The Youth

In celebration of my birthday, David and I had a night away, courtesy of my parents. In the midst of our romantic stay-cation, we caught a film, a little romantic indie called Like Crazy.When we left the movie, I told David, "Get ready to listen to an hour-long rant about the state of youth." I pretty much tired of my own rant after five minutes but the gist of it was basically that young people today have no stinking stamina or patience. The movie, which was well-acted and looked good and all that, is about a pair of recent college grads who fall in love - he's a California-born furniture designer and she's a journalist from London. They spend an idyllic summer together and then she readies to go back to England to get another visa so she can come back. But then she decides, oh screw it, I'll just stay here, overstay my visa and I'm sure it'll be OK. Of course, they're fucked from that point on -- relegated to live on separate continents. Except, not really. Because though the girl's got to stay in England, there's absolutely no reason whatsoever the guy can't move to London with her. No reason they can't stay on separate continents and just work it the hell out for a while. Or, I guess, there is a reason, and that being . . . they have no stamina and patience.

I went on for a while about how I blame texting and twitter and the like for making young people so incapable of a love worth fighting for. Man, I'm an old geezer.

O frabjous day!

Primo slept for 12 hours last night. Twelve. And this miracle helped me understand something. My boy really needs every minute of those 12 hours of sleep, every night. This is too bad because he won’t get 12 hours of sleep again until the next time he goes to bed at 10:30 pm and wakes before dawn’s first light, which is precisely what happened the night before the 12-hour sleep miracle. He was so under-rested (thanks to an ill-timed late-afternoon car nap) that he was forced to surrender to the siren song of sleep at an unprecedented 6pm the following night.

And surrender he did, like a ton of bricks in the car so that I had to carry him up the three flights of stairs to our apartment. David, my geriatric spouse, threw his back out over the weekend and has been out of commission.

So although Primo comes up to my upper arm, I hoisted his legs on my hips and heaved him up the stairs. By the time I oh-so-gently lay him on his bed, I had to lay there, too, for a good five minutes, wondering if I should call for help. My heart was thundering so wildly it seemed a trip to the ER would be likely. I know, I know, I need to clock more (any) time on the elliptical machine. The point is, a little arrhythmia is a small price to pay for a successful car-to-bed sleeping transfer. And I did it. And he slept 12 hours. And life has never been so good.

Today, my son was an actual member of an angelic order. A wunderkind. A marvel to behold. Case in point.

We were walking down the street when a passerby complimented his striking blue eyes.

“You’re lucky,” I said when she had passed, “Mommy doesn’t have beautiful eyes like you.”

“Oh Mommy,” Primo said, “I like you just the way you are.”

And the hits just kept on coming. He peed without protest. He shared with his sister. He consented to having his hair washed. He walked all the way to Grand Army Plaza and back without a single complaint of wobbly leg syndrome. We lived together in perfect harmony today. Prim and me.

At bedtime, we always talk about our favorite moments of the day, and although these past few weeks, the kid’s been driving me so nuts my favorite moment has often been when he’s zoned out on the couch, watching the Backyardigans, tonight I said, “I had such a great day, Primo, its hard to choose.” To which he replied, “Maybe the whole day was your favorite moment, Mommy.”

Quite right, my son. Quite right.

Blessings

-->

Over the weekend my cousin gave a shot-out to my blog via her facebook status which read, “I’ll never have kids if I keep reading my cousin’s blog.” I thought this was great. In fact, I consider what the kids and I provide as a valuable service to my not-yet-parent friends. The effect of an afternoon with us is something akin to that of the Scared Straight program in which troubled teens get sent to juvi boot camp to get a taste of what life in the clink is really like. In the case of Scared Straight, the experience serves, one would hope, as a deterrent. In our case, it’s about managing expectations.

Since I was the very first of my friends to have kids (having two kids under 30 in Park Slope is basically babies having babies), I didn’t know what the hell I was doing or what the hell it would be like. I sort of thought the whole pregnancy and childbirth would be a cross between She’s Having a Baby and Nine Months and I guessed that when I had the kid, it would be like a Pampers commercial with some Full House thrown in. I am not an idiot. I just hadn’t spent time with people rearing young children. Well, let me qualify. I taught at day cares and summer camps and tutored kids and was an instructor at clown class. In fact, I’ve always sought out the small fries because they are smart and unsullied and inquisitive and open to joy. We understand each other. 

