the loom

September 22, 2011 By

I feel like a decent mother. After all, my daughter eats her spinach, draws excellent giraffes, makes up songs that rhyme, and announces randomly at dinner that, sadly, Pluto is no longer a planet.  We mothers pat ourselves on the back for being that rock in our children’s changing world.  The straight arrow in their quiver.  We, after all, are good mothers.  Smart mothers.  We know best.

A few years ago, at my daughter’s pre-school, I noticed that a little girl was munching on pizza rolls and trying desperately to pry apart a fruit rollup apart with her teeth.  My eyes darted to my own child’s lunch, which luckily contained cottage cheese and fruit. I grinned.  My child might thumb her nose up at olives, but at least she’s not eating that.  Forget the fact that pizza-roll kid will end up at a Virginia private school on a soccer scholarship, or become a world famous scientist, or perhaps save a species of fish from extinction.  My kid won’t fall asleep with orange Cheeto dust in her hair, and that’s really what matters.

Then there was the time the preschool teacher announced that my daughter was able to spell her own name before all the other children.  I made a quirky little face like “What?  We just sit around drinking sodas and drawing on the walls.  I just have no idea where she gets it from.” In reality, I was patting myself on the back for putting up a word tree in her bedroom and for reading her so many stories despite the fact I was so tired I wouldn’t have cared if Curious George got hit by a truck and died.

But when your kids are little, your barometer for success or failure as a parent reflects back at you.  You control their diet, their wardrobe, and their bedtime routine.  You can set firm rules and make sure they show respect for others.  You drag them to church and make them wash their hands and eat their carrots. And when you feel like a failure, you call up your really good friends– those who occasionally put their kids to bed without baths or pull out dirty clothes from the laundry pile on picture day – for moral support.  One such friend called me in horror of what she had done, like the Mother Gestapo would hunt her down and take away her Mother-of-the-Year pin.  Crippled by the stomach flu and a husband out of town on business, she locked all the doors, set out a platter of lunch meat, crackers, cheese, and cookies, and just let her children watch Dora the Explorer all day while she lay in bed clutching her abdomen.  Don’t sweat it, I told her on the phone. That will probably make their “best childhood memory” list. 

But then someday, something changes.  It’s not about you anymore. It actually never was. I recently got a note home from Kindergarten saying my daughter wasn’t following the rules, and she could stand to listen more, and that perhaps she needed some practice on the daily sound tests. My heart sank.  As my husband was brushing his teeth that night, I said surely this teacher didn’t really see our daughter’s true talents.  That she’s creative and curious and brilliant.  I wished there was something I could do to show her teacher just how fabulous she is.

“No one will ever see her like you do,” he said. “To you, she’s perfect. You’re her mother.”

I suppose that’s true.  Mothers only see the good things.  The bright, shiny mornings.  The giggles and thank-you’s and made-up stories about dancing monkeys. We snuggle and love and pray and give, assuming that all the work we put into our children will pay off. Like a bonus that’s supposed to arrive at the end of the year. But we forget that these are independent little people, separate and apart from us.  They are not vessels we just fill up and push out the door; they are unique creations from God.  They must learn to fail, and must face struggles of their own – some we might not always be able to fix.  That’s hard for us mothers.  The thought of our daughter getting a broken heart, or our son not making the team, is too difficult to bear.  We can’t always make it all better by holding them close and reading them stories.  Homemade macaroni-and-cheese with crunchy breadcrumb topping only goes so far.

So I suppose we must simply love.  When times get tough, or they don’t fit in, we just love some more.  After all, we’ve already got our bonus.  We get to be the loom upon which their lives are woven, and watch them grow into beautiful people.  They will overcome, and change, and beam with pride when discovering their true selves.  We’ll stand in the background, us mothers, and realize that it’s not about us after all.

Filed Under: Motherhood Tagged With: , , ,

little house, big tears

September 11, 2011 By


(my daughter, looking very old fashioned)

When my daughter was sick last year, my mom came into town to stay with her so I could go to work.  The old-fashioned, no-cable, non-Disney people that we are, we thought it might be a good idea to start a lifetime of Little House on the Prairie episodes.  After all, there’s lots of “we’ll totally make it through the winter on one sack of wheat” and “golly pops – a peppermint stick in my stocking is what I’ve always wanted” and finally, “let’s pray.”  I thought it might be a good lesson in family values.  Perhaps force the message that home is really where the heart is.

Between a budget meeting and a conference call, my phone rings.  It’s my mother.

“I have something to tell you,” she said.  My heart sank.  My daughter probably spiked another fever.  Maybe the dog unearthed a dead bird or my china was shattered into a million pieces. She continued, but in a low whisper.    

