Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Naptime desperation
Frankie: Mom, how long was I asleep?
Me: An hour and a half.
Frankie: No, I mean how many minutes was I asleep?
Me: Ninety.
Frankie: So how many five minutes are there in ninety minutes?
Me: Eighteen. Why?
Frankie: 'Cause Dad promised me a dollar for every five minutes I slept.
Monday, May 28, 2012
Somebody give me the answer, PLEASE
So, homeschooling. Turns out I kind of stink at it.
We are contemplating sending Frankie back to school next year. Dean is fine with whatever decision we make (he lives such a stress-free existence I think if I asked him if he was worried about his upcoming heart and double lung transplant he'd say "no"), but you can't go by him. No matter the issue, I will find myself sweating in a corner furiously cracking my knuckles and wailing something incoherently about Sophie's Choice and he will be calmly meditating and chewing a sandwich slowly.
To me, this decision is fraught with peril. On the one hand, you have homeschooling. In an ideal world, homeschooling would consist of a mother who was organized and disciplined and didn't yell "Sure!" when her children asked if they could watch another episode of My Little Pony because she was absorbed in do-it-yourself faux-marbleizing on Pinterest. There would be craft stations and tidy journal entries about Latin phrases. Scientific experiments, not discarded issues of Martha Stewart Living, would litter the dining room table. In reality, we mostly spent each day in our pajamas reviewing the concepts of proper nouns and pronouns ad nauseum (if only I had told her what this meant, we would have officially studied Latin). Sometimes, the whole day would be slipping away and the girls would be in the bathtub at four-thirty and I would have to quickly pull out the bathtub markers and write some triple digit sums on the fiberglass surround. Then I would congratulate myself heartily on making homeschooling so interesting (can't learn math in the bathtub at real school, now can you!).
To be fair, this year was not my best effort in terms of not only homeschooling, but, well, life in general. We've accomplished more in the last month than we have the rest of the year. In fact, if I'm not careful, I might start to think maybe I am getting the hang of the homeschooling thing and, look at that, she is reading fifth grade words and she can regroup for addition. Maybe the year wasn't a total loss after all.
But on the other hand, you have real school, where someone is actually paid to leave their house and their laundry and their cooking and their other children to come and pay attention to making you learn something for eight hours straight! And there are still other teachers whose entire jobs are related to setting up tempera paint and chalk pastels for your personal use. And, here comes the best part, I would not be responsible for any of the aforementioned educational activities. This is the most important part.
But here are the worries I have about real school:
1) A six-year-old just told my husband to shut up today. Dean just met this six-year-old not ten minutes earlier. This six-year-old goes to real school. According to the beginning logic that I am teaching Frankie (score one point for me), if a six-year-old tells a stranger to shut up AND a six-year-old goes to real school, then THEREFORE all six-year-olds who go to real school tell strangers to shut up. Are you following me here? And for the record, Dean asked the six-year-old if it was okay to shut his bedroom door so the baby wouldn't wander in. And the response was "Shut up." This actually brings up another worry about real school because saying "shut up" to that question doesn't even make any sense. Something like "Leave me alone" or "I hate you" would have made more sense. So, the real question becomes, what are they teaching them at real school? Because it is clearly not sentences that make sense.
2) Frankie is my child. When I take her to real school for her art, music and gym classes, she spends most of the morning asking me repeatedly if I will be waiting in the lobby for her and do I promise, please please please, PROMISE that I won't go to the bathroom. Then she stands anxiously biting her nails and sometimes crying until the teacher takes her physically by the hand to walk with the rest of the class. Then she shoots me long despairing looks. Some might say this is because of homeschooling, but those who knew me as a child would say this is a reason to homeschool, knowing I spent all of my non-homeschooled elementary school years biting my own nails and crying about not having any friends.
3) Who will play princesses and ponies with Molly when Frankie is at school? This is of huge concern to me, because I do not, under any circumstances, want to have to pretend my name is Apple Blossom and my mane is rainbow colored. Nor do I want to pretend that I have no mom and both my legs are broken.
4)When do children who attend real school find time for other things like gymnastics and Awana and piano lessons and church and soccer games? Because it seems to me that after an eight hour day, they'll be ready to kick back and watch some My Little Pony instead of hearing their mother harangue them that their forte wasn't forte enough.
But finally, four concerns about homeschooling:
1) Will my child be preternaturally attracted to denim jumpers?
2) Will my child's brain atrophy if she is busy pretending her name is Rainbow Dash for more hours than she spends spotting action verbs?
3) Will there be glaring gaps in her education, where suddenly she will have an acute need to know the capital of Ghana and I will have forgotten to progress beyond identifying Mississippi?
4) Will she live in an upstairs room in my home in adulthood biting her nails and wondering where I am using the toilet?
Sophie's choice seems way easier right now.