But –- spoiler alert -- teaching clown class is not the same as being a parent. I have been dwarfed by the sheer weight of the worry, the guilt, the pain I feel when they are ill or unhappy (pretty much a default setting at 2 and 4 years old). I have been ravaged by the sleeplessness which never seems to end, shocked and discouraged by the limitations of my patience and energy and generosity, enraged at how willing the kids are to bring me to my limits. I am often estranged from my husband. I blame him for things that aren’t his fault because there’s no one else to blame. To say parenting is hard is almost an insult. Driving a stick shift is hard. Parenting is impossible.

But, if you were to spend an afternoon with us, this wouldn’t be your takeaway. (Or at least, I hope not, for the sake of perpetuating the human species). Because you couldn’t help but discern, and quite powerfully, I think, that these children are a blessing which words cannot encompass. And I don’t mean “blessing” in the vague sense of something really cool or neat or nice. I mean, I get down on my old-before-their-time, broken-down knees and I thank God Almighty for the gift of these children, a gift I could never deserve.

My son told me last night that he loves me more than the sky. He called me into his room before he went to sleep and he said, “I am full of so much love, Mommy. I am so full of love, I love you more than the sky.” Then he went to sleep curled up in a ball with his blanket tangled around him and his sister slept in the crib beside him, with her wispy hair in her eyes and smelling of citrus, and both of their chests rose and fell, rose and fell and I actually thought I would have a heart attack if the good feeling didn’t dissipate. So much love, indeed.

So to all the non-parents out there, let me dissuade you from believing people like my cousin’s friends who replied to her facebook post, “OH NO! Don’t listen to her! Having kids is great! We travel, we go out ouce a week, we have so much fun!!!!!!!!”

First of all, dear readers, never take the advice of anyone who uses more than one exclamation point, unless it is me quoting my children, or they are being sarcastic.

Here’s the point. Parenting is not “fun,” and you don’t “still” do anything the way you used to do it. But it has the very real possibly of bringing your life into Technicolor.

Before this adventure of motherhood, I had fun galore, I traveled a ton, I was a happy, fulfilled woman with a career and friends and a soul mate. But looking back, it feels like I was all in sepia. I have never laughed so hard, or cried so hard, or prayed so hard or felt so fully at peace. If that deters you from having kids, well, at least you’ve been fully informed.

Being married is . . .

Last night, after they’d been bathed and dressed in PJs, my two kids snuggled close for book-time. They were in the thrall of a veritable lovefest. This time of night, I’ve noticed, predisposes the kids to one of two moods -- unredeemable, snarling hatefulness or expansive, exquisite elation. You can guess which I prefer.

“Oh, my little petuti!” exclaimed Primo, kissing the top of his sister’s head. He made up this mysterious nickname for her a few weeks ago and both of them are tremendously pleased with it.

“Petuti, who is your favorite person?” he asked in cooing tones.

“Humpty Dumpty,” she replied without having to think about it.

Primo smiled, forgiving her ignorance. He rephrased the question.

“Who do you love the most?”

“PRIM-O!” she shouted, “You best my friend.”

Primo wrapped his arms around her.

“When I grow up, do you want to marry me?”

“Yes,” she replied, solemnly.

“When I grow up, I will marry you,” he decided. And then it occurred to him that she, being only two years old, might not know the meaning of matrimony, so he added: “Being married is when you spend all your time with somebody.”

At first I was a little disappointed that this was the takeaway my son has gleaned from the example set by David and I. No mention of love or sacrifice or loyalty or happiness. Just a commitment of hours – many, many hours. As if we were two roommates in a rent-controlled apartment on some cherry block in the West Village who can’t afford to move out. Or co-workers with adjoining cubicles.

But then I realized there were many worse conclusions Primo might have drawn from his four years with David and I. It could have been, “Being married is when you spend all your time yelling at somebody because they never wash the dishes or sort the recycling correctly or do their share or cherish you enough or show enough affection or make you feel beautiful.” It could have been, “Being married is when you willingly sentence yourself to life without parole in an emotional prison.”

After a moment of contemplation, I concluded it wasn’t a half-bad description if you take “time” to mean eternity, til death do us part and beyond. Neither was it a half-bad reflection on our marriage. Its not the stuff Shakespeare and Danielle Steele is made of, but who cares? I’ll take reality, with all its pockmarks, any day. The fact that my son loves his sister more than anyone else in the wide world and expresses that love by telling her he wants to marry her makes me think that David and I, the unit, aren’t the colossal mess I sometimes worry we are. And when I tell this story to David later on, he agrees. And that, my friends, is romance, married-with-children-style.