all.  I got them on certain days and inevitably, something odd would happen on that day.  The teacher would be out sick and there would be a substitute or something exciting would happen at school...
When I was in my twenties the butterflies seemed to indicate running into someone, like a person I was romantically interested in...
The day that I saw Tad for the first time after I'd returned for a brief foray from Estonia, I had butterflies all day long.  And I remember thinking what's with the butterflies. It's just TAD.  And then that was the summer we fell in love.

So I still get them, even now, even as an adult.  I have them today and I'm not sure why.  I know scientifically, that butterfly sensation is linked to our good old "fight or flight" response and my body's nervous system is experiencing a rise in blood pressure, heart rate, and breathing rate, hence the physical sensation....  And I do get them in the proper arenas, before a speech, prior to having a difficult conversation, etc...  But sometimes I get them and I don't know why.  And a lot of times, something happens later in the day and I think OH! That's why! But how does my body know?  Is it somehow the energy in the universe reaching out to me?  Or do I sort of make something out of the ordinary happen because I'm looking for it? Maybe I'm just reaching out to the universe. 

Well, who knows.  But I have them today.  I guess we'll see if they're responding to something future me will experience later, or if present me will send future me off into some self-made adventure.

Trippy. Anyway.

UPDATE:

So, I left work this afternoon and I saw a beautiful woman, maybe about seventy years old in a flowered blue dress.  She looked so happy--she was smiling and the way she was looking and walking, I felt like she wanted to talk to someone.  So I smiled at her and she smiled back and veered towards me.  She smiled again so I said "Hello."
She said, "What a wonderful place this is."
"I know." I said. "I love working here."
"Oh! You work here? It's a wonderful place with wonderful people. What do you do?"
I told her I work with youth.
She came close to me and put her hand on my arm. "They will remember your face always." She said. "You are planting seeds."
I almost felt like crying. "Thank you. I hope so."
"Oh" she said and her eyes filled with tears. "You are."
She told me about how when she was a young girl in Germany in communist times how her mother died when she was only ten years old and that there was a teacher who took her--a frightened and sad little girl--from the back of the room and brought her up to the front.
"She believed in me." She said. "She saw something in me and her face is in my brain forever."
She talked a little more about her brother and her family and told me I was doing good work. 
I got in my car and then saw her outside walking toward the building again, so I got out to see if she needed anything. She was looking for me.
"Oh! There you are."
And she showed me a picture of her as a skinny blond child with her brother who died in the war.
I told her about my time in Estonia and she told me "Travel is good for you."
I told her my name and she told me hers. "Eva."
We shook hands and again she said, "You do wonderful work. Those children will remember you."
And I got back in my car, smiling.
And the butterflies were gone.

9 years.

Today Tad and I have been married for nine years.  Our marriage is just old enough to ride its bike around the block on its own.  (Well, that's what we're letting Coen do lately and he's the barometer for the age of our marriage--unless Marriages age in dog years or something, but I don't think so. I think they take their sweet time, like humans do.)

We had a rough night sleep last night, Tad coming home hot and worn out from the Brewer game, me having spent the night doing laundry, dishes, and getting the kids settled (both of them having trouble falling to sleep), only to sit down on the couch, maybe an hour before Tad came home.  We fell asleep rather fitfully and awoke only an hour later to the neighbors returning home.  And then back to sleep again and awake another two hours later to Coen wide awake and wanting to chat.  We got up at our 6:15 alarm, both of us quiet and got our household up and running.

At breakfast Tad came over and kissed me on the head, saying "Happy Anniversary."
"What's an anniverary?" Lucy asked.
Tad told her about our wedding day and Coen got up to look at the framed photo we have on our china cabinet. 

As we were getting ready to leave, I stood up and banged my head on our kitchen cupboard, right on the corner. I screamed in pain and I know it scared the kids, but it hurt.  And immediately I felt a goose egg rising on my skull and the force of the impact even drew blood.  Tad got the kids out to the car while I got an ice pack for myself and they worriedly asked me if I was okay once I got out to the car. 

After they went in to the school building, I put my throbbing head on the steering wheel and cried until my sunglasses were foggy. 