We are contemplating sending Frankie back to school next year. Dean is fine with whatever decision we make (he lives such a stress-free existence I think if I asked him if he was worried about his upcoming heart and double lung transplant he'd say "no"), but you can't go by him. No matter the issue, I will find myself sweating in a corner furiously cracking my knuckles and wailing something incoherently about Sophie's Choice and he will be calmly meditating and chewing a sandwich slowly.
To me, this decision is fraught with peril. On the one hand, you have homeschooling. In an ideal world, homeschooling would consist of a mother who was organized and disciplined and didn't yell "Sure!" when her children asked if they could watch another episode of My Little Pony because she was absorbed in do-it-yourself faux-marbleizing on Pinterest. There would be craft stations and tidy journal entries about Latin phrases. Scientific experiments, not discarded issues of Martha Stewart Living, would litter the dining room table. In reality, we mostly spent each day in our pajamas reviewing the concepts of proper nouns and pronouns ad nauseum (if only I had told her what this meant, we would have officially studied Latin). Sometimes, the whole day would be slipping away and the girls would be in the bathtub at four-thirty and I would have to quickly pull out the bathtub markers and write some triple digit sums on the fiberglass surround. Then I would congratulate myself heartily on making homeschooling so interesting (can't learn math in the bathtub at real school, now can you!).
To be fair, this year was not my best effort in terms of not only homeschooling, but, well, life in general. We've accomplished more in the last month than we have the rest of the year. In fact, if I'm not careful, I might start to think maybe I am getting the hang of the homeschooling thing and, look at that, she is reading fifth grade words and she can regroup for addition. Maybe the year wasn't a total loss after all.
But on the other hand, you have real school, where someone is actually paid to leave their house and their laundry and their cooking and their other children to come and pay attention to making you learn something for eight hours straight! And there are still other teachers whose entire jobs are related to setting up tempera paint and chalk pastels for your personal use. And, here comes the best part, I would not be responsible for any of the aforementioned educational activities. This is the most important part.
But here are the worries I have about real school:
1) A six-year-old just told my husband to shut up today. Dean just met this six-year-old not ten minutes earlier. This six-year-old goes to real school. According to the beginning logic that I am teaching Frankie (score one point for me), if a six-year-old tells a stranger to shut up AND a six-year-old goes to real school, then THEREFORE all six-year-olds who go to real school tell strangers to shut up. Are you following me here? And for the record, Dean asked the six-year-old if it was okay to shut his bedroom door so the baby wouldn't wander in. And the response was "Shut up." This actually brings up another worry about real school because saying "shut up" to that question doesn't even make any sense. Something like "Leave me alone" or "I hate you" would have made more sense. So, the real question becomes, what are they teaching them at real school? Because it is clearly not sentences that make sense.
2) Frankie is my child. When I take her to real school for her art, music and gym classes, she spends most of the morning asking me repeatedly if I will be waiting in the lobby for her and do I promise, please please please, PROMISE that I won't go to the bathroom. Then she stands anxiously biting her nails and sometimes crying until the teacher takes her physically by the hand to walk with the rest of the class. Then she shoots me long despairing looks. Some might say this is because of homeschooling, but those who knew me as a child would say this is a reason to homeschool, knowing I spent all of my non-homeschooled elementary school years biting my own nails and crying about not having any friends.
3) Who will play princesses and ponies with Molly when Frankie is at school? This is of huge concern to me, because I do not, under any circumstances, want to have to pretend my name is Apple Blossom and my mane is rainbow colored. Nor do I want to pretend that I have no mom and both my legs are broken.
4)When do children who attend real school find time for other things like gymnastics and Awana and piano lessons and church and soccer games? Because it seems to me that after an eight hour day, they'll be ready to kick back and watch some My Little Pony instead of hearing their mother harangue them that their forte wasn't forte enough.
But finally, four concerns about homeschooling:
1) Will my child be preternaturally attracted to denim jumpers?
2) Will my child's brain atrophy if she is busy pretending her name is Rainbow Dash for more hours than she spends spotting action verbs?
3) Will there be glaring gaps in her education, where suddenly she will have an acute need to know the capital of Ghana and I will have forgotten to progress beyond identifying Mississippi?
4) Will she live in an upstairs room in my home in adulthood biting her nails and wondering where I am using the toilet?
Sophie's choice seems way easier right now.
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Heather and Nate came and swept my children up in a warm embrace while I spent time trudging uphill back to them. Dean and I owe them a deep debt of gratitude. We owe everyone in our lives deep gratitude. Grace, mercy, love, friendship, forgiveness, prayer have been showered on me.
Over and over again.
Sunday, April 22, 2012
Pretending
One of the nice things about homeschooling is that there are chunks of time when it is impossible to entertain the children since basic things like laundry and vacuuming up granola need to be done. This means that the kids are forced to play by themselves. At first I thought it was cruel; they were used to being read to, fed, swung, played with and spoon fed play ideas. But gradually, the benign neglect has turned into times when Frankie and Molly disappear for an hour behind the couch, sinking into a pretend world of fairies and ponies and Polly Pockets. I'm delighted to see them disappear into their imaginations, the way I remember doing as a child. Usually I would haul my sister along for the ride, teacher to her student, John to her Yoko (complete with shooting), or grown-up sisters who referred to each other as "Sis" with faintly British accent. The best moments of my childhood consisted of making up homework pages for my sister and making a list of disobedient students who needed to miss recess in chalk on the bottom of the ping-pong table. We'd use the manual typewriter to bang out indignant notes home to the parents of students who were truant and deliver them with great ceremony to my father in his workroom in the basement.
