Put your little hand in mine lest I fall

Being a mom is hard every single day.  Sometimes, it’s hard work, physically.  Sometimes, it’s emotionally trying.   Sometimes, it’s both.   There is teaching and discipline and worry all woven together with house work, errands, chauffeuring and chaos.

But there are other moments when being a mom goes beyond being hard, those times when just being human is unbearable.  Hard is when you get a phone call and your kids won’t stop following you around, jabbering on in the background.   Unbearable is the phone call that changes your life forever.

The money is all gone.  The adoption fell through.  Your parents are getting divorced.  Your best friend was just killed in a car crash.  The storm hit your home town.   The diagnosis is Cancer.   Your beloved soldier won’t be coming home.   The baby is dead.   There were no survivors.

There are phone calls that knock us to our knees, lay us out flat on the floor, suck the last drop of air from our lungs, and yet we find ourselves there, in our motherhood, with the phone still dangling from our lifeless hands, filling yet another sippy cup, looking over homework, answering endless questions.

There are those moments in life when we know the tears should come, the tears will come, but we are paralyzed by our motherhood.  We are stricken numb, yet somehow still moving, because we have to, because it’s all we know, because we have no choice.

And yet, we are human.  The very life has been drained out of our chests; if we breathe too deeply, we know that we shall surely feel the gaping hole collapse.   We are gasping for air, even as we scream at our children, adding the tears of our guilt to the pool of sorrow collecting in our hearts - the ocean we know shall surely spill over the minute they are in their beds and we are silently praying, “please don’t let them wake up!”  It is then, and only then, when we are truly allowed to fall apart, to have one second, and then a rush of seconds, of minutes, of long, sleepless hours, to curl into a ball and just begin to process the impact of the blow.   If only they don’t wake up, you can have the rest of the night to be a person, a human being, not just a mom.

For a mom, the phrase “and life goes on around you” takes on a whole new meaning.  You can’t break down.  You can’t retreat.  You can’t succumb to the tidal wave that threatens to pull you under and bash your head against the rocks, because even then, in the darkest moment of your life, you are aware of the impact it will have on your children.

Your thoughts are racing with protecting them, from sadness, from fear, from the unknown and yet you can scarcely hold yourself upright.   There is so much you’ll have to explain, and yet so much you can’t explain.   So much you want to say, so much you must question whether or not to say.   You are so very aware of the careful wording of the Mommy language, and yet you are screaming at God from the depths of your being.   You are angry, you are scared, and you are so very very sad.

Being a mom is hard every single day.  But once in a while, it’s unbearable.  It’s cruel and heartless and a knife twisting in your back.   And yet life goes on around you.   And because today may be that day for you, I just want to say what nobody else may say.  I’m sorry.  I’m sorry that in the moment of your deepest pain, you don’t get to hide away with your hurt.   Don’t worry if you yell.  They’ll forgive you. They will.  They will.  

Do the best you can.  After all, even though you’re a mom, you’re still only human.  And sometimes, being human just hurts.

I had that kind of day recently, maybe not as bad as yours, but still, I know.   And I’m sorry.  So very sorry.

Life really isn't fair

It’s a strange day.   That last day before I “go all Glo-stick” again.  That’s what I call it - the radiation.  Because if I didn’t poke fun at it, I would never smile at all - ever.   Cancer can be all-consuming, the “what ifs”, the “whys”, the “it’s not fairs.” 

But it’s not fair.  It’s not fair that I have to put something into my body to help it, but that same something, if not kept at a careful distance, could harm the very ones I love the most- my kids.

So, it’s a strange day.  It’s a day of knowing that tomorrow, I will dutifully go to the hospital and let the white coats there unlock a little pill from what looks like a series of jars made of the same stuff of armored cars or bomb shelters, and I will swallow the crazy thing - not because I want to, not because I have to, but because I should - for my kids.

And yet, once I do swallow it, I am kept from the very children who motivate me to take it in the first place.   For, once I begin to “glo”, I can no longer hug my kids.  The radiation could harm them.   So, it’s a crazy contradiction on the way to a very long couple of days of not knowing.  It could either be two days of no hugs, or two weeks, but only time, and yet another yearly scan at the hospital will tell.

What am I supposed to do with that last, strange day - the day before?   It’s not like I can hug my kids all day long, squishing their little heads like soft melons, soaking in all the sweet juice as though it will forever quench my thirst.   For even as I hug them, play with them, kiss their cheeks, hug them some more, I feel the scratchiness in my throat.  It’s already getting dry.   By tomorrow morning, I’ll be completely parched.

For how can a mother ever drink in enough hugs to last - a day, two days, two weeks, a lifetime?

Every moment, our children are growing.  Every moment, they are slipping away.   We only get so many “little” kid hugs, the ones that are given with such pure, uncomplicated joy.  The kind where arms are thrown around you with reckless abandon, simply because you are “Mommy” or “Mama” or “Mom.”  The hugs that are so full of love that it fills the air between you and you are one, both breathing the same fullness of emotion that is completely untouched by time.  For in those moments, you forget that they are slipping away.  You just reach out, emptying yourself into the moment, letting their unconditional love fill you until you nearly spill over.

