Savoring the moment, for once

Recently, my son turned nine. Every birthday brings with it nostalgia and prompts a stock-taking, but this birthday seemed different, somehow, and not just to me. I talked to some other moms about it, friends I've known since our kids were in Mommy Group together as infants, and they agreed, this birthday felt different. Not more meaningful or anything -- it just felt like the kids had suddenly gotten really, really old. Like they'd stepped onto the bridge that takes them from little kids to the thing that come next .

My friend Grace, whose daughter is one day younger than Primo, told me: "She's nine, and that marks the halfway point of the years she'll spend living with us. We're halfway done with that part of her life. And it's happening so fast, I can't even pay attention most of the time."

I didn't stop to tell her that what with the trend of twenty and thirtysomethings continuing to live at home, her daughter might have another decade before she reaches the halfway point.

"It just made me think," Grace went on, "Am I doing a good job as a mom? I don't even have the time to think about it."

And we won't, I suspect, until much much later, until it's too late in fact, to make a difference. You'll never "enjoy them while they're young" as much as you wish you had. You'll never "savor every moment." But you savor some, and that just has to be good enough.

On Primo's birthday, all three kids were home sick: strep, strep and a double ear infection. It wasn't the birthday I'd hoped for him. I was exhausted from being up half the night with a suffering baby and I suddenly went all Tiger Mom on him and forced him to write thank you cards and drill his times tables and I yelled at him about watching too much TV. When I stopped to ask myself "Am I doing a good job?" that night, I thought, "No."

Then, a few days later, when he was back at school, I met him for lunch. We had burgers and he told me about Ponce DeLeon. And I looked at him, awe-struck, just bowled over by the enormity of it, all of it. That he was my son. That I'd carried him in me for those long months at a time that was now long ago. That there was a time before he existed. That despite of me and because of me, there was this beautiful, kind, loving, funny person sitting opposite me, a person I'd never be whole without anymore, a person I would think about, and worry about, every minute for the rat of my life and beyond, a person that was part me but more and more not-me every day.  I just sat there and marveled at him, and motherhood, at time. And the moment stretched on, like something out of a Virginia Woolf novel, and it felt, for once, that I wasn't missing any of it.

How I was born

Usually, I feel like I'm failing as a parent. I'm never as patient as I want to be. I'm talk before thinking too much. I don't listen enough. I never have enough time to spend quality time and drill times tables and play Barbies and teach how to tie shoes and cook with the kids and all that stuff.

Sometimes, though, I feel like maybe I'm doing something right. And when I stumble upon those moments, I try to savor them because I know another one won't pop up for a few more weeks.

Yesterday, Seconda was sitting at the kitchen counter eating a bowl os strawberries (check mark there for healthful snack) and watching My Little Pony on the iPad (X mark there for too much screen time). I was loading the dishwasher. The baby was sleeping and Primo was on a winter hike with his father.

"You get what you get and you don't get upset," Seconda said loudly. Emphatically. Then she looked up and asked me, "Do you want to know why i said that, Mommy?"

"Yes," I said. Usually she doesn't offer explanations and if I ask, she gets uber-annoyed.

"I said that because I really, really, really wish I had wings." She sighed, "But I know that this is the way God made me and the way you are born is how you stay. Until I go to heaven, and then, I will be a pegasus!"

I just stood there at the dishwasher, pretty much in awe of the child I'd created but can only take a tiny amount of credit for.

"That is a wonderful thing to tell yourself," I said, "And I think I'm going to tell myself the same thig the next time I feel disappointed or frustrated with the way I am or the way I look. Becaause I feel that way too, sometimes. Everyone does."

I was proud of her. And proud of myself, too, for doing at least something right the past six years.

The Sunny Side of Sickness

For a few weeks when Primo was an infant, I did something pretty out of character -- I took him to Mommy and Me yoga class in the neighborhood. Its not that I have anything against yoga : in fact, I quite enjoy it as a form of exercise. I just get turned off when I feel I have to subscribe to a certain way of life or be a certain kind of person to "practice" yoga. I am not constitiuonally capable of quiet meditation and anything that hints at that tends to get me deeply anxious. In this way, Mommy and Me yoga was actually perfect, because there is no slim possibility of quiet meditation in a room full of screaming babies and toddlers. So, for a few months, I took him and we sang Wheels on the Bus while in downward facing dog. It was nice.

The other reason I liked Mommy and Me yoga was the teacher who led the group. At one of the first classes I went to, she told a story which made a tremendous impression on me. I am fairly certain I will never forget it. In fact, I think of her story a few times a year, usually in the winter, whenever I get dog-sick, as I was last week.