I like to eavesdrop on their dialogues, but carefully refrain from commenting since Frankie gets embarrassed. But I love to hear "pretend I broke my leg and my parents died." Or "pretend I'm a mow-lawner and I came to mow your lawn." Or my personal favorite, "pretend I'm a sixteen-year-old and you are my honey." The other day, I was helping my dad practice the piano when we overheard a plaintive lament "I'm sorry but I think you are going to lose your leg and you will never walk again. I'll give you a sucker. Or, wait, I will give you a shot instead."
On Easter, which we spent with the Hwangs, the parents chatted while the kids immersed themselves in a pretend world where Frankie, Molly and Claudia were all sixteen-year-olds, but Jake was the exception, being forty-nine. They were abandoned by their parents, but as a last token of their affection given plastic Easter eggs with which to gather food. Said food was arranged neatly and elaborately on the stumps near the fire pit and Frankie and Claudia carefully twisted leaves together and called it "Roll-up Goodness." Though the girls were all sixteen, Frankie's birthday was first, so they called her Mom. Jake, of course, being forty-nine, was the Dad. The game was so engrossing that we had to return the next day so they could resume Abandoned Children.
I have to admit, I kind of wanted to join them. I wanted to offer the idea that some long grass could be picked and laid next to the stumps like a carpet and that could be their bedroom and those little yellow flowers could be corn in a lily-of-the-valley leaf taco....
I like to eavesdrop on their dialogues, but carefully refrain from commenting since Frankie gets embarrassed. But I love to hear "pretend I broke my leg and my parents died." Or "pretend I'm a mow-lawner and I came to mow your lawn." Or my personal favorite, "pretend I'm a sixteen-year-old and you are my honey." The other day, I was helping my dad practice the piano when we overheard a plaintive lament "I'm sorry but I think you are going to lose your leg and you will never walk again. I'll give you a sucker. Or, wait, I will give you a shot instead."
On Easter, which we spent with the Hwangs, the parents chatted while the kids immersed themselves in a pretend world where Frankie, Molly and Claudia were all sixteen-year-olds, but Jake was the exception, being forty-nine. They were abandoned by their parents, but as a last token of their affection given plastic Easter eggs with which to gather food. Said food was arranged neatly and elaborately on the stumps near the fire pit and Frankie and Claudia carefully twisted leaves together and called it "Roll-up Goodness." Though the girls were all sixteen, Frankie's birthday was first, so they called her Mom. Jake, of course, being forty-nine, was the Dad. The game was so engrossing that we had to return the next day so they could resume Abandoned Children.
I have to admit, I kind of wanted to join them. I wanted to offer the idea that some long grass could be picked and laid next to the stumps like a carpet and that could be their bedroom and those little yellow flowers could be corn in a lily-of-the-valley leaf taco....
Thursday, March 29, 2012
We spent the weekend in early February at my friend Carley's parents' house, otherwise known as the Lake House. As in, "Mom, are we going to the Lake House? We're going to the LAKE HOUSE!!! Molly, WE ARE GOING TO THE LAAAKE HOOOOOOUSE!!!!!!." The Lake House is a place full of wonder for you, little girls. It's a place where you get to sleep over with your best friends and stay up late and, depending on the season, ice skate, sled, boat, swim, fish, walk to the candy store or otherwise have the most fun ever. It's a place where the ceiling fans do little in the summer, but a swim across the lake does a lot. It's a place where you all drape around the furniture and listen to your mom read "Sarah, Plain and Tall" out loud. And it's a place where you run out of the hot tub and do snow angels in your underwear. Even your moms.
Monday, March 26, 2012
Bedtime conversations
Molly: Mom, Oma said she doesn't want me to turn five next year.
Me: Yeah, it would be okay with me if you stayed four.
Molly: But, Mom, I just want to turn five and then six. And then I will stop and be your little girl forever.
Me: You'll always be my little girl, baby.
Molly: Actually, Mom, I'll turn seven, then eight, then nine, but I won't turn ten.
Me: OK.
Molly: Actually, Mom, I'll turn ten. But don't worry, I will NOT turn eleven or twelve.
Me: Yeah, it would be okay with me if you stayed four.
Molly: But, Mom, I just want to turn five and then six. And then I will stop and be your little girl forever.
Me: You'll always be my little girl, baby.
Molly: Actually, Mom, I'll turn seven, then eight, then nine, but I won't turn ten.
Me: OK.
Molly: Actually, Mom, I'll turn ten. But don't worry, I will NOT turn eleven or twelve.