“It’s about Little House on the Prairie,” she said, her voice barely audible.  I sighed with relief.  What about it?  Maybe Pa and Ma had to stay up late tending to the fields.  Quite possibly, poor little Laura got her chalkboard thrown on the ground and a valuable lesson was learned. I had a call in a few minutes.  What was so urgent already?

“Some man died,” my mother continued.  “On the show, I mean. He was working in the mines.  There was an explosion.  His body was blown to bits.  Pa had to go find the dead man’s child to let him know that his father died in a horrific accident.  He took his wife the man’s belongings.”

Anyone that knows my daughter knows how incredibly sensitive she is.  That she cries for humanity and for lost dogs and for fictional characters in cartoons.  “How bad is she?” I asked my mother.

“She’s sobbing.  We are trying to focus on puzzles.  Maybe she can have some ice cream?”

I’m pissed off.  What’s next?  Is Laura’s mother going to abandon her and leave her at home eating nothing but roasted field mice and corn? Will she have her arm severed?  Get smallpox? Will Ma and Pa get a divorce due to some illicit affair with the blacksmith?  When I got home later that night, I was prepared.  I was expecting to have to answer questions about dying or abandonment or other topics four-year-olds shouldn’t know anything about.

Instead, life was surprisingly normal.  My daughter was wearing stickers on her ears like earrings.  And playing with her new doll house.  She made a book tied together with ribbons.  She danced during her bath and pranced her way into the bedroom for stories.

I suppose there’s a reason why we don’t remember all the negative stuff buried in TV shows.  We only take the good – straining through all the junk to find what’s worth keeping.  In time, she’ll forget about the time this father died in the mine.  She’ll remember Laura’s braids.  And long winters. And gumballs in large glass jars at the general store.

Children see the world in its finest light – hopeful and happy, sparking and new.  They believe and trust.  The Gospels speak of it in this way: “I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” (Luke 18:17).

We can’t shelter our children from this world forever, no matter how hard we try.  We can only encourage them to look backward with joy, remembering the braids. The little window in the top room. Cast-iron kettles and cornbread.

Someday, my daughter will have to battle the same issues with her own offspring. “Back then,” she’ll tell me, “we didn’t have all this stuff to worry about.  Everything was good and honest and pure.”

That’s when I’ll remind her that fathers were blown to shreds in Little House on the Prairie.  That she got to eat cereal for dinner not because I was a cool mother but because I worked and sometimes didn’t have the energy to fry an egg.  And that one time we spent the night at a Motel Six?  Where she got to stay up late and mommy and daddy were having a bit of a loud discussion with strange four-letter words about lost reservations?

You’re right, my love.  Those were the days indeed.

Filed Under: Motherhood, Television Tagged With: , , ,

martha stewart clean

August 31, 2011 By

I never thought I’d say this, but thank you, Martha Stewart.

 

Today, after we returned home from the grocery store with items sitting randomly about the kitchen table, my son grabbed a bottle of bathroom cleaner and waddled off.  I was at the stove cooking asparagus and wondered why my son was so quiet. I went to investigate. As it turned out, he unscrewed the lid and poured the entire bottle of bathroom cleaner on the carpet.  And I had no idea if he drank some.  I immediately called my doctor, who referred me to poison control, and the conversation went something like this:

 

“Hello?” I asked in a panic. “Poison control? I think my son might have ingested some bathroom cleaner. “

 

“Oh no,” a woman said.  I could hear the seriousness in her voice.  “What brand of cleaner was it?”  She was typing something into her computer.  Probably something along the lines of Yet another negligent mother who let her kid drink poison.  Call CPS immediately to have her parental rights revoked.

 

“Martha Stewart Clean,” I said.

 

“Uh huh,” the lady said.  There was a pause.  “I think you’ll be fine.”

 

“But don’t you want to know the active ingredients?” I asked.  I really was hoping I didn’t have to get his stomach pumped, or worry about him being unconscious, or burning a hole though his intestines.  He didn’t seem sick.  He was laughing and pointing to my nose and trying to moo like a cow, but still. 

 

“Yeah sure,” she said as she bit into a sandwich, stuck in some cubical in Dallas.  “If you want.”  What’s wrong with these people?  Aren’t they experts in poison? Don’t they have some advice?

 

“Water, Citric Acid, and plant-based detergent.”

 

“Yeaaah,” the lady said, her mouth full of ham.  “I really wouldn’t worry about it.  That’s harmless.”

 

I wasn’t sure whether the judgment in her voice related to the fact that I am a negligent parent, not noticing that my son walked right past me holding a bottle of detergent, or whether I spent five dollars on a bottle of distilled water with a few drops of citric acid.

 

In any event, this stuff won’t kill your kid if they accidentally drink it, and it managed to create suds when I tried to soak it up from the carpet, so I’m never buying anything else.  I’m a loyal Martha Stewart Clean consumer (when it’s on sale). Or, conversely, maybe I should just pay more attention to my child when they walk by.   The next time, it might be a butcher knife.