The instructor was a young mom of little kids and she always offered a little chit-chat in the beginning of class, getting everyone nice and relaxed and comfortable. On this particular day, she was telling us how she'd been really sick the week before.

"I was feeling bad for a few days," she recounted, "But when you've got little kids, as we know, you don't get to take a break when you're sick. Its just business as usual, except you feel so lousy. But then, after a few days, something wonderful happened. I got so sick that I was let off the hook. And I'd never thought I'd feel happy about shitting myself AND throwing up at the same time, but I did, because I knew that it would mean I could finally take a break. That's what happens when you're a mom."

It was pretty hilarious and fairly un-yoga-like, from what I could gather in my limited experience. And also a little harrowing, a little like the beginning of the Deer Hiunter when the fucked-up vet talks to the new solider about the war. I mean, childbirth is no piece of cake and its certainly not pretty but a few months into motherhood and I couldn't even IMAGINE being so desperate for a release from my duties that I'd joyfully shit myself and yak in my own hair at the same time. To know that was coming was a little unsettling. But man, she was right.

No onw wants to be sick, and God knows I freaking deplore it. But being moderately sick, when you have young kids, is kind of the worst, because you can be moderately sick for a long-ass time, weeks really, always getting a little worse, more and more run-down because being moderately sick doesn't win you an exemption from ANY freaking Mommy duties. You'll just have to drag your queasy, headachey, unsteady ass to work and swim class and after-school playdates and trick or treating. You'll have to throw birthday parties and make dinner and clean up the house and meet your deadlines no matter how shitty you feel. But when you turn the corner and get REALLY sick, you just can't anymore and someone - you don't care who - has to step in, for the good of the children. You're simply incapable of carrying on with business as usual and its not even an option. Swim class can go to hell. Similarly, playdates. Parties will have to be rescheduled. Someone else will have to pick the kids up from school and wipe their asses. ANd you will take your feverish ass, your shitty britches, your upchucking mouth and park it in bed. And sleep all day. I mean, its living the dream in many ways.

But you can't tell that to a pregnant woman. It'd scare the daylights out of her. Like the nasty details of post-partum recovery, there are some things that are better left unknown.

The thanks we get

You know what's great? When you hear your daughter laughing hysterically at the The Little Mermaid in the other room, and are so overwhelmed by the love for her that you cannot restrain yourself from rushing in, taking your darling child's angelic face in your hands and saying, "I love you more than anything in the world!" To which breathless declaration, she issues the reply, "GET OFF Mommy! I'm watching the MOVIE!"

Let's just say we don't get into the mothering racket for the thanks we get.

Before I Was A Mother

When my son was almost a year old, I got forwarded this email called something like, "Before I Became A Mom"-- a pretty darn corny list of ways in which motherhood had changed the writer. It read to me like that wrong answer one is tempted to give when an interviewer or application asks you to name your greatest weakness, and you say, "I guess my biggest weakness is I just try too hard to be perfect!" Its bullshit and we all know it.

So I wrote a list of my own, and this was several years ago, when Primo was just under one, before Seconda was around, in what I now see was the "honeymoon" period of motherhood. If I were to write an updated version of this list now, it wouldn't be quite so mild in either direction. Honestly I don't know if my dear readers cold even handle my current "Before I was a Mother," because, man, having two hellraisers two years apart, will bring you to some heady highs and some gritty lows. But at this, the end of the first week of Kindergarten, I'm just thinking of how me and my baby made it through, both of us, our greatest separation yet, and I thought I'd revisit this. It may be sort of corny but that doesn't make it less true.

Before I was a mother

My teeth were always brushed, my legs were shaved. My house was in order. I did not trip over rattles or step on Cheerios, I did not find my telephone in the fridge. I did know knowingly leave the house with drool or vomit on my pants.

Before I was a mother

My breasts were decoration. They made blouses fit right and plunging necklines attractive. They were the same size every day. I wore lacy, push up bras. And sometimes no bra at all.

Before I was a mother

I feared motherhood. I was certain I would fail. I couldn’t imagine how it all would work.

Before I was a mother

I had plenty of time with my husband. We dined out, drank wine and saw art films. We stayed in bed until noon on weekends. We took road trips with no end in sight. We finished our sentences.

Before I was a mother

I understood pain only in the general sense. I did not beg for spinal injections and I did not pant on all fours in public.

Before I was a mother

I could not tell one stroller from another. I could not recite the theories of pediatric sleep experts or the schedule for infant immunizations. I thought cradle cap was an accessory. I did not call anyone “little goat” or “stinky butt” or “my old heart.”