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
16 months
I think it's time to potty train. If you can spread your own diaper out and wait to have someone clean up your filth, I think you can let someone know you want to sit on the toilet.
She is talking a blue streak these days, with her favorite word being "dough-dee" for, you guessed it, what every sixteen-month-old should have every Sunday night- a honey-dipped donut from Tim Horton's. Their dad has taken them there so often, they have taken to calling it Tim's as though they were visiting a very close friend. Molly sat in the back seat, settled in with her sprinkle donut, took a big sip of her water and sighed, "Boy, Tim sure does make good water."
Susannah is loving the unseasonably warm weather we're having. She stands at the door shouting "'Side! 'Side! Shoes! Shoes!" until I let her pick out a pair, after she tosses the black ones, the blue ones, the pink ones, the brown ones, and settles on the white ones with pink flowers. As I hold out each pair, she shakes her head until I finally hit on the one she wants and she lets out a chortle of delight as though I have found just the spot on her back where the itch was. Once we are outside, she walks determinedly to the road until I yell "STOP!." Then she looks back, wanders in a foot, eying me all the while as she periodically starts to head toward the road, then wander back another foot, waiting for me to clap for her obedience. She trudges over to the neighbor's berm and climbs it, heedless of the fragile heads of the crocuses and runs down the side, arms akimbo, stumbling, laughing.
She still loves to eat and wanders by between meals and looks for someone to fill her mouth with something, anything, a "cacker" or some "sheese" or, best of all a cherry "poppie." People make the mistake of dishing out a small portion of oatmeal for her, double for her sisters, and soon learn, as she devours it in three bites, that she'll eat hers, ask for refills and then eat her sisters' leftovers.
She is very sweet to her sisters. Hugging them and caressing their cheeks when they cry. As soon as they cry, they go looking for Hukie, which has evolved from Sukie, and sometimes morphs into Huke, or Hukester. With other kids, she's not so sweet. Her "cousin" Jackson, who is six months older, clutches his water bottle, crying out "No touchie! My water! My water, Zanna!" as she leans forward and slaps the table repeatedly in his direction just to antagonize, to make him think she's about to make a lunge for him. He is frustrated repeatedly by her tendency, when she sits herself down with her plate of food, to grab fistfuls of her noodles as soon as he turns his head. He looks back in indignation while she placidly chews, looking him in the eye.
She's wandering from room to room right now, yelling Mama, and saying "Mama, kitty! Kitty!." I'm going to take her hand and go look, before I look up and her sixteen-month-old self is gone.
Monday, March 12, 2012
To Molly, who turned four
Dear Molly,
Tonight I looked at you twirling in your new princess dress, its hooped skirt circling, your blond hair flying. You are so beautiful.
But you are not just beautiful on the outside, but also deep down in the recesses of your character, where it matters most. You are quick to compliment, quick to comfort and lightning-quick to forgive. No matter the offense, you are ready to pick up and carry on, loving and laughing.
There is something about you, Molly, that seems wild to your Dad and me. Maybe it's your fearless physicality, climbing the ropes at gymnastics and bending your knees, lifting your elbows and flying round and round the mat on sturdy legs so much faster than the others. But it seems like your heart is primed for adventure, that you might be the daughter that calls home from the Peace Corps, dropping in at Christmas, to light up every room.
But right now, I am content that you are here with us, sleeping in your princess dress, with a superhero cape wrapped around your shoulders. Your damp curls smelly slightly sweaty and I lie next to you and try to inhale your scent, imprint it on my heart to take out later. Only I know that I can't, I can only take these precious moments in time and lay them at the feet of my Savior. He has given you to me for a time, Molly, but you are ultimately His. But He knows that your mother's heart is fragile and it's a hard lesson for me to learn, that you belong to Him. That's the thing about Him, Molly, that I hope I will teach you, that you can trust Him. Even with your most precious things, because He loves them even more.
You are a most precious and beloved thing in my life, Molly.
I love you,
Mommy
Tonight I looked at you twirling in your new princess dress, its hooped skirt circling, your blond hair flying. You are so beautiful.
But you are not just beautiful on the outside, but also deep down in the recesses of your character, where it matters most. You are quick to compliment, quick to comfort and lightning-quick to forgive. No matter the offense, you are ready to pick up and carry on, loving and laughing.
There is something about you, Molly, that seems wild to your Dad and me. Maybe it's your fearless physicality, climbing the ropes at gymnastics and bending your knees, lifting your elbows and flying round and round the mat on sturdy legs so much faster than the others. But it seems like your heart is primed for adventure, that you might be the daughter that calls home from the Peace Corps, dropping in at Christmas, to light up every room.
But right now, I am content that you are here with us, sleeping in your princess dress, with a superhero cape wrapped around your shoulders. Your damp curls smelly slightly sweaty and I lie next to you and try to inhale your scent, imprint it on my heart to take out later. Only I know that I can't, I can only take these precious moments in time and lay them at the feet of my Savior. He has given you to me for a time, Molly, but you are ultimately His. But He knows that your mother's heart is fragile and it's a hard lesson for me to learn, that you belong to Him. That's the thing about Him, Molly, that I hope I will teach you, that you can trust Him. Even with your most precious things, because He loves them even more.
