I'll have what she's having

Me, age 39

There’s this woman I know. Let’s call her “Julie.”

Julie’s daughter attends the same dance studio as my daughters. Every Tuesday afternoon while our girls are in class, we wait in the lobby. I try to read, but I always end up stealing furtive glances at her over the pages of my book. She is endlessly fascinating.  

We are kind of like apples and oranges, Julie and me. In fact, I feel it’s necessary to draw a detailed comparison so you understand why I’m a little obsessed with her.

Julie: Julie’s daughter is waiting patiently for class to start, Julie having transported her to the studio with plenty of time to spare. Her leotard and tights are spotless, and her hair is wound in a perfect bun.   

Me: My kids and I race into the studio approximately 30 seconds before class begins. During our ride in the car, Caroline has somehow gotten a rip in her tights; because she has stuck her fingers in said rip, the rip is now a yawning hole across her thigh. Jane’s hair, which was pulled back in a smooth pony tail, has come half-undone and is hanging lankly in her eyes. I’m being objective when I observe that my daughters look like charity cases.

Julie: After her daughter heads into class, Julie sits contentedly with her cherubic infant son at her breast. When he’s not smiling at the other smitten moms in the lobby, he nurses without fussing. Julie beams at him, a maternal glow on her face.

Me: After my daughters head into class, the first thing I do is gather their coats and shoes and bags, which, because we’ve been in such a state of haste, are scattered around the lobby. Next, I equip my son with dinosaur books, Power Rangers stickers, and some crayons to keep him occupied. Then, I take out my book to read. But wait – Owen has just wandered over to the retail area of the dance studio. He is taking leotards off the rack and pulling them down over his head and face in the attempt to look like a masked superhero. I deal with the situation straightaway and can’t imagine how I will make it through the next 55 minutes.

Julie: When class is over, Julie and her sweet daughter scoop up the baby and their belongings and leave the studio without issue. She heads home to her five other kids (yes, this woman is the mother of seven!), where I suspect she whips up an enormous, beautifully presented, nutritionally well-balanced meal.

Me: Only in a perfect world could we scoop up our belongings and leave the studio without issue. Owen has spilled his entire box of crayons and is pissed because half of them are now broken. Caroline is starving and needs something to eat right this very moment. Jane has lost one of her ballet shoes. Trying my best to meet and manage all their needs, I literally have sweat trickling from my brow. Get me the hell out of here.

***

I’m out with some good friends for drinks. Over my glass of wine, I tell Tonya how inadequate I feel compared to Julie.

“She looks exactly like the Madonna – and by the Madonna I don’t mean the singer, I mean the Virgin Mary,” I lament. “I’m not kidding when I say that a halo radiates from her head. She’s got this shine all around her. She never loses her patience.”

Tonya thinks some of Julie’s extreme self-composure is a façade. “I’m sure she loses her patience, just maybe not in public,” she points out.

“Well, then, I wonder what she thinks of me, because I am someone who regularly loses her patience in public.”

“I think you’re being too hard on yourself,” Tonya says. “You embrace the full spectrum of human emotion, and that’s good for your kids to see. In fact, I bet that Julie looks at you and wishes she had some of your...” (she chews her lip, carefully considering the right words to use) “…energy and enthusiasm!”  

     

“Really? You think she wishes she had some of my energy and enthusiasm?” For some reason, the idea pleases me immensely.

“Well, maybe not,” Tonya admits. “But I’m sure there are moms out there who do.”

She may or may not be correct, my dear friend Tonya. I take a slug of wine and tell myself that, at the very least, I am a well-rounded mom. After all, it’s a weeknight and I’m out drinking with people I love. Julie, I can assure you, is not.

Being a non-Madonna mother does have its perks.   

Nocturnal

Dear Sleep,

Remember me? We used to be friends.

You visited me every night until I had children. I correctly assumed I wouldn’t see you for awhile, but that was years ago. Why haven’t you returned?

My kids are no longer infants. They sleep through the night without needing a bottle or diaper change. I, on the other hand, don’t recall what it’s like to feel well-rested. Is this the great curse of motherhood?

Once darkness falls, my mind is like a nocturnal bat. It comes to life, flying hither, thither and yon. I beg my mind to please, please just hang upside down and go to sleep, but it’s incapable of taking a break.  

The only benefit of having a nocturnal-bat like mind is that I cover a lot of territory during the nighttime hours. I compose grocery lists, consider all the places where our lost library book could be, and weigh the pros and cons of my daughters auditioning for dance team. It’s amazing that I accomplish all these tasks from the comfort of my very own bed! I’d be much more pleased with my staggering productivity if I weren’t so tired and crabby.    

