Ode to my kitchen chair

Lovely chair, standing in my kitchen,

my feet are sore and my arse is itchin’

to sit upon you and eat my lunch,

but this won’t happen, I have a hunch.

As soon as my bum reaches the seat

a child asks for more to eat,

so up I jump to grab the ham

and apples and cheese and bread with jam.

I’d love to eat my tomato soup hot,

but I’m constantly dashing to the pot.

Feeding my kids makes me break a sweat,

I burn more calories than I ingest, I bet.

Finally I’m able to take a bite,

my soup is cold but that’s all right.

I shove it in my mouth, quickly you see,

since one must be ready for a food emergency.

Alas! Spilled milk, trashing the floor!

Before you can blink, I’m down on all fours.

I mop and I wipe, making it clean.

Forget my soup, I need some bloody caffeine…

Lovely chair, standing in my kitchen,

to unite with you is my ambition.

Someday, far off, I’ll sit on you to eat,

but, until then, I’ll wolf down my meals on my feet.

 

 

“My mother had not had a hot meal for herself in 15 years.”

- From the film A Christmas Story



Coin

Me, age 37

Dear Sigita,

Welcome back from maternity leave! It was wonderful seeing you last night – my eyebrows are especially pleased that they no longer resemble furry caterpillars. You are the best esthetician a girl could ask for.

Although we covered a lot of ground during our 15-minute appointment – I loved hearing about your sweet new baby – there was so much that went unsaid on my part. Just as we were finishing up, you mentioned, with a palpable sense of dismay, that you wished someone would have told you how difficult the transition into motherhood was going to be. You confessed you had no idea it would overwhelm and frustrate you so much.

As soon as the admission was out of your mouth, like every other mother I know (myself included), you looked stricken. “But I love being a mother,” you said, the words tripping over each other. “I feel terrible saying that I’m struggling, because I adore my son more than anything!”

I should have spoken up at that very moment. I should have climbed right off that comfy eyebrow-waxing bed and put my hands on your shoulders and shaken them (lightly of course), telling you that you do not need to feel guilty for being overwhelmed and frustrated.  

Why don’t we, as women, better prepare new mothers for this onslaught of conflicting emotion? I mean, how many times did I get my eyebrows waxed while you were pregnant? At least nine or ten, which means I had ample opportunity to tell it to you straight. I could have explained to you that the lows would be really, really low, but the highs would be higher than you could fathom. Why didn’t I ever bring it up?

I think it’s because until one actually becomes a mother, it’s difficult to comprehend the emotional stamina that’s required for the job. I could have set the scene for you, but I suspect it may have done more damage than good:

“Listen, Sigita, there will come a day in the not-so-distant future when you’re trying to get dinner on the table, and your son is screaming bloody hell. You’re exhausted and you have a headache, and crap – you realize you’re out of milk. Your house is a catastrophe, there are mountains of laundry on your living room sofa to fold, and you just want to lie down on the floor and close your eyes for a minute or two. But you can’t. Instead, you find yourself moaning, ‘What did I do to deserve this?’”

But then, there’s the flip side:

“Sigita, your new baby will make you a better human being. He will help you discover reservoirs of courage and strength you never knew you had. Because of him, you will find that you have thicker skin and a mightier voice and a new appreciation for things you used to take for granted – things like holidays and your parents and washing machines and crossing guards. You will laugh more and sing more, even if you’re a super bad singer. Your heart will hurt because you love him so enormously, and as you stare into his perfect little eyes you will wonder, ‘What did I do to deserve this?’”

Isn’t that motherhood, in a nutshell? Two faces of one exquisite, epic, life-altering coin.

Would you have believed me if I had told you?

Sending love,

Laura

Prison and poles

Me, age 39

One of the highlights of my week is my small group training session (“SGT”) at the Y.

Here is a snapshot from SGT: my friends Julie, Kate, Corrie and I sweat copiously while Will, our trainer, barks at us to push tires, do mountain climbers, and run up and down three flights of stairs.  

SGT is torture for my body, but it’s fabulous for my mind. From the moment SGT begins, Julie, Kate, Corrie and I do not stop talking. We literally spend the entire hour commiserating about our children – what struggles they’re having at school, how they’re misbehaving at home, why (in my case, at least) they steal things even though we tell them it’s wrong, etc. etc. SGT is brilliant: as we burn calories, we expunge some of the anxiety we have about our kids.    

