Life As You Know It Is Over

There are many ways in which your life changes when you have kids.  Some of these you expect, like the lack of sleep and the baby weight (still sucks, though) and the lack of sleep.  I wrote that one twice because it needs emphasis.  But there are also changes you don’t expect, and I’ve been musing a lot about those lately.  Perhaps it’s because I have another birthday coming up, or my 10-year college reunion, but I have been reflecting on my life recently and the unforeseen turns my journey has taken.  A lot of those have to do with children.  This is my incomplete list of the unexpected havoc wreaked in my life by my kids:

 

1. Mealtimes

 

Do you and your husband enjoy meals together?  Unhurried meals, often including a bottle of wine and foods that had flavor?  Kiss those meals behind because, boy oh boy, kids don’t eat salad or a variety of gooey cheeses and sausage served with a nice Cabernet.  In fact, they are often so insulted by something different that they will cry.  Loudly.  Say hello to making chicken, pasta, and steamed broccoli for the bajillionth night in a row.

 

And don’t expect to sit down and enjoy that meal!  Oh no, you will be the living embodiment of Ralphy’s mom in A Christmas Story: “My mother hadn’t had a hot meal for herself in fifteen years.”  They need milk, the fork you got them isn’t right, oh wait, they need water now, this is hot please blow on it.  You will shovel food in your own mouth as fast as you can just to have your hands free to cut up more chicken or scrape the sauce off of the rice or butter more bread because the world will end and everyone will cry if the bread doesn’t get butter RIGHT NOW.

 

We all think we’re going to be those parents who teach their children to love various and flavorful foods like sushi and gumbo and goat cheese & onion tarts, but the thing is, they won’t.  No matter what you do.  Children’s palates are unformed and bland and I don’t care what kind of great parent you are, at some point, your two-year-old will refuse to eat anything that isn’t chicken nuggets or goldfish crackers.  Just shove a multivitamin in him and hope for the best.

 

2. Cars

 

Do you love your car?  Is it clean?  Not when you have kids, it isn’t.

 

I didn’t really think about it much before I had demons children, but my car was always pretty clean.  Now, however, there are cracker crumbs ground into the seat cushions and toys and clothing everywhere.  Try as you might, you will not be able to keep your car clean when you have kids.  They get hungry, you will feed them – even if it means scooping a mashed-up peanut butter & jelly sandwich out of the door panel two weeks later (when you finally notice it).  They are thirsty, you will pass them the water bottle (pro tip: don’t allow a sippy cup of milk in the car – when it goes bad, forgotten underneath the seats, the results are… unpleasant).  And the toys!  Your kids will have to take toys on long car trips and sometimes just to the grocery store.  You know, because Buzz and Woody can’t stand to be left behind.  Except they will be left behind, in your car, when you get home.  The toys will slowly pile up until you do your weekly clean-out and take them back to the toy box.

 

What, mom, don’t you like finding apple chunks in the door pockets?

 

What do you listen to in your car?  Forget about ever listening to it again.  Just like with food, you will think that you can influence your children’s musical tastes by only exposing them to Beck or Elvis or whatever, but the day will come when they will ask for Raffi and you will gladly play all of his music on repeat just to make them stop screaming already.  Or, as in my case, you will sing Old McDonald Had A Farm at the top of your lungs, using every animal known to man because it keeps the baby from screaming.  We once spent an entire four-hour car trip doing that.  Eventually, you’ll expand your collection to include other children’s performers until you wake up to find that the songs most often playing in your head are from the current favorite Sandra Boynton CD.

 

3. Clothing/Jewelry/Perfume

 

I love clothes and I love jewelry.  I love hair, and I mostly wear mine down.  For the entire first year of each of my children’s lives, I wore my hair up.  All. The. Time.

 

Kids pull things, they are attracted to shiny stuff (it’s like you birthed a magpie), and they don’t understand why they can’t wrap their sticky little fists in your hair when they are cuddling you.  Put away your pretty things, mama.  Here’s why:

 

Breast milk stains.  Oh, yes it does.  So does banana, and if you think that banana isn’t going to get all over their little hands and faces every time they eat one, you are wrong.  I can get most other stains out, but those two types of stains remain, and that’s why I don’t wear nice clothing around my children.