Filed Under: Embarrassing Moments, Humor, Motherhood Tagged With: , , , ,

one liners, part two

August 29, 2011 By

Five year olds are officially hilarious.  At least I think so.  Here’s some recent statements said around our house that made me laugh.  I laugh a lot.

(1) “You see that?” she asked as she pointed to my son’s privates.  “I’m going to call that a hankerdoodle.  So if I ever say the word hankerdoodle, you’ll know what I’m talking about.”

(2)  (a few weeks later, during a bath) “Mom, don’t forget to wash the hankerdoodle.”

(3) “Did you meet some new friends at school?” I ask.  She shrugs. “We didn’t have formal introductions.”

(4) “I scratched my arm and it feels like I’m being scraped by a giant cheese shredder. A GIANT CHEESE SHREDDER!”

(5) “I’m going to call grandma and tell her I got crunched” (after her brother bit her in the face)

(6) “I love you infinity times infinity plus one and then times a hundred.  Plus two.”

(7) “Why can’t we ever go to Chunky Cheese-its? I think they have pizza.”

(8)  “You can just call it recess, mom” (rather than the more inferior “playground”)

(9) “One hole in my nose is all plugged up and I just don’t know what to do about it.”

(10)               “Why are all the states united?  What does united mean anyway?”

(11)               (Sobbing). . . “I just think it’s so sad that Angelina Ballerina lost her doll and that she didn’t get it back and I tried to look at another book that was happy to get over it but it just didn’t work.”

(12)               “I don’t want you to put bows in my hair.  I never want to wear bows.  Ribbons are okay.  Just no bows.”

(13)               “When I grow up, I want to be a cheerleader, a mommy, and a nurse,” she says.  (“Can’t you elevate that to doctor?” I ask.  “Maybe a dermatologist even?”) “No.  I want to be a nurse. Nurses get to leave the room first.”

(14)               “I don’t need a nap.  I’m not tired.  And I’m not being mean.”

(15)               “I’m so glad I have you for a mommy.”

(16)               “If I wasn’t born and another kid was born instead and you named her the same name as me, would you love her just the same?”

(17)               “You can always get more money.  Stores will give you change.”

(18)               “If he can’t say the word “passy,” (referring to her brother’s pacifier), it’s okay if he just says “assy.”

(19)               (Crying). . . “I miss my old teachers. I want to write them a card first thing tomorrow when I wake up.”

(20)               (The next morning). . . “Card? What card?”

Filed Under: Embarrassing Moments, Humor, Motherhood Tagged With: , , , ,

one liners

August 8, 2011 By

Twenty things my 5-year-old said that made me laugh:

(1) Unicorns are real

(2) Today was the best day in my whole entire life because I got to chew gum.  I mean the best day ever.

(3) My throat hurts.  It feels like a hundred hammers are slamming on my neck.

(4) My stomach hurts.  It feels like a thousand tiny hammers are pounding upon my stomach.

(5) My head hurts.  It feels like — (“Yeah, yeah.  A million tiny hammers,” I say.)

(6) For snack today, I’ll have crepes. (“What?” I ask.  “Why in the world would you think we have crepes lying around?”)

(7) I mean currants.  I get crepes and currants mixed up sometimes.  For snack today, I’ll have currants.

(8) Mary Poppins is so sad.  She just wanted to help those people.  Please don’t make me watch it again.  Will my nanny leave me too? (“Uh, you don’t have a nanny. You can stop crying and clutching your pillow.”)

(9) (the next week): Why can’t we watch Mary Poppins again? You never let me watch any good stuff.  I love that movie.

(10)               I called John Denver.  Up in the Rocky Mountains. He said hello.

(11)               I’ll watch This Old House.  (“But don’t you want to watch cartoons?” I ask.  “No.  Today on This Old House they are putting in tile.”)

(12)               Maybe, to help me stop sucking my thumb, you can just put a nipple on it.

(13)               I like air.  But I loooooove pockets.  If I had to choose between the two, I’d choose pockets.

(14)               Don’t you ever throw away my fruit roll-ups again!

(15)               When you turn a hundred, you die.  Papa turned ninety, so he’s getting very close.

(16)               When my panties get too small, I’ll just save them for my brother.

(17)               Can God walk on the roof?

(18)               I’m going to play Jesus and break bread.  Except mine has peanut butter.

(19)               I have started a new restaurant.  It’s called Jalapeno Delight.  Everything contains jalapenos.  Except the milk.

(20)                Sometimes, I really don’t like it that you throw away my fruit roll-ups.  But I’ll always love you.

Filed Under: Humor, Motherhood Tagged With: , , ,

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