Super powers

You know, sometimes I don’t understand why God didn’t actually make us with eyes in the back of our heads.   And while we’re imagining our mutant parallel selves, I’d also like to have those super stretchy arms, like Elastigirl in the Disney movie, The Incredibles.

Life with children would sure be a lot easier if I could see from every angle and whip out the super powers when most needed.

For instance, the other day, I was trying on clothes in a Goodwill store.  That’s right, Goodwill.  I’m not too proud to say it.    Anyway, I let Little Kid down inside the dressing room with me.   Oh, I made sure I had bolted the lock with the force of a vice grip, and had my legs positioned to block her escape via the space under the door, in case such a wild idea should cross her mind.   Because, seriously, knowing her as I do, I could easily see myself running through the store in my underwear to catch her, and being banned from all decent society forever after.

As luck would have it though, or perhaps an insufficient amount of sugar in her diet that day, she was in a pretty calm mood.    Of course, calm still means talking a mile a minute, but when trying on clothes, talking is better than movement.     However, just as I’d settled into my comfort zone, chatting away with her while I focused my eyes on the rolls of fat I was trying to shove into the four dollar jeans, she shot right under the radar.   I turned, just in time to see her examining something on the wall, with her finger.    It was a dark spot, a smear of some kind, brown…. oh nooooo!     In hindsight, chocolate comes to mind, but in the much needed eyes-in-the-back-of-the-head moment, that is not what came to mind.   Either way, it’s just not something you want to let your mind dwell on for too long.   Immediate action, then distraction.   Oh, not for her.  For me.   I could not fill my mind with random thoughts quick enough.

There are other times those eyes in the back of the head would be handy as well.   The spaghetti and corn painted kitchen wall comes to mind.   If God put an instinct in toddlers to throw their food, why couldn’t He have given us the ability to see it before it became a professional stain removal company nightmare, you know, instead of letting us stand there chatting on the phone and rinsing dishes in oblivion.

It’s not just the messes though.   Another set of eyes would really make discipline a lot easier.   Sibling rivalry would become extinct.   There would be no more innocent looks and “she did it first” nonsense.   They would take one look at mom’s eyes, all four of them and know she’d seen it all - the tiny shove, the taunting expression, the grabbing of the toy.  Justice would be restored and life long sibling resentments would cease.  Imagine, a world where nobody ever says to you, “Now, tell me about your childhood…” and then charges you four hundred bucks at the top of the hour, whether you’ve finished your story or not.

Stretchy arms would help with both messes and discipline.   I could reach across the room at lightning speed and grab the breakable jar, the credit card bill, the permanent marker, or the distressed cat from the Little Kids’ hands before catastrophe ensued.  Or, I could grab that blasted foam sword out of the Big Kid’s hands after he’d been warned not to touch his sister with it again for about the seventh time!   Of course, swords bring to mind danger, and that’s another reason we could have used more eyes and super powers.

How is it that children find some way to get into danger even after you’ve spent nine hundred dollars on all the recommended safety products and have removed from the room anything that spins, opens, involves a cord of any kind, or contains lead or Anthrax.

The minute I am safely inside the bathroom with the door locked, or sitting down to work at the computer, the Big Kid will inevitably be yelling “She’s standing on the table” or “She’s stuck behind the couch.”  Really?   Who does this?   Why would you have the desire to climb onto something from which you can not climb back down because your short little legs have kicked away the chair that aided your elevation?   And why on Earth would you end up wedged behind a piece of furniture twenty times your size if you obviously could not fit there in the first place since you had to keep pushing your way in?

I mean, seriously, do we have to live without any furnishings at all?  Or is that what someone tried long ago and thus discovered lead paint as their child stood there in the empty room,  licking the wall?

The longer I live with children, the more amazed I am that after thousands of years on Earth, we still have not done away with basic irritations such as clothing lint, light bulbs blowing out or batteries dying - because we most assuredly are born with enough imagination to have experimented with something that should have worked by now.

Oh, I’m sure there is someone out there reading this, probably a greeting card company employee or a pregnancy book author saying, “but a mother’s greatest super power is love.”   And to them I say, you go right ahead and delude yourself, honey.    No matter how much you hug them, kiss them, read to them, play with them and repeat cutesy phrases that convey your unconditional and unending love for them, the minute you relax and turn your back, they will climb onto a chair, grab the scissors and start shredding the tissues, the trash bag or the living room curtains.   But with eyes in the back of your head and super stretchy arms, you could see the temptation in their eyes and reach across the room to stop the madness before you’re cleaning up confetti for a week.  

And since you’d be able to wrap your arms around them eight times, you’d have one heck of a bear hug to boot.    

Sure, love may be a super power, but nothing says we have to have just one….

Hurting people hurt people

It’s one of those days.   You know, the days when you could easily blame the children, but if you tell the truth, it’s not really them.

Sometimes, it’s the Other One.    These are the days that are worse because if it were the children, you could chalk it up to kids just being kids.  But, when it’s the other adult, all you can do is sit in shock and bewilderment, wondering where on earth he gets the gall to act like this.

Of course, it starts out as shock and bewilderment, but then it turns to anger, and then seething anger.   Pretty soon you’ve got a list of wrongs dating back six years and you can’t wait to sling it in his face.   How dare he put you through this now, after all he’s already put you through!  

But as quickly as the anger comes, there is fear there too.   Is this the end of the road?  And then there is sadness - for what would be lost, for what could easily be fixed if he’d only listen to you, and for him - because you still love him and you don’t like to see him hurting so much that he can’t keep himself from hurting you. 

Still, as much as anything else, you get mad at yourself.    Why do we women fight so hard to be heard, to be treated as equals, but then find ourselves so dependent on these men?  

It’s our hearts.   We want to ride the high of his affection and we think we can weather the lows when he’s down.    But sometimes, life kicks you, and it kicks him, and then it kicks him again and harder and harder, until he’s so far down that you can’t reach him anymore.  He needs somebody to blame and you’re the closest target.   So then that heart, that soft heart that led you straight into his loving arms to begin with, is now broken, desperately wondering if he will ever be pulled up from the muck and the mire and return to the prince you once knew.   And you hate yourself for waiting it out.   But you love him enough to wait.

These darn female hearts of ours.    They take a beating until they are barely beating on their own, and yet they keep us bound.    For those that we’ve loved are forever entangled in our hearts somehow, and no matter how messy it gets, we’re in it for the long haul. 

But we’d give up chocolate and a good book and red wine if the long haul would take a serious shortcut.