You are a most precious and beloved thing in my life, Molly.
I love you,
Mommy
Friday, January 27, 2012
January Joy
I thought being a mother to a toddler and baby was tiring, but it turns out that being a mother to a big kid, a toddler AND a baby is even more tiring. Especially to the poor baby. When is the baby supposed to nap when the big kid needs to get to tennis lessons? And what does the big kid do while the toddler goes to gymnastics? And how do I get the baby to stop finding Cheetos while I read "The Wizard of Oz" to the big kid and the toddler? Whew. I am tired just writing all of that juggling down.
I hear it only gets worse from here. I hear the babies grow into toddlers who need more story hours and more gymnastics lessons, and that the toddlers grow to big kids who go to basketball clinics and Girl Scouts, and the big kids grow to teenagers who ask you for the keys to the car at which point the whole cycle ends because you become a giant baby yourself, curled into a fetal position and CRYING.
It is fun though, when all the worlds collide and all of you have fun together at the same time and no one is thrashing on the floor and screaming that their sleeve is wet and WHY? WHY? can't you GO AND GET ME ANOTHER SHIRT?. The planets aligned last night when we were all at church and Dean and I were watching Molly and Frankie sing praise songs and the baby was cheerily shouting "HI!" to everyone within arms' reach. Our hearts did a little swell to see my big girls linking arms with friends and kicking their legs like Rockettes along with songs that I think mentioned Jesus but I couldn't really hear above the drums and the bass guitar. When you add that the baby was giving out kisses, well, when you take away the sloppy-joe dinner, it was pretty much close to heaven.
I hear it only gets worse from here. I hear the babies grow into toddlers who need more story hours and more gymnastics lessons, and that the toddlers grow to big kids who go to basketball clinics and Girl Scouts, and the big kids grow to teenagers who ask you for the keys to the car at which point the whole cycle ends because you become a giant baby yourself, curled into a fetal position and CRYING.
It is fun though, when all the worlds collide and all of you have fun together at the same time and no one is thrashing on the floor and screaming that their sleeve is wet and WHY? WHY? can't you GO AND GET ME ANOTHER SHIRT?. The planets aligned last night when we were all at church and Dean and I were watching Molly and Frankie sing praise songs and the baby was cheerily shouting "HI!" to everyone within arms' reach. Our hearts did a little swell to see my big girls linking arms with friends and kicking their legs like Rockettes along with songs that I think mentioned Jesus but I couldn't really hear above the drums and the bass guitar. When you add that the baby was giving out kisses, well, when you take away the sloppy-joe dinner, it was pretty much close to heaven.
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Guileless stabs at your ego: Part One
When I lifted a kitchen stool up over Molly's head to get it out of the way of the highchair, she turned to me and exclaimed happily: "Wow, Mom, you're smart! And heavy!"
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Winter is here
7 p.m., Sukie walks in snow for the first time
7:30, p.m., When shoveling doesn't work out for her, she uses her walker
8 p.m., I find Molly, as usual, in the tree outside the front door
6 a.m., Waking up early to a world made new
6: 45 a.m., Molly's tree in the morning
6: 50 a.m., Looking out the back door
7:15 a.m., Frankie tackles shoveling the driveway
7:30 a.m., Worn out and ready for breakfast
11 a.m., Sukie gets her first sled ride through a sunny wonderland
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Girls,
When I was pregnant the first time, as I thought nervously about what might lie ahead, I asked my dad if he ever regretted having kids. His answer was emphatic: no, not once. Well, girls, I am here to tell you a real and terrible truth. I don't want the haze of distant years and revisionist history to alter what I am about to tell you. I want to face it head on and I want each of you, if you contemplate parenthood someday, to know the whole story.
Girls, I want you to BE PREPARED.
The truth is, you will regret having children almost every day. The days you don't regret having children will be the days that your husband is home and he feeds them and puts them to bed. Or the days when you work an especially long day at your part-time job and come home and find everyone sleeping. Or during nap time, up until three o'clock when Arthur is over and the baby wakes up. Other than those days, girls, you will regret parenthood every evening around dinnertime. As the brown rice cooks and the baby is eating chocolate chips from the floor and your three-year-old is pulling out the Jenga pieces while you try to get your six-year-old to play "A Dog Named Bright" over and over again with perfect piano hands, you will regret parenthood. You will regret parenthood when you step on a stray MultiGrain Cheerio on your freshly vacuumed floor. You will regret parenthood when you have to pretend that you are a bear who is nineteen and you have no friends. You will regret parenthood when you are standing in yoga pants in twenty-five degree weather, helping up snowsuit bound ice skaters who fall again and again but aren't ready to leave.