Before I was a mother

I dreamt of being a mother. And when I woke, my arms ached from the emptiness of no baby there. I was a puzzle with important pieces missing, right in the middle. My shoulder was not a cushion, my hip was not a resting place, my breast was not nourishment.

Before I was a mother

My heart did not feel in Technicolor. The sight of a chest rising and falling could not paralyze me with gratitude. The sound of monsyllablic babble could not cause me to guffaw. The feel of a heart pounding very fast next to mine did not render me speechless and cause me to cry. I did not say my prayers every night. I did not offer thanks every day.

Just another day in paradise

I battled a mortal enemy all day yesterday and that enemy was my son. He woke up and, for no apparent reason, suddenly despised me. I understand that this is something which happens during the teen years but he is only 4 1/2, for the love of God.

He continued to despise me until bedtime, when he had a spasm of contrition which set him straight. I, of course, accepted his unspoken apology, and told him I will always forgive him no matter what he does, for as long as I am alive, and beyond, because he is my boy and I love him unconditionally. That said, had there been a pack of gypsies passing through Park Slope yesterday, I probably would have sold him off. Because yesterday Primo was a primo jerko.

“I HATE YOU MOMMY!” is how it began in the morning. That was because after his sister drew on the brand-new, impeccably white solid wood door which belongs to the home I know own, in ballpoint pen, I put her in a Time-Out. A useless, ineffective, what’s-the-point-but-what-else-are-you-gonna-do? Time-Out. And although 90% of his waking hours are spent complaining about Seconda, in this one moment, he decided he was her fiercest ally and was resolute about doing her time with her.

“You can’t be in there when she’s doing Time-Out. It defeats the purpose!”

“I don’t care what you say. She’s my sister and I’m not leaving!”

I told him I applauded his loyalty, nay, more than applauded, I gave it a standing ovation – it thrilled me and made me proud.

“But you have to do what I say and get out of the room. Now.”

No way, Jose, nothi8ng doing. The worst part is, while he’s being openly defiant like this, he laughs his head off, like my discipline is all a big, hilarious joke. Really knows how to drive me crazy, that one. So after asking and demanding that he listen to my instructions a few more times, I pulled him out of the room kicking and screaming so his sister could have a Time-Out which was so undeterring that five minutes later she drew on the new coffee table in crayon.

After that Primo was just stuck on the “Hate Mommy” dial, and everything was my fault. His Lego creation of the Sphinx in front of the pyramids broke and it was my fault. He didn’t want chicken soup for lunch despite telling me that he did, and that was my fault. We made homemade ice cream with a brand-new electric homemade ice cream and it was my fault because the ice cream took too long to freeze.

The worst part is, when one of the kids is having a naughty day (and I am being euphemistic here because what I really mean is a day when they are mean as a f#$king sewer rat), the other one is even naughtier. It is sympathetic unhappiness. When Seconda is unhappy, she whines and cries. Loudly and incessantly. So all I heard yesterday was this wall of crying punctuated by Primo’s verbal abuse.

“I HATE YOU MOMMY!”
“I WISH I DIDN’T HAVE A MOMMY”
“I WISH YOU WOULD GO AWAY!”
“I’M GOING TO CUT YOU!”
“I FEEL LIKE NO ONE LOVES ME!”
“YOU ARE A BAD MOMMY!”
“I HOPE YOUR NOSE GETS STUCK IN AN ELEVATOR!”

“If my nose gets stuck in the elevator.” I replied, “I will have to go to the hospital and stay there in intensive care for many days and you will have to stay with NANA AND BABBO!!!!!!!!!!”

That shut him up for a brief spell.

In the midst of this maelstrom of hate, I had to bring the kids down to the lobby to return the luggage cart we’d been using to haul stuff up to our new place. It was about 4pm and none of us were wearing shoes, Sec wasn’t wearing any pants, and Primo was in his PJs. We looked like a bunch of hobos. We exit the elevator and while I am returning the cart to its place, Sec – a social butterfly, even half-dressed – starts up a conversation with a little girl just her age, waiting quietly in the lobby with her dad and newborn baby sister.

“I’m Seconda and this is my brother Primo and this is our new house. What’s your name girl. Say your name!”

So I walk over to talk to the dad, “How old is she? . . . What floor do you live on? . . . Oh what a cute baby,” etc. and while I am exchanging these pleasantries, my son is standing next to me saying, “I hate you Mommy, I hate you, I feel like no one loves me. I hate you. I want you to go away.”