But for me, once a year, those moments cease.   I can not empty myself into the moment, for I’m afraid that I may remain empty.   The “What ifs” come back - first timid, then aggressive, then mean, then with  outright heinous cruelty.    What if he forgets to hug me goodbye before school - before my trip to the hospital tomorrow?   What if the little one, trusting that I always come back, doesn’t understand the significance of hugging me extra tight that last time before I leave?   What if when I come back, she doesn’t understand that now she can’t hug me, and it makes her sad?  What if a horrible tragedy strikes and this is the last time I get to hug any of them, ever?   Round and round those thoughts could go and more like a little kid than a 40 year old woman, I want to stomp my foot and scream, “It’s not fair!”

It’s not fair, God, that I have to go through all this.   The physical part is a nuisance, an unpleasant pest that pops up from time to time, buzzing around, ready to bite if I don’t keep swatting it away.  But the emotional part is worse.  It’s always there, a heavy, cumbersome clock on my back, weighing me down and deafening my ears with it’s loud bells tolling away the hours of my kids’ childhoods.   It’s a burden, too heavy to carry, but one that I’m unable to discard.  Their whole childhoods will be like this - me never completely able to relax because I’m on the lookout for that buzzing insect again - the one whose bite could take me down, permanently.  Or, at the very least, my neck tensed, ears pricked for the sound of the bells tolling - that moment that says, once again my time with them is interrupted.   Interrupted by days without hugs, nights of restless sleep, haunted thoughts.

It’s not fair.   I just want to hug my children.  Just hug them.  I don’t want to think about what it means to hug them, what a privilege it is to hug them, how much longer I’ll be able to hug them.

For as a mother, it’s all too soon that they “outgrow” our hugs anyway. 

It’s not fair.

Enter at your own risk

Sometimes I feel like I should hang a sign on the front door that says, “Reminder: I have kids.”  Or perhaps I should have a short speech prepared for those who enter my home, much like the flight attendants who are required to inform you of safety procedures before you place your life in the hands of the airline staff.

Although most of the time, you will not be at risk of physical injury in my home, there are no guarantees.  A wayward light saber, toy rifle  or not quite so plush indoor ball have been known to leave a few marks.

However, the main reason I feel compelled to remind people, or maybe educate them in the first place, as to what it means to have kids inside, is that for those of you who are childless, you really have no idea what you are in for.

When you enter my home for a visit, there will rarely be a sentence completed that doesn’t involve some interjection such as  “Please share the toy” or “Hey! Don’t do that!” or “Try me again you little maniac and you will be in time out until you graduate college!”   So, please don’t expect my full attention.

If we are sharing a meal, it will not be served on fine china, or even anything akin to your mama’s matching Corelle dinnerware.    You will receive your pizza, which was frozen until twenty minutes before you arrived, on whatever scraps of plates and bowls that are the least scratched and chipped.  If yours happens to be decorated with My Little Pony, you’re just going to have to deal with it.

The food will not be served in a luxurious dining room setting, but rather in a stress free splatter zone such as over the kitchen linoleum or living room hardwood.   I can also pretty much promise you that no two adults and children will ever be seated at the same time.   Children aren’t really geared for sitting still.

Though I have made a decent effort to clean before your arrival, damage control is a much better term for what I actually accomplished.  Therefore, if there is something sticky, mushy, crumbly, or otherwise mysterious occupying the same space as you, I sincerely apologize, but please, no grimacing mouths or rolling eyes until you are pulling out of my driveway.   You can gloat over your clean white gloves at your own house, but I don’t need that kind of guilt.   I’m already wracked with more guilt over all the ways I will screw up these small human beings, than your obsessive need for cleanliness could ever contribute to my depression.

You are welcome to move about my home freely and serve yourself whatever refreshment helps to alleviate the culture shock you now find yourself in, but be aware that there is no tutorial offered for how to operate the various locks and barricades you must maneuver to accomplish your goals.   It’s every man for himself around here.  We are lucky if we can figure out how to open a drawer or open the door to the basement stairs.   But if you do figure it out, and you happen to see my red-handled can opener, please, whatever you do, don’t lock it up again.

I really hope that you can enjoy this time of socializing, but if the two year old handing you small pieces of Play-doh, Cheese Puffs, or broken crayon tips is bothering you, you’re in for a long night.   Sure, you could suggest that she sit quietly in “that” corner of the room and look at books, but know that the intensity of your desire for her to do so is in direct contradiction to the fascination she will have with your reactions to her various little “gifts.”

And, while you are desperately racking your brain, trying to figure out where you can politely deposit  this strange little collection of stuff, instead, your hands will overflow because you won’t be able to problem solve and attentively listen to the seven year old’s dissertation on every action figure ever manufactured by Hasbro or Mattel.