Not such a great start to an anniversary day. But you know, it's just a day. And lucky for me, Tad and I try to make each other feel romanced and loved and wanted on many many of the other 365 days of the year. 

I'll try not to bonk my head on those other days either.

Other people's lives

A few things have collided in my head.

1.  My coworker, Harvey, asked me why I'm so happy all the time.  I started to think about it.  Why am I happy most of the time? Am I not deep?  Is there something wrong with me?  But wait..am I happy most of the time, or does it just look like that?

2. Tad and I had a discussion on my reaction to him when he's in a bad mood.  It's not a good reaction. I don't like bad moods. 

3. I read an article about how Facebook is a breeding ground for envy and life comparisons with other people (often leading to the feeling of not measuring up--a feeling of loneliness).

So the other day, I went to Harvey and tried to explain why I'm happy most of the time...I wrote  A blog post about this recently.  I think I am mostly self-aware. So I'm not surprised by things about me, even bad things, when they come up, because I'm aware of them.  I know the truth about myself..and I think that helps me be self-satisfied.  But then I thought more. 

Tad sometimes gets in dark moods because he's a person who tries very hard on a daily basis to get into the minds and souls of others. And in his job he spends all day getting into the minds and souls of 28 others to be precise. And he dives deep.

So when we talked about it, I said to Tad. "Do I not dive deep? Maybe I'm just not diving deep enough."
"No." Tad had said. "You dive deep too. But you dive into a clear mountain stream."

Is that it? Do I just not have a lot of murk and darkness?  I mean, my answer to Harvey was a pretty trite and simple response. And besides, was I always like this?  I remember in college once, thinking something like wow, I'm in such a good mood today.  I hope I'm like this tomorrow. Wait! This is just how I AM! I WILL Be like this tomorrow. And then laughing at myself for having such a thought.  But you know, when I was a kid, I remember being so sad a lot of the time.  I would cry in my room and feel  so alone as a ten year old, eleven year old and on and on...  If you read my Hello Kitty Diary kept from ages 10-15, it is hilarious, but also really really sad. 

When I was in my twenties, I was prone to fits of rage.  I upset my roommates by smashing things and screaming and saying horrible things about myself. I. was. a. mess.

So I spent some time in therapy and then I got the heck out of dodge. And in my final college semester of study abroad and then in the Peace Corps, I started realizing that I was okay. That I was smart and likeable and capable.  My confidence rose, I got happier.  But even then, there was (and still is) sadness in me, however happy I am.  Isn't that how we all are...just some of us display one emotion more often than the other?  In truth, every song I've written, the good ones, the ones that come out naturally, are very very sad.  People have asked me, "Why don't you write some happy songs?" I try to. But the sad ones are just what comes out.  So there it is.  I'm NOT happy all the time.  But I enjoy living a daily life of cheerfulness...so that's just what I do.  I suppose.

I put on a happy face.  I like to smile and laugh and be light and silly.  And when I'm not, it comes out too.  I can't help it. I have said before that I don't wear my heart on my sleeve, but on a banner connected to a blimp, high above everyone.  So cheerful is what I do as often as I can.  Just like on Facebook.  We put pictures up and make comments and notes and status updates that are a story that WE want to tell. 

I don't write on Facebook that I feel insecure today. Or that I just saw a picture of a bunch of people  I know hanging out and am feeling sad and left out that I wasn't invited.  Or that I'm fighting with my husband and he's driving me completely insane.  I don't write that stuff. I post pictures of me smiling and doing funny things.   I post pictures of me hugging my husband or my children being silly or funny or interesting.  Most of us do that.  We capture moments...just that moments in time that are what we want to advertise about ourselves.  There are a million moments for each hilarious comment or witty remark or cheery picture that are not as rosy as those.

So you can look at your friends' feeds and know that we all are capturing what we want to capture and share.  And I too, sometimes look at people's pictures and think that maybe they are doing something right that I'm doing wrong.  That their lives are more interesting, more fun, more joy-filled, more artistic.... 

I think Modest Mouse said it pretty well.  "Other people's lives seem more interesting 'cause they ain't mine..."

But in the end, it doesn't matter.  What matters is the story we tell ourselves.  And remembering that other people's lives seem more interesting 'cause they're on Facebook. (or because of what they say on Facebook anyway).