The dad looked very uncomfortable, and I felt like we were the trailer trash making a scene in the nice establishment. And I wanted to say to him, “Oh sure, everything’s great now, huh? I mean, you just had baby number two and you probably think things are so HARD and you’re so EXHAUSTED but trust me, everything right now is friggin’ great. You don’t know what’s coming, man. You have no idea. You will be us in exactly two years, my friend. Standing here in the lobby with no shoes on and in your PJs in mid-afternoon, trying to make small talk when your oldest tells you he wishes your nose would get caught in an elevator. This is your future. What do you think of that?????”

Of course I just took the kids and went back upstairs so the happy family could have a nice walk in the park while I suffered verbal abuse privately.

At bedtime though, after David read books, I went in to tell Prim his good night story and I’d changed into a pretty skirt and shirt because my BFF was coming to see the new place and we were headed out for a drink. When he saw me Primo gasped, actually gasped and said:

“Oh Mommy! You are so beautiful!”

“Thank you,” I said, hugging him, “Thank you for saying so.”

“Oh Mommy, what a beautiful dress! You are so beautiful! If you wore makeup like this every day you would look like you were in the CIRCUS!”

(This is the highest compliment coming from my son, and not an insult, as it would be ordinarily).

And that’s when I told him that even when we fight and even when I’m mad at him, I love him the whole time.

“You just can’t turn it off,” I said, “My love is like the ocean and the ocean never runs dry.”

Then I went out and had a very large White Russian and told the story to my best friend and felt much better.

Caught in the rain

You must know by now, readers, that I’m not a Hallmark-moments, chicken-soup-for-the-mother’s-soul kind of person. Its not that I’m against living in the moment and being grateful for the little things – on the contrary, I think it’s commendable. I just don’t usually have it in me.

But the great thing about life on earth is that every so often we end up surprising ourselves. Which happened to me just yesterday.

Primo’s been having a tough time going to school lately, and I’ve been taking extra measures to help him feel more comfortable saying goodbye at drop-off. One of these measures is bald-faced bribery. When he flatly told me yesterday that he was NOT going to school, “end of discussion,” I told him that if he did, I’d get him this Ed Emberely Halloween drawing book he’s been wanting. I promised I’d have it for him at pick-up. I’m very serious about keeping my promises to the kids, so there I was at pick-up, perky as can be, with the book in hand.

As it turned out, the book backfired. He was so excited about it that he ended up crying and miserable because his drawings didn’t look exactly like Ed Emberely’s. Then I tried to draw the pictures for him and he ended up crying because MY drawings didn’t look right. The entire meltdown happened on a bench in front of his school, with Seconda pressing buttons on a nearby ATM machine, petting ferocious-looking dogs without my permission and playing dangerously close to traffic.

It was clear that I was in for a long, awful afternoon with unhappy son and untamable daughter and I was pretty pissed about the prospect. In an effort to turn things around, I tried to take the kids to the playground but sad sack Primo refused to walk because “stuff” kept getting in his Crocs and this was very disquieting to him.

Furthermore, he informed me, I was being “selfish.”

He hastened to explain himself when he saw the look of disbelief flicker across my face.

“First you brought me this book I wanted after school," he started.

“Yes, I did.”

“That was nice.”

“Yes it was.”

“Then you drew pictures for me.”

“Yes, yes, that was nice, too.”

“And now you want to take me to the playground,” he concluded, having done a lousy job, in my opinion, of defending his position.

“Yes, I do want to take you to the playground,” I said, trying to manage my frustration and failing, “Because it is a BEAUTIFUL day and I want you to run around and have fun and leave me alone and be happy, LIKE A KID IS SUPPOSED TO DO!”

He grumpily conceded, and we, very slowly, walked to the playground. By the time we got there, the beautiful day was not so beautiful. In fact, it didn’t even look like day anymore. In fact, it was dark as Hades.

“It’s NIGHT,” Seconda noted.

“It looks like nighttime but it’s not night yet,” Primo corrected.

Raindrops had begun to fall. We could feel them. It didn’t just look like rain was coming. The rain had started. But it had taken us a flipping hour to get the playground, and we had done it, by God, we’d made it there, and nothing was going to make me turn around.

The kids played for about two minutes while the last, foolhardy caregivers fled with their charges in tow. We were the only people in the playground and it had become so dark, as Primo put it, it looked like we were “in a forest of darkness.”

And then it started to pour. A biblical rainfall that leaves you wondering if there’s an ark somewhere you could hitch a ride on.

A quick assessment of the stroller confirmed that there was no rain cover, no rain jackets, no umbrella, nothing in the way of deluge protection. And that’s when my Hallmark moment happened.

“Fuck it,” I thought.

“IT’S RAINING!!!!!”” I threw my head back and shouted.

“IT’S POURING!!!!” Primo sang

“DA OLD MAN IS ---- SNORING!!!!!!” Seconda brought it home.