“Do you guys ever shut up?” Will yells at us. He should know the answer by now. No, we never shut up. From the plank position, Kate calls out, “I just got an idea! We need to rename SGT ‘small group therapy’ because that’s really what this is!” Will rolls his eyes and tells us we worry too much about our children.

He is probably right. I worry about the small things: Does my daughter have an ear infection? Is my son getting a sufficient amount of protein? Are they going to be late for school? And then I worry about the big ones: Is my daughter self-confident enough? When will my son develop impulse-control? Will my three kids ever stop fighting? What if they are never best friends like I am with my sisters? If they aren’t best friends, whom will they lean on when my husband and I die someday?

My husband, like Will, kindly suggests that I quit obsessing.

Easy for him to say. He is far more laid-back, distilling his philosophy of parental concern into the following statement: “Our job as parents is to keep our son out of prison and our daughters off the pole.” (Stripper pole, he means.) “If I see any behavior now that leads me to question if our kids are headed that way, then I’ll worry.”

OK. Well. I certainly never factored stripper poles into my childrearing approach, but I suppose he has a point, even if it’s a bit oversimplified. I think both of us have the same end-goal of raising healthy, well-adjusted, responsible young people. But whereas I have the ability to take one concern (why does my nine-year-old daughter still have temper tantrums?) and completely inflate it (will she ever grow into a mature, reasonable, emotionally well-balanced adult?), my husband is calm and pragmatic. He seems to think we’re doing a good job pointing our children in the right direction. He's sure they’ll figure things out as time unfolds.

***

While swinging kettle bells at SGT, I tell Julie, Kate and Corrie about the prison/pole concept. We laugh about it for a few minutes, conceding that my husband might be on to something.

Then, with Will (bless his heart) trying his best to be patient with us, we go right back to worrying about our kids.

Manual

Me, age 39

I just got home from a four-day getaway in Seattle with my best friend from college. To say it was sublime is not hyperbole.

Every year, Mari and I meet somewhere different. Regardless of our destination, we call it our “mama trip” – not because we have our children in tow, but because we spoil our mama selves rotten, attending to no one else’s needs but our own. We coddle each other with as much rest and relaxation as possible (think mani/pedis, bookstores, sushi, wine, more wine, etc.). It is our valiant attempt to replenish our spirits and thus sustain ourselves through the other 361 days of the year when we’re at home.

In preparation for my four days away, I compile a comprehensive document for my husband. It is so well researched and presented, in fact, that it deserves the official name of “manual.” A whopping seven pages in length, my manual is such a work of art that it even contains attachments, footnotes, and pie-charts. Ok, I’m lying about the footnotes and pie-charts, but my manual is exceedingly meticulous, if nothing else.

Pertinent information about our children, their schedules, their extracurricular activities, and their preferred food items are highlighted in my manual, along with relevant phone numbers and a list of available pre-made dinner entrees for them to eat, purchased weeks ago at Costco and nestled in our freezer.

Let’s be honest: I know that my family is fine without me, for a few days at least. They’re not dumb. They can figure things out. But I do believe it’s better for all parties involved if I provide germane details such as when the kids need to be picked up from school, what time Owen plays soccer on Saturday morning, and where my daughters’ extra ballet tights are stored. If I don’t provide these specifics, chaos ensues. And because there’s already a high degree of chaos that inherently exists in my household, I don’t want to be the clod that adds to it. But at the same time, I find myself wondering:
 

How did I get relegated to being the domestic know-it-all?

I don’t know the answer, but I am aware that a gaping discrepancy exists between my husband and me – in spite of the fact that he does his fair share with the kids. When I depart for a measly four days, I equip him with a manual and leave the house fully stocked for any crisis that may crop up. Furthermore, while I’m away, I’m in constant communication if he needs me. For instance, just two hours after I depart for my mama trip, he texts to ask where Caroline’s jeans are located. I respond, “Where they always are. Why are you asking me this?” He texts back, “Because you have the uncanniest knack for knowing where any given item can be found in our house.” (Was I simply born being a domestic know-it-all? Or did I develop a talent for it because, God help me, there’s no other option? Either way, I did not ask for this.)  