You may, however, inquire as to whether we have aspirin.    The answer will be an emphatic yes, but by the time we figure out how to unlock that cabinet, it may be quicker for you to run down to the local liquor store.

All I can say is that for your sake, I hope it isn’t the dead of winter, and that your battery starts, because if you have to stay with us for any length of time, you’re going to need something stronger than that old piece of spearmint gum you found in your coat pocket.

For you will first be tortured with sleep deprivation.   Even after the natives have wound down and collapsed from their three hour pow-wow, you will have to clear a collection of squeaky toys, cookie crumbs and stray, dirty socks from under the couch cushions before you can spread your bed sheets there.   You will spend another twenty minutes or so studying the stains in peculiar places on these sheets, and assessing just how important warmth and/or absence of couch texture face is to you.

If you decide to forge ahead, you are most certainly welcome to use the bathroom for your nighttime rituals.  You wouldn’t have thought to bring a toothbrush, but we can at least offer you toothpaste for your finger tip.  However, you should know that the cap may have been licked at some point in time.   The soap dispenser will shoot some sort of green foam into your hand.  Please do not be alarmed. The color really was put there by the manufacturer.    If you happen to knock the rubber ducky, squirting whale, sifter cups, sea animal sponges or bath paints into the sink while you are attempting to reach the faucet, not to worry.  They were probably never completely dry anyway.

I apologize in advance for the lack of ease in using the toilet paper roll.   Though I know you’d like it to spin and tear off easily, instead it will make an awkward thwump, thwump, thwump as it turns and sticks, turns and sticks.   It’s no use taking apart the holder mechanism and looking for a defect.   The tissue itself was, while still in the original plastic, used as a ride-on toy by the kids, thereby crushing every cardboard roll in the 24 pack package.

If you make it back to the couch without stepping on something that rolls or squeaks, thus waking one of the natives, you might, just might, be able to fall into a deep, exhausted sleep.  However, if you’re fond of the really restful sleep that comes in the latter part of the night, you may be just a wee bit annoyed to find that your eyelids are being stretched open by tiny, prying fingers well before you are coherent enough to know your own name or how you ended up here.

When you finally stumble down the front steps to meet the ride that has come to rescue you and your broken down vehicle, don’t feel badly about the rate of speed at which you exit.  Many stronger than you have turned tail and run sooner than the morning light.

And don’t worry, if we find any of your belongings left behind, we’ll put them in the mail.   All we ask is that you never, ever, tell anyone what you saw here.   We get so few visitors as it is.

Hello, I could use a little help here

Do you ever get the feeling some people are blind?  No, I don’t mean physically without sight, but rather, just so absorbed in their own pursuits that they only see what they want to see?

I will never forget the time I was over 8 months pregnant and attended school registration night for my firstborn.   Upon entering the building, you were immediately directed to follow the line of tables, making your way around until you had accomplished all the necessary steps, from meeting the teacher, to arranging for after school child care, to making sure the school nurse had your current medical information.  However, in what I’m sure was a malicious marketing manipulation, the Parents And Teachers group was placed at the first table.

They greeted me with their chipper hellos.  At 8 ½ months pregnant, I did not like chipper.   In fact, I despised chipper.   So, when these bouncy, overly enthusiastic women thrust their well-thought-out pamphlets into my face and revved up their sales pitch for all the wonders that are supposedly the PTA, it was all I could do to not envision their heads, or at least their pamphlets in a chipper - a wood chipper, that is.  I do not exaggerate when I tell you that salesperson number one rattled on for a good five minutes about all the upcoming activities the PTA would sponsor, and all the benefits of said activities to the students, who by the way, were still waiting to be enrolled, while she yammered on.   At the climax of her big speech was the hook, wouldn’t I like to be involved in these activities that are sure to stimulate the young minds of our students, reinforce the love I have for my child in the way of school spirit and hands-on involvement, and most certainly secure my child’s academic and social success for years to come?  Uh, no.

But surely I could give just an hour or two of my time to oversee any of the upcoming parties right there on her list, printed up so neatly in such pretty fonts.

Uh, no.

But....

But nothing!  Did you happen to notice, while your eyes glossed over into the glory land that is the PTA, that I am roughly the combined size of three eighth graders who spent the entire summer eating Ding-Dongs at the very least, and oh, I don’t know, the size of a beached whale at the other end of the spectrum?   Did you ever once come down off your hooray-for-involvement cloud long enough to notice that I may drop this baby right here between your bullet points if you don’t hurry this line along?  Because seriously, the longer your mouth moves, the more I’m sure I felt a contraction.

And yet, being the mature adult that I am, I bit my tongue and politely called attention to my ever expanding belly and made note that as I was due to have a caesarean soon, I wouldn’t be attending any parties or other events for quite some time.