Incredible sheets of water fell out of the sky so that within a minute we were sopping. The more it rained, the louder we sang.

“Let’s run to the awning!” Primo shouted.

“AWNING-HOPPING!” I yelled.

“HOPPING HOPPING HOPPING!” Sec shrieked.

“I AM WEEEEEEEEET!” yelled my son, laughing so hard he could hardly speak.

And we went on like this all the way home, yelling and whopping and laughing and loving the rain and life and each other. Especially each other.

When we got home, we peeled off our dripping clothes, wrapped ourselves in towels, and curled up on the couch to read a long book.

Turns out it wasn’t such an awful afternoon after all.

Mothers on the edge

Since there's no reason to stop celebrating Mother's Day just because its over, I went to the 3rd Annual Edgy Moms Reading on Thursday. Brooklyn isn't just the bloggiest place around, its also got the most kick-ass writers who just happen to be moms, per capita. Had a few glasses of white and thoroughly enjoyed the reading, especially Michele Madigan-Somerville's M.I.L.F poem, which used SAT words that I haven't heard since I quizzed myself with flash cards on the Staten Island Ferry, but sprinkled them with enough sizzle to make a highschooler blush. Amy Sohn's piece, an excerpt from her forthcoming book Prospect Park West, was another hilarious highlight. Nothing says funny like celebs shopping at the Coop. All in all, a fun, uplifting night with plenty of fellow feeling.

Have a heart (attack)

Yesterday the kids were rotten, really rotten. Primo’s having some sort of fraught moment where the rigors of daily living are unbearably aggravating to him. I can’t get him to eat or take a piss or put on his shirt or clean up his messes. He’s suddenly off-the-charts unreasonable.

Second skipped her nap because she was left under the guardianship of my grandmother, who finds it easier to keep her awake in a colossally shitty mood rather then endure the three minutes of protesting which precedes her napping. More on this another time. Suffice it to say that by 5pm, my apartment was a nuthouse. The inmates are running the asylum sort of thing.

Seconda is flipping out, crying ‘til the drool drips out of her open-wide mouth, for a reason I can not discern. It has something to do with Curious George. Does she want to watch it? NOOOOOOOO. So I turn it off. She continues to scream like something is seriously wrong with her innards. So she DOES want to watch it? YEEEEEEEES. Turn the TV back on. Crying continues.

“I am not a mind reader!!!!” I inform her. Especially not of crazy people.

Meanwhile Primo shouts that all I care about is Seconda and he really needs me to help him draw the smiling mouth of this vampire which he is copying out of a Judith Viorst book, and he needs my help urgently because the vampire looks HAPPY not SCARY and it is ALL WRONG. He is drawing a smile, I point out, which does run the risk of seeming happy, and I am not sure how to make it otherwise. This makes him Bruce-Banner-type angry. If I’d have known I was going to be forced under threat of tantrum to pen the complicated emotional states of characters from horror movies, I would have taken a few classes in figurative drawing before I got knocked up.

In the middle of turning into the Incredible Hulk, he throws the arm to his Darth Vader figure behind the couch, which he instantly regrets because Darth Vader is significantly less fun to play with without a light saber or arm to hold it with.

“Move the couch, Mommy,” he instructs me, “I’m hungry. I want a hummus sandwich.”

In the olden days, this kid would get a slap upside the head. I consider this. I consider giving him his fifth time-out of the day. Instead of choosing either of these options, I sweetly say: “I can’t move the couch, make you food and have a heart attack, all at the same time.”

He considers a moment and then says helpfully: “OK, so move the couch first.”

“Fine,” I reply. I’m tired. The day’s a bust. I’m already a shitty disciplinarian and tomorrow I’ll make a clean start. Right now, I just want to go on Facebook for five minutes.

Primo climbs over the back of the couch and retrieves Vader’s arm. Then we move the couch back into place and he makes himself nice and comfortable on it.

Two minutes later, I am happily reading about other people’s lives on my computer screen, when my son speaks.

“Now you can have a heart attack,” he says.

It is an earnest offer, and I realize he didn’t get my sarcasm at all. He thinks a heart attack is just another one of the annoying things Mommy always wants to do for herself, like take a shower, drink coffee, work, clean the house, pay bills. He says it like, “Hold on, wasn’t there something you were meaning to do? . . . . Oh yeah. Go ahead, treat yourself right. Have a heart attack. You deserve it, Mom.”

“Thank you,” I reply. I mean it.

Then I make everyone some of my grandmother’s chicken soup with passatelli and by the time David gets home, we’re slurping away happily and my children are model children and I am mother of the year again.