But here's another truth, girls, and listen carefully. Those moments when you regret parenthood? They will be fleeting, the briefest scent of freedom, quickly replaced by a deep, certain feeling that you only get when you know you've really hit on the truth. Every day, sometimes every hour, you will stop and think THIS, this is one of only a few things I am sure about.
And pretty soon, girls, you'll be all grown up, and this big house will yearn for yells and spills, and when you come to me and ask if I ever regretted having kids, I'll only remember to tell you about the true things and say, no, not once.
When I was pregnant the first time, as I thought nervously about what might lie ahead, I asked my dad if he ever regretted having kids. His answer was emphatic: no, not once. Well, girls, I am here to tell you a real and terrible truth. I don't want the haze of distant years and revisionist history to alter what I am about to tell you. I want to face it head on and I want each of you, if you contemplate parenthood someday, to know the whole story.
Girls, I want you to BE PREPARED.
The truth is, you will regret having children almost every day. The days you don't regret having children will be the days that your husband is home and he feeds them and puts them to bed. Or the days when you work an especially long day at your part-time job and come home and find everyone sleeping. Or during nap time, up until three o'clock when Arthur is over and the baby wakes up. Other than those days, girls, you will regret parenthood every evening around dinnertime. As the brown rice cooks and the baby is eating chocolate chips from the floor and your three-year-old is pulling out the Jenga pieces while you try to get your six-year-old to play "A Dog Named Bright" over and over again with perfect piano hands, you will regret parenthood. You will regret parenthood when you step on a stray MultiGrain Cheerio on your freshly vacuumed floor. You will regret parenthood when you have to pretend that you are a bear who is nineteen and you have no friends. You will regret parenthood when you are standing in yoga pants in twenty-five degree weather, helping up snowsuit bound ice skaters who fall again and again but aren't ready to leave.
But here's another truth, girls, and listen carefully. Those moments when you regret parenthood? They will be fleeting, the briefest scent of freedom, quickly replaced by a deep, certain feeling that you only get when you know you've really hit on the truth. Every day, sometimes every hour, you will stop and think THIS, this is one of only a few things I am sure about.
And pretty soon, girls, you'll be all grown up, and this big house will yearn for yells and spills, and when you come to me and ask if I ever regretted having kids, I'll only remember to tell you about the true things and say, no, not once.
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Lessons on leaning
One of my favorite things about Sukie, besides the fact that she has is incorrigible when it comes to standing up in her high chair, is that she is a snuggler. She loves to sit in your lap, slouch a little and lean back so that her fuzzy little head is at just the right level to smell her woolly smell. And every time she leans, I am reminded that I, too, have a safe place to lean, a place where the arms are bigger, stronger and, though it hardly seems possible, more full of love than mine around her. And then I start singing and when I come to the chorus, I find myself closing my eyes and singing to all the things around me that would steal my peace. To you, worry, what have I to dread? To you, illness, what have I to fear? To you, future, I am safe and secure from all alarms.
What have I to dread, what have I to fear?,
leaning on the everlasting arms
I have blessed peace, with my Lord so near,
leaning on the everlasting arms
Leaning, leaning.
Safe and secure from all alarms,
Leaning, leaning,
Leaning on the everlasting arms
What have I to dread, what have I to fear?,
leaning on the everlasting arms
I have blessed peace, with my Lord so near,
leaning on the everlasting arms
Leaning, leaning.
Safe and secure from all alarms,
Leaning, leaning,
Leaning on the everlasting arms
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
My book on motherhood
My sister forwarded me a request from her local MOPS group: If you had to write a book about the joys and challenges of motherhood, what would the chapter headings be? While I literally sketch my sleeping children because the sight of them fills me with such overwhelming joy, I am the first one to admit that I put the pencil down and pull myself up by the bootstraps a lot of the time, because being a mom is not easy. Well, being a mom is pretty easy, being a good mom is just plain good old-fashioned hard work.
Chapter 1: Idealization: Knitted booties, white onesies and lullabies on the string guitar
Chapter 2: Reality: Plugged ducts, poop stains and hot water soaks for episiotomies
Chapter 3: Acceptance: Learning to put your back to the laundry while you play peek-a-boo
Chapter 4: Not for quitters: Staying the course when you want to flee to Nebraska
Chapter 5: Just for today: Encouragement when you cry to theme of Curious George
Chapter 4: Discipline for Dummies: How there's no such thing as motherly intuition
Chapter 5: Joy: First steps, first words, first love notes written in crayon with backward letters
Chapter 6: Specific challenges: Getting a newborn to sleep while an older child screams "MOMMY, WIPE ME!"
Chapter 7: The working mom: Finding time for a fourth full-time job
Chapter 8: The homeschooling mom: Just to kick up the crazy another notch
Chapter 9: Mom of many: How adding a third child (or more) means you're really not messing around
Chapter 10: The case for maternal amnesia: How the irrational mind causes repeat conception
Chapter 11: You are still a person: When you feel enslaved to midgets yelling "I want more chocolate milk!"