When the rest of her face glazed over to match her eyes, as though she had no comprehension of the effects of major surgery, lactating, stool softeners, or overnight feedings, I had two choices: give her a surely unforgettable speech of my own, or slip away quietly as it would seem she would never notice anyway.   Again, being the mature adult that I am, I chose the latter.  But oh how I dreamed about the former when I was exhausted from childbirth.

Unfortunately, I've found that this special breed of blindness doesn't just exist at school.  Everywhere I go, there are people who are so absorbed in their own ideas that they fail to see past their quota sheet to the nearly depleted, barely-hanging-on-most-days mother that I am.    There was another woman who suffered from this blindness, not part of the PTA, thankfully, but in a group just as aggressive in their desperation - the rotating schedule, church nursery workers, otherwise known as the Guilt Trip Troupe.  

Now granted, I feel for these women, I really do.    They’ve got their work cut out for them because people start getting that crazed squirrel look in their eyes when they see these women coming and they realize there are perpendicular walls at their backs.   And you know they know it - nobody wants to be on that schedule.   For goodness sakes, sometimes, if truth be told, we only come to church just so we can drop those little monsters, I mean angels, off for someone else to watch for 30 minutes.    We know that it will be the only 30 minutes of sanity we get all week, and since it takes at least 15 minutes to use the restroom and stop looking back to feel like we forgot something - or someone, we’re already down to 15 minutes of free time.   By the time we sit in our pew and roll through the list of things we need to do today - without interruption - praise the Lord! - we’re down to about 5 minutes left.   And we spend that remaining 5 minutes half guilt ridden for missing the entire sermon except for bits and pieces about the Proverbs woman, and half in dread because we know it will be an entire week before we get that half a minute of anything close to pure, perfect peace again.  So, I’m telling you right now clipboard lady, do not attempt to corner me!   I will have all the tact of a rabies infested rodent.

And yet, I had one such lady boldly pass the “Danger: Not Afraid to Use Fangs or Claws” sign mounted to my forehead and actually begin to - gasp - speak!

I felt sorry for her, I really did.  I, like every other mother of young children, had the Rolodex file of excuses open and imprinted on the tip of my tongue before she even got within biting distance.    To her credit, she handled the dejection well.   But, it was all I could do not to say, “You’re just so young!  You have no idea!”

For this particular woman, this young lady, oh let’s face it - a kid herself next to someone of my age, was a newlywed.  The word “husband” still rolled off her tongue with all the delight of whipped cream and strawberries.   In other words, she is clueless.  

She has no idea that she will soon be in utter bewilderment as to how she could loathe this man, whose title just such a short time ago brought so much innocent pleasure.    Oh, she’ll still love him - very much, but she will surely hate him too.  It’s just inevitable.    And then, when the children arrive, and she’s been exposed to the motherhood virus for a while, and her immune system becomes more and more weak, she will finally begin to understand the fear in the eyes of the women who are being hunted by the nursery workers' rotating schedule clipboard.

But until that time, I nod and smile and let her live the dream a little bit longer.  She is blind to me.   She can only see me as a fellow woman, someone who would surely care about the spiritual welfare of our youngest congregation members.   She is blind to the haggard woman, standing - barely, before her, hoping beyond hope that the pastor’s sermon will run long today.   But her day is coming, so I smile again, making sure she knows it’s nothing personal.

But I think the biggest winner of all in the Blind-To-A-Mother’s-Needs category, is sad to say, my very own, well, let’s just say “relative” and play nice just this once.

It so happened that it was time for my annual Cancer follow-up and as usual, I had spent days upon days trying to secure the necessary child care for all my barrage of medical tests and hospital visits.  Unfortunately, at the last minute, one of my babysitters fell through due to illness.   So, it left me scrambling to find any possible way to keep from dragging a two year old along to my blood draw - because wouldn’t that just take all the fun out of the whole lab experience?

I thought of this “relative” first because she was not employed at the time, had no small children to care for, had no real concrete responsibilities of any kind - and she lived close. 

So, I called and asked if she might be able to fill in while I, you know, set tests in motion to make sure I don’t still have CANCER in my body.   Imagine my shock, no that’s too flimsy a word for what I was feeling, when she actually opened her mouth and said that no, she couldn’t help because she had a fun day planned with her friend and they were both just so excited about it.

For a split second I thought if the Cancer hadn’t gotten me yet, I may just succumb to a heart attack.  Did a Cancer patient with no one to care for her two year old for half an hour actually just get trumped by shoe shopping and lunch at Dennys?  Or was that a speed bump the Earth just hit on it’s way to a full, screeching stop?

If I’d been able to speak, I’m sure I would have asked her if she’d ever been a member of the PTA.

I wonder what it’s like to wander around in complete darkness like that.  Or maybe these women are so entranced by their own aura of light that they are oblivious to the rest of us, whose unmet needs are drifting further and further into the shadows they cast.

Either way, they are blind.

I am not a newlywed and I am not a PTA member, but at least you can outgrow or retire from either of those positions, whereas pure ignorance, in either definition of the word, would seem to be a bigger obstacle to overcome.