 

Let me rub my smoothie face on your shirt!

 

The chains of your jewelry will snap.  And then you will cry, just like I did when my son snapped a beautiful beaded necklace by pulling it from my neck, showering tiny beads everywhere.

 

You know what hurts?  Having your dangly earrings pulled.

 

That new baby smell is pretty wonderful, isn’t it?  Well, that new baby smell can quickly be overpowered by your perfume, especially if the baby likes to rub his head up under your chin.

 

Pretty soon after having children, you notice that your at-home wardrobe consists entirely of yoga pants and stained T-shirts.  And you could swear that you were once a classy dresser.

 

4. Entertainment

 

Beyond just limiting your music selection in the car to kid-friendly choices, children will seriously impede your enjoyment of other forms of entertainment.  Do you like to host dinner parties?  Too bad for that, the kids go to sleep by eight and quiet hours begin at seven.  Do you like movies?  You probably won’t be able to stay awake for one after you finally get your children settled down and asleep.  Do you enjoy karaoke or cocktail bars or dancing?  Add the cost of a babysitter to all your nights out and then the guilt-trip laid on your by your kids every time you leave: “But Moooommy!  I don’t want you to leave!”

 

Even your movie selection will probably change.  I simply cannot STAND to watch any show that features children being harmed, turned into zombies, kidnapped, or dying.  It didn’t used to bother me, but now it does. 

 

5. Traveling

 

You know that traveling with children will be more difficult, you do.  But you probably won’t realize how difficult until you are stopped for the third time on what was supposed to be a three-hour car trip so that someone can go to the bathroom or because someone else needs his diaper changed or needs to nurse or just simply has had enough of the car.  And the stuff!  You will feel like you’re packing to move just to go away for a weekend! 

 

You have to pack the kids wherever you go, too.

 

I contend that any vacation spent with one’s children is not a vacation at all.  It’s just parenting in another locale, usually with more challenges.  You’ll be eating out, and they won’t like that food or can’t sit still in the restaurant.  The hotel bed won’t feel the same.  The noises are different.  You will find yourself confined to your hotel room at eight pm, unable to watch TV for fear of waking sleeping children.  Taking a long flight with a child is miserable, going through jet-lag and time changes with children is miserable, not being able to relax is miserable.  You can do it, and we have and will continue to go on trips with our children, but they are not “vacations.”  They are often more exhausting than staying home.

 

6. What’s Mine Is Yours

 

That food on your plate?  Your water glass?  Your seat?  Your bed?  They will share it with you, whether you like it or not.  Oh, sure, you’re happy to share with your kids, but just once you’d like to eat the whole cookie instead of just half.  And their food explorations inevitably come on the night you only made two servings of Chicken Cordon Bleu thinking that there was no way they’d try it.  But they want it, they love it, so they get to eat all of yours.  And you get to have an apple instead.

 

No room for mom and dad.

 

7. Subjects of Conversation

 

I, quite honestly, think nothing of discussing childbirth and episiotomies and breastfeeding and pregnancy weight gain in public.  These are parts of my life that, before children, would have been intensely private and are now available for public comment. 

 

You will discuss your children’s diapers and the contents thereof.  You will discuss teething.  You will tell all your friends, in great detail, about the monstrous amount of snot you sucked out of your child’s nose with the bulb suction thingy.  You will ask their advice on potty training.

 

You will mourn the old you who had a wide range of conversational subjects of interest to address at a dinner party.  That brain space is no longer available because you are not getting enough sleep.

 

*******

 

I guess it’s kind of inevitable, these changes.  I still have many single or childless friends and sometimes I am wildly envious; they have so much freedom, so much money (compared to those of us who spend half our income on the care of our children), and so much sleep.  But they don’t have what I have: two beautiful, smelly, sticky, sleepless, whiny, and much-loved children.

 

Being unbearably cute makes up for a lot.