                                                                                 

I would appreciate the opportunity to rekindle our relationship, Sleep. With you, I’d be a better wife and mother. In fact, I’d be a better person overall. Please rescue me from my mind’s recurrent nighttime flights.

Thank you for considering my request. 

Most sincerely,

Laura

Klepto

Owen, age 4

Part I

Apparently, I’ve been robbed.

It’s the beginning of summer and I’m trying to buy swim goggles for my children. I haven’t actually purchased the goggles yet, because as soon as I open my wallet, my blood goes cold with the discovery that it’s completely empty.

Lying limply on the counter, my eviscerated wallet reminds me of a gutted fish. It’s unnerving and unnatural to look at.     

“Oh my God,” I say to the lady behind the register, trying to tamp down my rising panic. “Someone stole from my wallet. Everything is gone.” 

“Should I call the police?” she offers. She is very compassionate, but I don’t know how to answer her. I was prepared to buy three pairs of swim goggles, not deal with an act of thievery. While waiting for my response, she helpfully tells me that she can put the goggles on hold until I can find a way to pay for them.

I rub my throbbing temples and wonder how and when someone could have stolen from me. My 7-year-old daughters, who have been watching the scene unfold, are solicitous. My 4-year-old son is avoiding me.

My 4-year-old son is avoiding me.

I level my laser-like gaze on him and notice that he is trying very hard to act as if everything is normal and fine. Damn if everything is normal and fine! I can see right through his charade.

I tell the lady behind the register that I’ll be back. I haul my son from the store, my daughters trailing behind. When we get out on the sidewalk, the inquisition begins.

“Did you steal from Mommy’s wallet?” I ask him, in the scary, gravelly voice I employ when I’m furious.

“No,” he whispers.

“DID YOU STEAL FROM MOMMY’S WALLET?!” I repeat. I swear that steam is pouring from my ears.

“Yes,” he whispers.

“Thank you for being honest, Owen,” I say, kneeling on the cement so we can talk without making a scene in public. Except I suspect it might be too late for that.

“You cannot steal from people’s wallets. You cannot take things that don’t belong to you, especially when they’re important things like credit cards and money and driver’s licenses. Do you understand?” He nods.

My son has taken many things from me – namely my sanity, patience and composure – but nothing has been as alarming as his stealing from my wallet. So I go a little over the top.  

“Without money and credit cards, I can’t buy you swim goggles, candy or new shoes,” I explain. “And without my driver’s license, I can get in a lot of trouble. What if I got pulled over for speeding and I didn’t have my driver’s license? The police officer would get angry, and I could go to jail. Do you want me to go to jail?”

We agree that it would be far from ideal if I went to jail. We discuss the importance of not taking other people’s things. Then we conclude that we’ll never steal anything from Mommy’s wallet again.

We drive home, and Owen retrieves my driver’s license, money, Papa Murphy’s punch cards (why do I have so many of them?), etc. Everything has been snugly stowed in his prized treasure box under his bed. I confiscate the treasure box and delineate the rest of his consequences.

Later, we return to the swimming store and I procure the goggles, reflecting on what a good learning experience this has been for Owen. I handled the situation really well, I think, patting myself on the back. I’m glad we got this stealing thing worked out. Way to go, Laura!

I bask in my success, which ends up being quite temporary.

Part II

It’s three days later. We are at the library, where each of my children has collected a chin-high stack of books that they can’t wait to read when they get home. 

We head to the check-out, trying to keep our unwieldy towers from toppling. I open my wallet to get out my library card. Much to my tremendous displeasure, I find that it’s empty. But this time, there is one lone survivor of the ambush: my driver’s license.

I tow my howling children from the library, their books only to be re-shelved by irritated librarians. I console myself with the thought that, although my sweet kleptomaniac son will probably end up in jail someday, at least he didn’t want me to go.

List

Me, age 37

A teenage boy down the block has killed himself.

I see the boy’s mother driving up the street in her car, shattered and hidden behind dark sunglasses. My heart hurts. I cannot begin to imagine the grief that has swallowed her whole. I don’t want to imagine it. Instead, I pull my three children close and hold them tight, kissing their precious faces until they start to squirm.

How does she manage to get into a car and drive? I wonder. How does she get out of bed in the morning and physically hold herself upright?

As I dwell on how she is coping with such inconceivable sorrow, I realize with a start that I need to add suicide to my list. Immediately.

My list is the ongoing mental inventory I keep of the tragic things that cannot, under any circumstances, happen to my children. 

Each night before bed, I recite my list, enumerating everything that has the power to harm my kids. By naming these things in all their brute power and ugliness, I feel like I can somehow ward them off and keep them far away from my family. I know this is an illusion, but my list feels like a sacred litany, the most holy thing I can do as a mother.