So, I beg you, my readers, open your eyes.   Let go of your own pursuits today, just long enough to look around and see the needs in front of you.    If you find that you’re a little out of practice, and you can’t really seem to see a need, I guarantee that any mother of children under the age of ten, and even more so if they are under the age of five, would craft your halo herself if you offered her a prepared or even pre-paid meal, a hand with the house cleaning, or jewel of all jewels in your crown - a nap!  You may have to wait until her children are in college to receive said halo, but trust me, she will not forget.    People who notice the exasperation, the unending exhaustion of parenting young children are never forgotten, and those who actually reach out to help, well, there is no word lofty enough to describe their worth.  They are priceless.

We mothers need help.   We need to know that somebody out there still has their vision intact.  And we desperately need a nap.   Your own pursuits can wait until tomorrow.  Be priceless today. 

The old pro is eating crow

By the time I found out I was expecting a child, I was already an old pro.   Or so I thought...

I’d had ten nieces and nephews on whom to practice all my kid skills.  I could change a diaper, wipe cotton candy from a face and fingers, buckle a car seat, and play hours upon hours of silly games.  I’d been given countless compliments and told what a great mother I’d be someday.  So, when I found out I was soon to be a mother, I thought I had this in the bag.

I had the basics covered, so my thoughts moved on to what I would teach my future valedictorian.   Of course, we’d start with learning to walk, forming a few words.  Then there were letters and numbers and shapes.  We’d tackle reading and writing and basic addition.    Surely I had enough wisdom to impart in those first five years that my child would be a stellar kindergarten student someday.

Little did I know that the wisdom I thought I had would be spent in the first sixteen months, and the things I never realized I’d have to know, are still going strong seven years later.

The first deflation of my ego came when I realized that buckling a car seat is much different than installing a car seat.   All those straps and buckles and “extra” parts for certain models of vehicles, along with a manual written in 14 languages and a conversion to the latch system, was enough for me to look at my husband and say, “Have a good time, Honey.”    Two kids later, I have never once installed a car seat.

From there I quickly realized that when it was my own child, cotton candy was just not something I would even consider buying.  Somehow stickiness that requires a full blown bath is not the same as a quick, wet-washcloth wipe down.   And those hours of silly games - somebody rescue me!  I never, and I mean never, would have started some of those games, had I realized my little thriving-on-repetition child would still be asking me to indulge four years later!   And I most certainly would have reconsidered the whole, having children several years apart and having to start all over again madness.  What seemed like such innocent fun and gained such a heartwarming squeal of a reward in the beginning, can seem like some sort of twisted, self-torture, by the time they are both in elementary school.

And then there is elementary school.  Good ol’ kindergarten, to which we’ve been aspiring for five years.   Who knew that preparing your child was such a two-edged sword.    Who knew that a sponge, continually exposed to water, would just bulge and threaten to overflow with the slightest squeeze.

All those letters and numbers and shapes that were introduced so timidly, with such little expectations to a small toddler, were consumed like Cheerios and animal cookies.   My son could identify the red ball or the matching pair of giraffes in the Noah’s Ark, and well, the entire alphabet, before we expired the first 24 months.   When he reached two, he was correcting people’s “childish” vocabulary with words like bison and teal and dogwood.  By the time he reached kindergarten, I was exhausted of knowledge and was concerned not only for the teachers’ welfare but for the potential boredom that my son may soon associate with formal schooling.

And yet for all my unfounded academic worries, I learned, to my bewilderment, that there are other skills you must teach a child that never once crossed my mind.   There are skills I possess, for which I quickly gained a whole new appreciation and sense of gratefulness to whomever endured my own childhood instruction.   For these are the qualities I mistakenly thought were just inborn, somehow intrinsically known to those of us who are of the “higher intelligence” human species.

But apparently, there are just some areas where animal instinct seems to trump our glorified intelligence.

For instance, when I carefully laid out the alphabet blocks to instill a sense of order, or turned that puzzle piece to impart a sense of perception and absoluteness, it never would have occurred to me that despite this child’s ability to grasp these challenging new concepts, there would be others that would escape him like a ship into the fog.

Had anyone ever told me I would find myself giving such ludicrous instructions, I would surely have deemed them crazy and wondered about their own qualifications to raise a child.

And yet, despite the fact that my son could count to one thousand, fly through a set of DVD menus like they were Candy Land squares, and spout off conversation like a 45 year old, I, indeed, had to succumb to the cold-hard fact that my child was challenged in other ways.

Apparently, no matter how many What to Expect and How to Prepare for a Private School When Your Child is Yet an Infant books you read, there is no way to prepare for the confounding of your own brain when you hear yourself say:

“Keep your head up or you will walk into that wall.”
“If you have to cover your own ears, you could just stop screaming.”
“If the other nine fingers are already bandaged, you might not want to touch that again.”
“Because YOU just asked me to, that’s why!”

There are just some things that you never get used to as a mother.    Balancing ego with complete and utter embarrassment is just such delicate ground.