Tax Season Disintegration

I am spoiling for a fight today.  Last night was rough, with me, at one point, walking out the door while Charles screamed (threatening to take a walk into the driveway turns his tantrums from angry fight-fests to a much easier to handle “no, Mommy, don’t leave!” style of crying) and at another point telling Charles, “Fine.  I don’t care where you sleep.  Sleep in the dog kennel.  It’s ten o’clock, leave me alone.”  I have a lot of lingering resentment over the past 24 hours of anger directed at me by my children.

 

The bottom line is that, with tax season nearing its end, the kids have moved from disliking me to actively hating me. 

 

Oh, I’ve always been the less-favored parent, something that really rubs me raw on occasion.  I mean, I carried these children for nine months each, fed them from my body for fourteen months each, and have cared for them, with all the attendant sacrifices and suffering, for their whole lives.  Tony, while he is a wonderful father, spends a fraction of the time and energy on them that I do, and still they love him best.  I suppose that’s the nature of the world: we want and love what we can’t have much of.

 

Like how I want a peaceful home life without someone (or two small someones) actively trying to make my day worse.

 

But in the past couple of weeks, it has grown to be something more than just throwing me over for daddy time each night.  In addition to scampering to the door as excited as if it were Christmas whenever Tony gets home, now they are trying to make me miserable.  They act out in ways I never thought they would, and it’s driving me insane.  Jamie refuses to allow me to buckle him into his car seat, no matter the time or location.  He screams and bucks and forces me to wrestle him down, hoping that I don’t break his arm in the process.  He happily lets Tony buckle him in.  The kids fight and scream and throw things, they do not respect my punishments, even when they include spanking and throwing away toys as consequences.  This morning, Charles threw his backpack out of the car while I was fighting Jamie into his seat.  He told me he did it when we got to school, so I had to drive back and was late for work.  They don’t like the food I cook and they don’t like the activities I plan.

 

I sometimes think that it would be better if Tony lived elsewhere for the three months of tax season.  I’m at that point where I realize that he loves his job so much that he is blind to the ways in which it is tearing me apart.  He’s here a mere two waking hours a day, but his dinner is always prepared, the house is always cleaned, his clothes are clean, folded, pressed, and put away, the grocery shopping is always done, the bed is always made… I could go on.  Maybe if the children didn’t expect to see him at all during tax season, they would respect me more and show me a little more love.

 

But now I’m blaming Tony, when it’s not his fault.  Well, not entirely.  I think I’m just a terrible mother.  I don’t know how to handle my kids.  When they fight over toast in the morning, and I explain that we have lots more bread and I will make more toast, they continue to fight over one piece.  When I put Charles in his room in time out during a major tantrum, he runs out of it, screaming, kicking, and throwing things.  I am powerless to stop him, no matter what discipline I attempt to enforce – discipline like removing his beloved night light from his room only results in a larger, more energetic and violent tantrum.  When Jamie throws himself on the ground, flailing and screeching, I’m often at a loss as to what to do.  I can’t figure that kid out and none of my solutions seem to help.  And he’s devious!  He’ll look me right in the eye and throw his bowl of cereal on the ground. 

 

I can’t make them understand that I have time to read one story or play one round of trains before I cook dinner or it won’t be ready at dinner time.  I can’t make them understand that clinging to my legs while I’m trying to get dinner on the table isn’t going to make it go any faster.  I can’t make them understand, when they are ravenous for dinner, that daddy isn’t home yet and we will be waiting until he gets there because it’s the respectful thing to do.  I love them dearly, but I don’t understand them and I can’t make them happy.  Maybe I’m the one who should move out.

They Actually Made It Rain Blood.

The scariest movie I have ever seen is 2001’s Jeepers Creepers.  I don’t know how I made it through the movie, but I do know that Leland sat right next to me and enjoyed every minute of it – both the movie and my screaming and starting at every horror-filled plot twist.  Last night, after plying me with an ungodly amount of delicious sushi, Leland chuckled at my shrieks through all 93 minutes of Evil Dead.

 

It was so fucking gory.

 

I wouldn’t say that it was on the same level of “scary” as Jeepers Creepers or, say, Saw – those movies are much more psychologically frightening – but it was, indeed, quite horrific and had plenty of startling moments.  I probably spent 30% of the movie hiding behind my hands.  Which only made Leland laugh more.