Please God, I implore, keep my children safe from disease, cancer, mental illness, addiction, assault, rape, violence, natural disasters, car accidents, household accidents, bike accidents, drowning, kidnapping, choking, electrocution, acts of terrorism.

And now, at the end of that long dismal line: suicide.

I wrack my brain: is there anything else I’m missing? Not that I can think of, but sooner or later my list will grow. I’ll open the newspaper and read about a dreadful new calamity, and then suicide will be followed by something just as unbearable.

The courage required to be a mother is staggering. I’m overwhelmed thinking about how we try, in a million different ways, to protect our children from the world’s most unimaginable heartaches. We work so hard to raise up healthy and compassionate children in the face of – in defiance of – these perils. It makes me appreciate how much dignity and grace there are in the mundane details of our days, braiding hair, packing lunches, clipping little fingernails.

We have such simple and abundant goodness right here in our hands, if only for a fleeting moment or two.

I’m hanging onto it for dear life.

I wish you all a peaceful and blessing-filled Mother’s Day, especially Maria down the street. She is always on my mind. This post is dedicated to her.

Words

When I speak, it’s like I’m alone in a padded room.

The words that leave my mouth bump into the padded walls, falling with muted thuds onto the padded floor. Then they roll soundlessly into a dark padded corner where no one pays them any attention.  

Being in this padded room with my shriveled up words is starting to make me feel a little insane.

“I might be going crazy,” I say to myself, “because no one in this family listens to me.”

It’s true. When I talk, nothing seems to penetrate the ears of my husband or children.

“The only person who pays attention when I speak is…. me,” I say. Suddenly it’s obvious why I’m always talking to myself: when I talk, I listen. I remain my own best audience.

When I ask myself to take out the trash, for example, I comply. When I suggest that we be on time for school, I act accordingly. When I announce that dinner is ready, I wash my hands and sit down at the table. If I were competing in a family listening contest, I would be the unmistakable winner.  

Curiously, the only time my family chooses to listen to me is when I’m saying something I don’t actually want them to hear. Like when I’m driving my car, which is an SUV so cavernous that shouting is the sole form of effective communication, and I happen to utter a profanity under my breath (e.g., “This traffic is so freaking shitty!” or “Damn it, this funeral procession is making us late for the soccer game!”). From out of nowhere, a chorus of accusations erupts (e.g., “Mommy said a swear word!”, “Mommy has bad language!” etc. etc.).

From a scientific viewpoint, it makes no sense. How in the world is it possible that they hear me when I’m cursing at just 15 decibels in the front seat of my tank-like car, but they give no indication that I exist when I’m hollering inside the house at a whopping 85 decibels, many times directly in their faces?  

“It’s baffling,” I declare.

“I agree. I understand why you’re frustrated,” I reply to myself.

“Thanks for the validation, Laura.”

“You’re welcome, Laura.”

I am confident that one day in the distant future my family will begin listening to me, perhaps even appreciating what I say. But until then, I hang out in the padded room, retrieving my neglected words from their dark corner. I carefully dust them off and tuck them into the refuge of my pocket, giving them some of the tenderness they deserve.  

The migratory patterns of my laundry

Every day, a flock of laundry descends from the upper level of the living quarters. The precise time of the flock’s arrival is inconsistent, but it arrives without fail, swooping down to the ground floor of the habitat. It is brightly colored and diverse in size; it is odorous and soiled.

The flock’s destination is the washing machine, where all members will be thoroughly cleaned. Under typical conditions, the flock rests in close proximity to the machine, often for 2-3 days. Although the flock is an ordinary part of the habitat’s scenery, it remains a curiosity to onlookers who are unaccustomed to seeing a dirty flock stay in the same exact location for such a long span of time.

Soon, the mother of the household, who attempts to monitor the movements of the flock but generally does not succeed, determines that it is washing day. A thrilling drama ensues, relying on soap, spinning water, and a great deal of heat.

The flock’s motive of being cleaned has been accomplished. Eventually, migration back to the upper level of the living quarters will commence. But first, the flock is relocated to a space nearby referred to as a “dining room”, where the agonizing process of waiting begins. Lingering for as many as 3-4 days, the flock is certainly an oddity to passersby who marvel at its staying power in such an unusual environment.

Finally, the mother of the household enters the dining room, makes a guttural noise as if resigning herself to the task ahead, and sorts the flock into pre-determined categories, folding and smoothing and stacking as she goes. Subsequently, the flock ascends to the upper level of the living quarters, where each member lands in its original nesting place. 

Requiring an average of 6 days to travel a total of 120 feet, the great migration is complete*.

*It is critical to note that, although this particular flock has made it safely home, other flocks are continually on the move, which means that the laundry’s migratory patterns never cease.