On the flip side, when my husband prepares for his annual weeklong fishing expedition to Canada, his planning has nothing whatsoever to do with our family. He busies himself with packing lures, tents and water filters. He leaves me no manual. He leaves me no post-it note. On his way out the door, he kisses me goodbye and rattles off the phone number for his outfitter.

Do you know what an outfitter is? After my husband and his buddies drive 15 hours north into the middle of nowhere, their outfitter – a guy named Harlan – flies them on a float plane and deposits them (and their canoes and fishing tackle) on a desolate lake. I ask my husband what would happen if I really needed to talk to him while he’s gone, seeing as though cell phones don’t work up there. Blithely, he replies, “Well, Harlan would know roughly where I’ll be because we have to file a route plan beforehand. The sites where we will be camping and fishing are only a 20 minute flight from civilization, so sooner or later he might be able to track me down.”

Perhaps he’s on to something; perhaps Mari and I need to visit a remote lake in Canada for our next mama trip. 

***

Now that I’m settling back into reality, shuffling through the papers and mail that have accumulated on the kitchen counter in my absence, I find my manual. I’m glad to report that it has served its purpose. Wrinkled, dog-eared and coffee-stained, it has clearly been read (and re-read) by my husband, who successfully got the kids to and from where they needed to be without letting them go naked or hungry.     

I have long suspected that women run the world, but now I am convinced of it.

Trash

Since becoming a mother nine years ago, I have experienced a fundamental shift in how and to what degree I stimulate my intellect. Pre-children, I:

• Listened to NPR throughout the day
• Watched CNN while folding laundry and making dinner
• Read periodicals like Newsweek, Fast Company, and The Chronicle of Philanthropy

 As a result of these smart-person activities, I was well versed in current events and held strong opinions about Important Things. This is no longer the case. Nowadays, I:

• Subscribe to People, practically snatching it out of my mailman’s hands when he delivers it each Friday afternoon
• Visit InStyle’s “Look of the Day” website every morning to see who looked hot on the red carpet
• Rot my brain on shows like Kimora: House of Fab, and The Rachel Zoe Project, and Joan & Melissa: Joan Knows Best? 

My husband, who finds me drooling in front of the TV as Rachel attends a to-die-for Oscar de la Renta fashion show in Paris, loses his marbles. “How can someone who majored in English watch this trash?!” he hollers. “You’ve traded Anderson Cooper for a bunch of idiots!” He shakes his head sadly, wondering where the woman he married has gone.

It’s true. I have traded Anderson Cooper for a bunch of idiots. But they’re attractive, well-dressed, entertaining idiots!

I make no apologies for my love of trash. The time and energy that my children require of me, coupled with all the bad news that’s out there, leave me with no desire to face the real world. I do not have the capacity.  

For the record, I’m not the only well-educated, reasonably bright mother who has downgraded. I see this same trend among my own friends.

Take Laura, for instance, whom I have known since the age of four. Not only do we share the same name, but we both have three kids and adore celebrity gossip. Laura has a subscription to US Weekly, calling it “the gift that keeps on giving.” She claims that US Weekly is better than People because People “has too many long feature articles.” (This from the mouth of a woman who has a master’s degree in medieval history!)

“I like to look at the photos and fashion and see what the new trends are. And because I’m frequently interrupted by my kids while trying to do anything, I need to be able to pick it up and put it down easily,” Laura says.

Amen, sister. I hear you.

Then there’s gentle, salt-of-the-earth Margaret. She’s the mother of four and has a master’s degree in religious education. Not only does she work at two local churches, but she harbors a serious addiction to The Real Housewives.

Get Margaret talking about The Real Housewives and she lights up like the sun. “I do not like the Real Housewives of DC or Miami, but I really like New Jersey, Orange County, Beverly Hills, and Atlanta,” she says. “It’s a total check-out from my reality. I like seeing what they’re wearing, and I find their ‘issues’ relatively easy to solve. I like to see what they spend their money on and what gets them riled up.”

 

The thought of mild-mannered Margaret gleefully cheering on grown women as they flip tables brings me a deep sense of contentment. I appreciate that she’s able to step away from her normal life as a mother (and nurturer of young Christian minds!) and embrace something so thoroughly brainless. Truth be told, she makes me feel better about my own dependence on the stuff.

If trash continues to bring moms like me and Laura and Margaret – and a whole slew of you out there, don’t be ashamed to admit it – a sense of relief from the drudgery of our days, then keep it coming. I want the whole dumpster, baby.