 

My jaw hurts today from all the clenching and I totally had nightmares last night.  Lucky for me, Charles came into bed sometime around 2 am, so whenever I would wake from horrific visions, I would find him snuggled into me.  I don’t really enjoy having my kids sleep with me (they kick a lot and are like little furnaces in the bed), but I almost wished Jamie were there, too.

 

The most redeeming quality of Evil Dead was that it did not have any children in it at all.  The characters were youngish, but no babies, no kids.  I simply CANNOT watch a horror movie with children in it. 

 

In the light of day, I have almost talked myself into thinking that it wasn’t such a terrifying movie.  Given that the purpose of a movie is entertainment, however, I doubt I’ll be seeking out a horror flick to watch anytime soon.

On My Bookshelf

I know I just wrote about a book a few days ago, but you must understand, I read a lot.  An appalling amount, really.  I go through two or three books a week and my life is still packed with children, cooking, cleaning, working, exercising, and sometimes sleeping.  I read quickly, much quicker than I speak; I only found out that the whole world didn’t read as rapidly I do a few years ago when it became apparent that most of the men in my life (dad, brother, husband) only read as fast as they speak. 

 

This is not a generalization about men.  Merely that the men in my life seem to share this trait.

 

They probably retain a lot more than I do, and I think it’s telling that they are drawn to different genres than I am.  I like stories.  I will read nonfiction if it has a good story (well-written history qualifies), but I mainly stick to fiction.  I switch back and forth between “heavier” fiction and fluff.  My brother reads horror novels and both Tony and my dad prefer nonfiction (of the motivational sort, like Goals or the dry, interest-specific sort like The Great Tax Wars) or “dude” books, like Tom Clancy or Clive Cussler novels.

 

Which is not a generalization about women – I enjoy those books, too – just that I think both of those authors write with male readers in mind.

 

Back to the main point, I just finished a wonderful book, and I wanted to share.

 

 

I don’t entirely know why I’m drawn to stories featuring the theme of redemption so much, but I am.  One of my favorite books of last year was The Sisters Brothers by Patrick DeWitt, also largely featuring the theme of redemption.  The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry is, well, not a story I thought I would adore, but I did.  The main character is a retired English gentleman living a sealed-up, frigid life who does something spontaneous and life-changing because he just can’t handle the unsaid words between him and his wife anymore.  His journey of redemption is a literal journey, an unprepared walk of 500 miles to right a wrong from 20 years ago.  The author tells the story of Harold’s past in snippets of remembrances and letters, so that this ordinary stranger becomes a beloved friend searching for grace and not believing he will find it.  The writing is simply beautiful.

 

I might tell you about a new book I loved tomorrow or next month; rest assured, I won’t tell you about the hundreds of mediocre ones I read constantly.  Better than a drug habit, right?

Some Days

There is no stability in life when there are two small boys in it.  Or maybe just when those two boys are my two boys.  You know how, before you have kids, you have a nice morning routine?  You get up, go to the gym or for a run, come home and make coffee, shower, get dressed and do your makeup while drinking that first blissful cup of coffee, eat breakfast, and get in your car to go to work.  God, mornings used to be so nice.

 

With kids in the mix, your morning is a crapshoot.  If they wake up happy, hooray!  Things will go smoothly for approximately three minutes, until you spread the butter on their toast incorrectly or you tell them that yes, it is a school day.  If things go terribly from the start, well, you can allow a small kernel of hope to form in your heart that they will burn themselves out before it is time to leave.

 

Some days, they want to brush their teeth for 20 minutes straight and you get a chance to get dressed and brush your own teeth.  Other days, they insist on taking a shower with you, which will easily add an extra half-hour to the getting ready “routine” because now it’s run-around-naked time.  Your four-year-old might ask to wear his dinosaur shoes and then throw a screaming fit when you remind him that they are two sizes too small and have been put away for months now.  Your 21-month-old might insist on climbing up on the bathroom vanity to turn the water on as hard as it will go every time you turn your back on him to finish putting on your socks.