It’s that incredulous look from the other mom at the park, to whom you just bragged about junior’s ability to translate from Latin, when your kid is now eating sand or plopping off the slide backwards, that keeps you from ever really becoming too prideful.

But then, maybe it’s good for our own self-esteem too.  For the next time she boasts her little one’s adeptness at dialing 9-1-1, you can be sure she’s leaving out the part where the firemen broke through her living room window in an unnecessary attempt to save her life while she simply lay on the floor to retrieve the crayon that rolled under the hutch.

The one good part that comes from eradicating all delusions with your first child, is that by the time you have your second child, you have learned to keep your mouth shut.  Because, after all, you never know when they are going to open theirs.

Dreaming of Me

I’m sure I used to have loads of time on my hands before I had children, but I can not fathom what I did with all of it.

Oh sure, there are vague memories of making scrapbooks of my nieces and nephews, working on my novel (no, it still isn’t finished), and watching some now long-canceled, favorite tv shows, but really, how much time could that have taken up?

I’m sure I visited with friends, but what on earth did we talk about before we all had kids?

It is bewildering to me that such a large portion of my life was somehow sucked into an invisible vacuum.   After all, I waited ten years to have a child, so we’re not talking just a few weeks after the honeymoon here.  Oh, did I say honeymoon?  I meant, those few days we took off work, but that’s another sob story entirely...

I wish I could simply go to the file cabinet, and pull out all the receipts of life, that would tell me in their faded black and white, and occasional pink-striped imprint, where I was and how I spent my time.  But that file doesn’t exist.   

That time is simply gone.  Vanished from Earth.  Erased from memory.

Oh how I wish I could stick my hand into a coat pocket and magically pull out all the time I had stored there, like some forgotten ten dollar bill.   Better yet, it would be wonderful to learn that I’d deposited all that time into an account somewhere, and it had been multiplying ever since.

Now that I do have kids, there doesn’t seem to be a free minute anywhere.  Not to write (until they’re sleeping, like now), not to even remember my nieces and nephews names, not to watch even a five minute sound bite of television let alone an entire favorite show, and certainly not to scrapbook.   And even if I could visit with a friend, I’d be interrupted ninety-two times and by the day’s end, all I would remember is thirty-seven different trails of conversations that were never finished.

But then there are other times, when a sudden windfall of extra time is a startling, scary prospect.   For as much as I complain that I can’t get everything done, there are those brief, rare moments when I look around and everything is as caught up as I care to make it at the moment, and the kids are occupied elsewhere and I think, what do I do now?

Those five words - what do I do now - which of course, if challenged, I’d swear I would never utter, hit me in the face like a sudden gust of wind.   It is the wind of change, sweeping through quickly, just to serve as a reminder to my complacent world, that it is always just over the mountain top, around the corner, waiting in the shadows. 

For surely, times will change, just as they have since, well, the beginning of time.   There will come a day when the children are grown, when they are the ones complaining,  “There are never enough hours in the day!” and I will be left to figure out what to do with all my time.
Once in a while, I am faced with that decision, and I am shocked to find that I have no answer.   In those moments when I am eating a chocolate, chocolate chip cookie and I think, What will I do when this cookie is gone?  Eat another one? And then another?   Or, exercise? Surely not!  And yet to find that without my children commanding my every movement, I am somewhat lost, adrift, is rather frightening.

When did I lose myself?  When did I cease to be able to fill an hour with something I am passionate about?  When did I forget what I used to be passionate about?

What is this mystery that is motherhood?  How do we go from intelligent, fun-loving, social people to an entire-package-of-cookies eating, uninspired, undefined outline of a person, no longer even knowing how to fill in that blank?

Because for far too long we have filled in that blank with, I am Jessie’s mom, Sam’s mom, Brandon’s mom.  Somewhere along the way we ceased to define ourselves as anything other than what our children’s playmates call us.

And yet if we could peer back into that vacuum, the one that contains the shadows of our former selves, what would we say about ourselves?   I am... what?   A painter.  A musician.  A writer.  Or perhaps it would be a history-buff, bookworm, bird-watcher.    Maybe you’d find yourself saying, I’m a student, a church choir member, a community activist.   A crossword puzzle enthusiast, a doll collector, a blue ribbon bake-off winner.

Who did you use to be? Who would you be now if you could snatch up time like handfuls of pennies and wish them into something more?

Are your children at school?  Napping? Playing with friends?    Put down that cookie and look around.  Look past the stacks of bills and laundry, the mine field of toys that litters the floor.   Look out the window into the vastness of the sky.  Watch the trees.  Look for the breeze.   For it is surely coming.  

See your reflection in the glass.  Peer into your own eyes and search.  Who are you?  If you could direct that wind, where would it take you?   And then ask yourself this.    Why are you waiting for the tickling of the leaves, the brush of cool air on your cheek, the blast of wind in your face?