Chapter 12: Never alone: How to connect to God, your husband, your friends and a good therapist
Chapter 1: Idealization: Knitted booties, white onesies and lullabies on the string guitar
Chapter 2: Reality: Plugged ducts, poop stains and hot water soaks for episiotomies
Chapter 3: Acceptance: Learning to put your back to the laundry while you play peek-a-boo
Chapter 4: Not for quitters: Staying the course when you want to flee to Nebraska
Chapter 5: Just for today: Encouragement when you cry to theme of Curious George
Chapter 4: Discipline for Dummies: How there's no such thing as motherly intuition
Chapter 5: Joy: First steps, first words, first love notes written in crayon with backward letters
Chapter 6: Specific challenges: Getting a newborn to sleep while an older child screams "MOMMY, WIPE ME!"
Chapter 7: The working mom: Finding time for a fourth full-time job
Chapter 8: The homeschooling mom: Just to kick up the crazy another notch
Chapter 9: Mom of many: How adding a third child (or more) means you're really not messing around
Chapter 10: The case for maternal amnesia: How the irrational mind causes repeat conception
Chapter 11: You are still a person: When you feel enslaved to midgets yelling "I want more chocolate milk!"
Chapter 12: Never alone: How to connect to God, your husband, your friends and a good therapist
Monday, January 9, 2012
Loving my kids doesn't mean loving every minute
My friend Janice and my sister sent me a link to this blog on the same day. This post in particular was touted as "the greatest blog post ever written". And I have to agree.
I'm done lying; being a mom is just plain grunt work 23 out of 24 hours a day. It's hard, hard work. It's the hardest thing I have ever done. Sometimes it takes superhuman strength to keep standing and peeling the kiwis and steaming the broccoli and putting plate after plate of nutritious food in front of three crying individuals who are complaining that they are too tired to eat or want a piece of bread with butter or they don't like chocolate milk even though I'm the only mom around who doesn't make them just suck it up and drink white. There are large parts of me that want to yell "Just forget it! Feed yourself! Forage around for butterscotch chips and help yourself to the Diet Mountain Dew. I don't care. And while you're at it, don't take a nap if you don't want to. I want to bludgeon someone at the end of it anyway because all you did was thrash around and moan about wanting Daddy and you woke the baby up with your shrieking." But the point is that I don't. I pick myself up, forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on to shape these eternal creatures placed in my care. And meanwhile, it's shaping me.
I'm done lying; being a mom is just plain grunt work 23 out of 24 hours a day. It's hard, hard work. It's the hardest thing I have ever done. Sometimes it takes superhuman strength to keep standing and peeling the kiwis and steaming the broccoli and putting plate after plate of nutritious food in front of three crying individuals who are complaining that they are too tired to eat or want a piece of bread with butter or they don't like chocolate milk even though I'm the only mom around who doesn't make them just suck it up and drink white. There are large parts of me that want to yell "Just forget it! Feed yourself! Forage around for butterscotch chips and help yourself to the Diet Mountain Dew. I don't care. And while you're at it, don't take a nap if you don't want to. I want to bludgeon someone at the end of it anyway because all you did was thrash around and moan about wanting Daddy and you woke the baby up with your shrieking." But the point is that I don't. I pick myself up, forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on to shape these eternal creatures placed in my care. And meanwhile, it's shaping me.
Thursday, January 5, 2012
Celebration comes to town
Saturday, December 17, 2011
Morning Motherhood: A lose-lose proposition
Early one morning....
Molly, in gravelly sleepy voice: "Mom, where's Daddy? Daddy? I waaaaant Daddy."
Mom: "Daddy's at work, Molly. I'm sorry. (brightly) But I'm here! We can go watch Curious George together!"
Molly, crying: "I want Daddy. I want Daddy. I only want Daddy. I want to go downstay-uhs. I waaaant pop. Where is Daddy?"
A few minutes later, snuggled in front of Curious George...
Molly, mournfully: "I already watched this one. I don't waaaant this one. I already watched this one. I want toast with cinnamon and shu-guh."
Mom: "Aw, Molly, do you miss your Daddy right now?"
Molly, snorting disdainfully and looking at me like I'm slow: "No."
Molly, in gravelly sleepy voice: "Mom, where's Daddy? Daddy? I waaaaant Daddy."
Mom: "Daddy's at work, Molly. I'm sorry. (brightly) But I'm here! We can go watch Curious George together!"
Molly, crying: "I want Daddy. I want Daddy. I only want Daddy. I want to go downstay-uhs. I waaaant pop. Where is Daddy?"
A few minutes later, snuggled in front of Curious George...
Molly, mournfully: "I already watched this one. I don't waaaant this one. I already watched this one. I want toast with cinnamon and shu-guh."
Mom: "Aw, Molly, do you miss your Daddy right now?"
Molly, snorting disdainfully and looking at me like I'm slow: "No."
Friday, December 9, 2011
Right now
Right now....my husband has taken the big girls to cut down a Christmas tree. Just saying "the big girls" makes me realize that I have enough children to divide them into groups. When you can divide your kids into categories, you are in the motherhood big leagues.