 

Sometimes, everyone gets in the car without fight and maybe even happily and you will all get to school and work on time.  More often than not, however, the older child will begin to cry because he doesn’t want to go to school or he doesn’t like the pants he chose to wear that morning and the younger child will struggle and fight against being strapped into his car seat so that by the time you finally manhandle him down, he is screaming like you’re pulling out his toenails.

 

Then, you’ll have to drag your older child, kicking and screaming, into preschool and leave him in a flailing pile on the floor as you walk out.  And just drive away.  You’ll feel like the world’s worst mother because all he wants is to stay home with you, even though you don’t stay home.  So then you start to think of ways you could maybe not work so much, maybe take a day off each week, and you recognize that it won’t work.  Besides, all the reasons you had at the beginning for being a working mom still apply: money, being a good role model, self-actualization.

 

The evenings are no easier.  The kids will beg for candy as a snack and you will deny them, which will send them into a whining spiral of doom.  The younger child will play in the water table and get soaked from head to toe while you prep dinner and the older one will beg to play on your phone.  You will tell him no, so he’ll throw a tantrum on the stairs, falling and hurting himself, at which point you will drop what you’re doing to go kiss the owies, then have a talk with the child about controlling his emotions.  Or not!  Sometimes the kids will be angel babies who want nothing more than to play nicely together!  It does happen!

 

And sometimes they are exhausted and go right to sleep after you read them their bedtime stories.  Other times they cry for you to pick them up and snuggle them well after you yourself have decided to go to sleep and are beyond the point of coherent though.  Often, you will beg them, as if they understood, to please just sleep already, mommy is so tired, you’re going to be tired in the morning if you don’t get some sleep.  Sometimes the older child will insist on sleeping in your bed and you will resist at first, but then acquiesce because your husband is off engaging in an affair with tax software until all hours of the night.  But that child won’t sleep in your bed at first because you are reading a book and so he asks for a book to read, too, and then a drink of water, and then a teddy bear.  When he does fall asleep, he’ll turn sideways and kick you in the ribs.

 

But God bless the moment they finally fall asleep.  In that moment, the day’s struggles are erased and all you see is the sweet, squishy baby who curled up in your arms, milk-drunk and asleep, smelling like your whole perfect world for those first life-changing months of motherhood.  You kiss their unlined brows, whisper how much you love them, and pray for a better day tomorrow.

 

Will your life ever return to stability?  Probably not as long as those kids are around.  But that’s why vacations were invented – by the end of them, we crave the chaos of those crazy little imps.  And I know I’ll look back on this period of my life and miss it with my whole being.

Forcing Gradual Independence

When we exercise at the park for Baby Boot Camp, I let my children, even the 21-month-old, play by themselves.  I don’t give two seconds of thought to the idea that they might be kidnapped while I’m sweating my way through some crunches or planks, or that they might break legs going down the slide.  The other day, Jamie decided to go down a pretty steep slide, on his own, on his belly.  Without anyone to catch him.  He ended up with a bloody, fat lip, of course.  I told him he was very brave, I hugged and kissed his tears away, and then I let him go back to the slide.

 

When we go for a walk, Charles rides his bike ahead of me.  He knows to stop at every cross street, and he gets “in trouble” when he gets too far ahead (“in trouble” in these situations is a stern talking-to about the danger of getting too far ahead and an intense reminder that he will not be allowed to ride his bike on the sidewalk again if he can’t follow the rules), but still, he rides his bike on the sidewalk.  On the side of busy street.  Could he swerve into traffic?  Yes.  Not stop in time?  Yes.  Do we still go?  Yes.

 

I have friends, many of them, who shelter their children.  And I’m not saying that they’re wrong to do so.  Certainly there are many terrible things that can happen to a child in this world and certainly we can prevent some of them.  But whether it’s from laziness or some misguided “pushing them out of the nest” impulse, I let my kids have a pretty long leash. 