Your hair blowing at your back doesn’t make you less of a mom.    It gives your children the gift of the reins, to see life’s possibilities from heights of the undaunted.   By filling in your own outline, they will see the vast array of colors and shades with which they can paint their own image.   And when they feel the first feathery touches of air at their brows, they will raise their eyes with excitement as they welcome the next adventure.

If it all seems too challenging, too overwhelming, too grand a hope, don’t worry.   You can take a chocolate, chocolate chip cookie along for the ride.  But just one.

Men only think they have children

I realized something this week. Men have a home. But women have children. Oh, there may be children in the man’s home, he may come home to children, but he does not really have children. And no, I’m not talking about the physical birthing process. That’s obvious. I mean, he does not know what it’s like to have children - all the time.

If a man works full time, his primary focus is bringing home a paycheck. And that’s great. We depend on that provision. But even if he comes home and the children rush to greet him with hugs and kisses, it is a reunion, not a continuation.

And even if we may go so far as to say he is some kind of prince among the many average toads, and he throws off the burdens of work to sit down and play with his children; his fairytale is still a far croak away from the reality of having children.

He may read books, wrestle, tickle and tuck into bed. He may gather briefcase or laptop or brown paper sack in hand the next morning fortified by the knowledge that he is going off to once again, bring provision to his family. He may even think of their happy faces to propel him through his day.

But he still doesn’t know what it’s like to have children.

If his shower was warm and lingering, the news of the day gleaned while eating breakfast, and his commute rife with stimulating talk radio or tapping along to his favorite songs, he does not know what it’s like to have children.

If he completed business calls, marked his calendar with a doctor’s appointment, and confirmed via text an outing planned for the weekend, he does not know what it’s like to have children.

If he used the restroom, stopped at the mirror to study a suspicious spot on his skin, raked through his hair for good measure, whistled in the elevator on the way to lunch, and gave no thought yet to dinner, he does not know what it’s like to have children.

Men mean well. They can even earn the title of Wonderful Father. But any thought of bragging over that trophy, better be well out of earshot of the woman who has never once separated from those children she bore to give him that title.

For whether a woman stays home to raise her children, or works outside the home, or does some combination of the two, the distinct difference between her and her man, is that she always has children.

Whether she needs a few extra minutes in the bathroom or she places them in the reliable hands of a babysitter, she never separates from her children.

They are part of her, a bond formed in the womb, now presenting itself in the mysterious way she can know when they need help. Sometimes that help is an urgent need, sometimes it’s an issue to be prayed over for a period of time. But most of the time - daily, hourly, minute by minute, it is mentally or physically tending to their needs - every second.

She can not pack a lunch without knowing that today is the spelling test. She can not change a diaper without already thinking ahead to potty training. She can not heave the wet laundry into the dryer without a running list of sizes that she needs to stock up on, flowing through her mind as easily as the names of the children who are so quickly growing.

If she wipes crumbs from the floor, plans for a chore chart spring to mind. Finds a quarter under the couch, she contemplates what to do about the Tooth Fairy. Clicks the computer mouse, is reminded of her intent to research Parent Controls for internet safety. Changes the crib sheet and automatically thinks of how her own life will be impacted when the transition is made to toddler bed.

And then there are the emotional triggers. The wobbly chair from which her baby had his first fall. The remnants of glitter from the sweet card they made for her. The door through which her daughter walked with such a forlorn expression. The bed that she knows she needs to kneel by to pray for all of them.

Every single moment of her day is intertwined with thoughts of or for her children. It’s beautiful. It’s precious. It’s exhausting.

To abandon a stop for much needed milk or diapers or feminine needs is far easier than the lifting and guiding and corralling and rebuckling of small children. The abnormal growth on her face or painful tear in her tendon is surely not worth the logistics involved in taking a child along for her doctor’s appointment, or even the shameful pleading or guilt trips she must endure to find a babysitter. The repetitions in her mind that suicide nor murder are viable options are no match for the desperation she has to talk to another woman, preferably one without kids. And the strain under which she dusts the Wonderful Father trophy while a child hangs from her leg and she recalls the agony of labor, pretty much seals her contempt for all things sexual.

She didn’t know what it would be like to have children. Not what it would really be like. But she has them now.

And though through it all she has been so altered that she could never go back to life without them lest her heart be irreversibly broken, forgive her if she stifles a laugh the next time she hears her husband answer someone, “Yes, I have children.”

Invisible

There is a leaf on my kitchen floor, no doubt drug in by someone’s shoes. It’s lying in the path that my husband treks daily, and yet it’s been there for three days. I eye this little leaf as I work on the computer, fix dinner, haul bags to and from the car, but I do not pick it up. Maybe I should. For leaving it there is a constant reminder to my blood pressure of all that it represents.

I am that little leaf. There, but unnoticed. Broken, but not picked up and tenderly cared for. Cursed, but not thrown away. Just there. Waiting.