Right now...I hear Susannah waking up from her nap. She will be hungry. She is always hungry. Her Opa calls her "bulky." I am hoping that years from now, when she reads this blog she will not be emotionally scarred by having been called bulky. Although, bulky is akin to being called Prim and Proper Saskia Doctor, which bothered me greatly at the time, but I find quite fantastic now.
Right now...the sun is shining and the first dusting of Michigan snow has melted.
Right now...the tub needs to be cleaned from this morning's bath, which found Molly playing intense imaginative games with Strawberry Shortcake and a plastic dolphin ("No, NO, NO! OH, STRAWBERRY! I don't want you to die! If you die I will never see you again! OH, NOOOOOOOOO! AAAH, you are falling to the lions! STRAWBERRRRRRY!") and Frankie trying to read a Junie B. Jones book without getting the pages wet. She is her mother's daughter, for good and for ill.
Right now...I'm going to go hug my bulky baby.
Right now...I hear Susannah waking up from her nap. She will be hungry. She is always hungry. Her Opa calls her "bulky." I am hoping that years from now, when she reads this blog she will not be emotionally scarred by having been called bulky. Although, bulky is akin to being called Prim and Proper Saskia Doctor, which bothered me greatly at the time, but I find quite fantastic now.
Right now...the sun is shining and the first dusting of Michigan snow has melted.
Right now...the tub needs to be cleaned from this morning's bath, which found Molly playing intense imaginative games with Strawberry Shortcake and a plastic dolphin ("No, NO, NO! OH, STRAWBERRY! I don't want you to die! If you die I will never see you again! OH, NOOOOOOOOO! AAAH, you are falling to the lions! STRAWBERRRRRRY!") and Frankie trying to read a Junie B. Jones book without getting the pages wet. She is her mother's daughter, for good and for ill.
Right now...I'm going to go hug my bulky baby.
Saturday, December 3, 2011
Sometimes the truth is not pretty
Is it a problem that my youngest daughter makes a phone out of everything and yells "HI" in a eerily grown-up voice? Or that my older two use their pretend phones and say "Uh huh. Uh huh. Really? I know. I agree. Uh huh. Uh huh. Oh, yeah, okay, I have to go now, my babies are all crying."
Friday, December 2, 2011
Dear morning, your mercies may be new, but I still do not enjoy you
It's five thirty a.m. and I've been up for an hour. The sun is nowhere to be seen and my husband accidentally woke me up, get this, by sliding the bathroom drawers open too loudly. In the bathroom down the hall. With the bedroom door shut. And the sound machine next to my head. With orange foam earplugs in my ears.
As any one of my college roommates can attest (if they are willing to revisit the hateful looks and dramatic mound of pillows stuffed around my face), I have what my family refers to as the Bionic Ear. The real princess could feel the pea, but apparently I can hear lunar changes. You've heard of the butterfly effect? I can hear it beating its tiny, frail wings.
Now all of this would be of no consequence if I were a person who was preternaturally wired for just a few hours of sleep. If I woke up at 4:30 a.m. feeling rested and was one of those creepy people who likes to venture into the cold dark frost of a Michigan December morning and do something wildly insane, like actually trying to run from one place to another instead of ambling leisurely only when the minivan is getting its tires changed, that would be one thing. But I'm not. I'm no Bill Clinton. I am a person who tells herself to exercise and then says "Self, who are you to tell me what to do?." I'm a person of hot baths, long books, warm beds and, preferably trays of prepared food brought to my reclining body. I'm a person whose childhood nickname was Couch, short for Couch Potato.
I'm putting my time to good use. I'm studying my Bible, folding my laundry, drinking Diet Mountain Dew after Diet Mountain Dew and carb-loading to try to keel through the day on a sugar high, but I'm not happy about it. Just ask my husband.
As any one of my college roommates can attest (if they are willing to revisit the hateful looks and dramatic mound of pillows stuffed around my face), I have what my family refers to as the Bionic Ear. The real princess could feel the pea, but apparently I can hear lunar changes. You've heard of the butterfly effect? I can hear it beating its tiny, frail wings.
Now all of this would be of no consequence if I were a person who was preternaturally wired for just a few hours of sleep. If I woke up at 4:30 a.m. feeling rested and was one of those creepy people who likes to venture into the cold dark frost of a Michigan December morning and do something wildly insane, like actually trying to run from one place to another instead of ambling leisurely only when the minivan is getting its tires changed, that would be one thing. But I'm not. I'm no Bill Clinton. I am a person who tells herself to exercise and then says "Self, who are you to tell me what to do?." I'm a person of hot baths, long books, warm beds and, preferably trays of prepared food brought to my reclining body. I'm a person whose childhood nickname was Couch, short for Couch Potato.
I'm putting my time to good use. I'm studying my Bible, folding my laundry, drinking Diet Mountain Dew after Diet Mountain Dew and carb-loading to try to keel through the day on a sugar high, but I'm not happy about it. Just ask my husband.
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