 

It makes me a bit self-conscious sometimes.  My friends aren’t putting their kids in swimming lessons yet, or taking the training wheels off of bikes and essentially forcing their kids to learn, or allowing their children to climb the tree in the yard.  The same friends don’t make chicken nuggets or corn dogs for lunch or let their kids eat as many Peeps as they want on Easter.

 

I’m not really looking for a judgment here; this is how I parent, you probably do it differently.  But isn’t it amazing how differently we all do it?  And isn’t it interesting what those differences say about our goals for our children?  I look at my friends who shelter their kids and I think, will it be tougher for them to let go later or will their children have to rebel to assert their own selves?  Because what I hope I’m setting myself and my children up for is a gradual increasing of independence.  I hope that, as Charles learns to be safe on a bicycle on the streets now, so he might grow to be safe on a skateboard and then safe in a car or on a motorcycle.  Because, whether it scares me or not, he’ll be driving in 12 years.  There has to be something between Point A and Point B, right?  And it will probably be easier for me to hand over the car keys and sit next to him and teach him to drive if I know he has responsibly handled himself on the road in one form or another for a decade.

 

There are other bits of letting go, too.  I will sometimes tell Charles to be careful in a tree or while he’s dancing on top of the picnic table.  “Be careful up there, be sure of your footing, because if you fall, it will hurt.”  And then I let it go.  And sometimes he falls.  And sometimes he gets bloody knees.  And someday he’ll probably break his leg or arm.  But right now he’s learning the limits of his body.

 

And yeah, sometimes my kids eat junk.  Not junk that is actually bad for them (like energy drinks or deep-fried candy bars), but sometimes we have lunch at McDonald’s.  And sometimes we get to have ice cream.  I know so many people who place such an emphasis on nutrition that is seems like they never have any fun with food.  Sure, we prohibit things in our household, like caffeinated soda for kids, but we indulge all the time.  I like to think that Charles and James will grow up to understand healthy food AND the value of treats.

 

Bottom line, though, is that I think it’s entirely worthwhile to ask ourselves, frequently, “what kind of person do I want my child to become?”  I want my children to be self-reliant contributing members of society, people who are happy with themselves, who take calculated risks, who understand their limits, who aren’t afraid to stand their ground, who can easily express themselves, and who are affectionate and enjoy spending time with the people they love.  So that is how I choose to build my family.  And it involves letting my children run in sandals for the one thousandth time and then falling on their faces for the one thousandth time because even though I’ve explicitly stated the connection between running in sandals and falling, they continue to make the ill-considered decision to wear sandals and then run.  And they have to live with those consequences. 

 

Love isn’t always preventing injury or hardship.  Sometimes love is kissing the scraped elbow and helping them understand why they fall when they turn too slowly on the bicycle.  Love isn’t always keeping things that are “bad for us” out of the house.  Sometimes love is letting them get a tummy ache from eating too many gummy worms.

A Beautiful Weekend

I hear it’s snowing in parts of the country.  Not here.  It was a balmy 70 degrees yesterday. 

 

The decorative cherry tree in our backyard is slowly losing its blooms, much to Tony’s delight.  Allergies are always the worst this time of year.

 

I can see that there will be a lot of this in the future months: Charles riding his bike everywhere we go, me pushing Jamie along behind.  We’ve set firm rules, of course: don’t ride too far ahead, don’t go off the sidewalk, stop at every street.  He’s doing pretty well, and he rode FOUR MILES yesterday while Tony and I ran a local trail alongside.  He slept pretty well last night, too.  Coincidence?

 

The other dresses finally arrived on Friday.  I’m keeping this one.  I already had the shoes, though they don’t fit when my feet swell in the heat.

 

Vintage Tupperware cups from Tony’s childhood.  I think we have twelve in all different late-70s colors and they’re fantastic.

 

Eggs!  Good thing the boys love hard-boiled eggs.  And Buster always gets the yolk.

 

 

The Easter bunny came while we were at Church.  Charles will tell anyone with ears, “I think God made LOTS of Easter bunnies to hide eggs at everyone’s houses.”  I think God made lots of indulgent parents, but whatever.  The magic of childhood and all.

 

 

 

Our bunny gives books, Peeps, and big bouncy balls.  What about yours?