My little girl noticed the leaf one day, proclaimed it yucky, but walked away. Funny how life is like that. When someone has hurt us, it is rarely that person who will notice, but someone else entirely. And even if it’s somewhat of a relief to be reassured that we are not invisible, it doesn’t fix the hurt. We are still broken, waiting for the one who hurt us, to realize it, to pick us up with tenderness and fix it, or at the very least, to cut the ropes that bind us, so that we can be free - of the waiting.

I don’t know at what point I fell from the tree. I used to be green and nourished and alive. But little by little, death came. Perhaps figuratively, or maybe it began with the literal, when my husband and I first realized that life would not be a perfect bubble of perpetual Spring.

Loved ones would die. Unfortunately, too many in too short a time. We’d be stricken with illness, watch helplessly as friends and loved ones endured trials, see the hopes and dreams of a pregnancy end too soon, suffer staggering financial blows, have to make impossible decisions. Age beyond our years.

We used to cling to the same branch, even flourished enough to produce two little offshoots. But somehow, in the turning away from the sun, so that it would instead shine on the tiny buds striving to thrive, I began to shrivel, become weaker. Eventually fall away.

And now I lay helplessly far from the tree, looking up with a longing that they will notice the empty spot beside them.

How I long to be swept up with the wind and replanted. Revitalized. Loved.

But it is that same wind, that same fierceness that assaults us, that has him clinging to the branch, blindly - just trying to survive. He can not hear my voice over the wind, and he can not open his eyes against its force long enough to see how far I’ve fallen.

He is trying with all his might to hold on, to believe that there is more to life than death. But I already feel the dryness in my bones.

Though his holding on prolongs our appearance of life, of liveliness, there is part of me that wishes he would just let go. At least then, we’d be together again. A broken, huddled mass, parts of us crushed forever to dust, but maybe, just maybe somewhere in that grinding into earth, we could bind together again. Perhaps we would not only notice each other, but fortify each other against the rain, the wind, the sun. And maybe, when there was nothing left but that very foundation we started with, we could become strong again, intertwine the roots that had grown apart, and begin to rise up anew.

But for now, I’m waiting. Just like the little leaf on my kitchen floor. I may be being stubborn, but I refuse to pick it up. It may be crushed or caressed, but at least it will be seen.

Clutching a lip gloss and a dream

In eighteen minutes, nap time will be over. Round two.

The second leg of the journey which has only been bolstered by a handful of M&M’s and the 102 minutes of mental unwinding it took for you to relax enough to enjoy these last 18 minutes.

But 18 will quickly become17, then 16, then 15....

So there is no relaxing. There is panic. And pressure. By the time your ears stopped ringing the sound of “Mommy, mommy!” and you realized you really were “alone”, it was already time to jump back in, at whirlwind speed, to try to accomplish everything you set out to do before the hours leading up to nap time left you dazed and unable to remember your own name, let alone your to-do list.

Might as well grab another handful of M&M’s, throw a few mini-Snickers in for good measure, and try to make yourself believe it won’t go to your hips if you just put a little hop in your step while you get the baby up and change her diaper.

Oh, you’ll survive until bedtime. Barely.

But you already know what comes after bedtime. Morning time. And then, you’d give anything for the days of your youth when you used to roll over and click the alarm clock off fourteen times. The incessant bahnnt bahnnt bahnnt of the clock was nothing compared to the deafening volume at which, “Mommmeeeee” comes blaring through the baby monitor. And there’s no shutting that off.

It’s in those first moments of the day that you come face to face with your true self. Your thoughts may range from suicidal to Super Mommy, usually falling somewhere in between. It’s then that you want to kick whichever relative, teacher, coach or drill sergeant who instilled in you a sense of responsibility and duty.

You know, just like you did before your chores, final exam, warm-ups or workouts that there is nothing ahead for you except a long, arduous experience that will leave you cursing somebody, or everybody.

There is nothing quite like the feeling of knowing you will be worked hard, yet never appreciated. That your sense of responsibility and pride in it is supposed to be its own reward.

Funny, in the midst of wiping yogurt from the little one’s hair, retrieving the motion-splattered spoon for the fourth time, and asking, as you close the garage door, why on earth your older one would walk out the door without their school backpack after having just been lectured about it yesterday morning, that sense of pride never seems to be what I’m feeling.

It’s more a feeling of staring at a bottomless canyon and swinging the pendulum between believing that at some point, the mist will rise from it and leave a breathtaking view, or throwing yourself off the edge.

Motherhood has a way of becoming “all there is.” You get up in the morning because you’re a mom. You make a somewhat healthy breakfast, keep a somewhat clean house, and feign a somewhat interested look because you’re a mom.

But deep down, okay, maybe not so deep, there is longing. Longing to sleep til noon, put on some lip gloss, run on the beach or sit quietly in your pjs reading a novel, or maybe even put on that little black dress before your hubby gets home. Anything to be unhurried, inspired, feel beautiful.

All I know is that for now, my 18 minutes is up, and 18 years still looms out before me. But I’m keeping a lip gloss in my pocket, just in case...