There are mothers who, for a variety of what I can assure you are very valid reasons, get by with what is required of them and nothing more.
And there are mothers who, for a variety of what I’m sure are very valid reasons (but that I have no personal experience with), always go above and beyond.
Happy Mother’s Day. No matter the style of your parenting or the size of your nest, I hope it was a great one!
Well, I forgot one of my kids tonight.
It was bound to happen eventually (Actually it might have happened before. I’m not sure. I forget.).
Fortunately her dad didn’t forget her and, while Ivy was the last kid picked up from her after school activity, she was remarkably fine with the fact that her mother forgot her.
(That’s not our kitten- Thank goodness!)
I mention this because:
A) Lots of people lately have been all “Omg you are amazing, you do so many things!” And I try to tell them things like, “Yeah, no,” and “Not really,” and then they don’t believe me so I try hard to learn how to accept a compliment and move on. But here is the thing. If you, like me, talk about slightly abnormal things like chasing escapee geese in a flooded river (I really should share that story here…) and traveling with pigeons and keeping bees, it seems that people assume you are doing all those things plus all the things that people, mothers even, regularly do. And to that crazy thought I say, “HA! Are you serious!?” my days have 24 hours in them just like everyone else’s. Something always has to give and in my life it always seems to be the “boring” things- you know, cooking, cleaning, and remembering things, like how to count to three (coincidentally that’s how many children I have) that fall by the wayside. Nobody is superhuman, least of all me.
B) She’s fine! I’m not the worst mother in the world (John assures me crackhead mothers and people who drown their children are much worse than me.). Sometimes people leave you hanging. Sometimes you have to wait. Sometimes shit happens. Would it be better if someone else taught my kid that sort of lesson? Probably. Do I still love her and she knows it? Yes.
C) Have I forgotten to return your call or your bowl or your e-mail or drop off a bag of apples or some other thing that I forgot I even forgot recently? Don’t be offended, it’s not you. I forgot my own kid today.
It was passed the time the kids should have been off the bus and in the door.
I quick stepped out to the top of the driveway – still no sign of them.
Crouching to peer under the hanging apple tree branches I double checked- nope, no kids.
Jumping up I ran back into the house pulled out my hidden cookie and sat down.
And as I enjoyed my last five minutes of quiet I thought to myself, “Yup. This is it. I’ve pretty much hit the pinnacle of motherhood and the stereotype of a stay at home mom all in one fell swoop. Good job mama, good job.”
We reached a major milestone in our family today.
It wasn’t one of those big ones they tell you about in baby books, nothing involving potty training or lost teeth. It wasn’t even one of those that parents dream of together while talking at the edges of playgrounds. Nothing like being able to buckle their own car seats and pour themselves cereal on a Saturday morning.
No, today, officially, all of our children can cut up their own pork chop.
Pork chop cutting is nothing like pancake cubing, or carrot slicing or even chicken chunking. No, pork chop cutting is hard. It requires a sharp knife and use of a fork at the same time, combine that with a meat that isn’t known as the most tender of dishes, and inevitably they make the terrible silverware on a plate screech.
Pork chop cutting is, in the words of my nephew, the worstest.
I loath pork chop cutting so much that I stopped buying, making and cooking pork chops. When John insisted I was being ridiculous, I said that was fine, if he made them he could also cut them. ALL of them. Because, there was a time in the house that if you were going to make pork chops you would have to cut up three other peoples’ pork chops in addition to your own. And you can’t just cut them into man sized hunks but r
ather into tiny, little, chew-able, girl, tidbits.
In addition, anyone with kids who isn’t some sort of super mom (the variety who gets all the required food, accouterments and drinks to the table before they sit down) knows that a mom doesn’t simply sit at the table, cut up pork chops and eat.
Oh no.
There are water spills to manage, bbq sauce to retrieve, the last pot of beans that you forgot to get, a cat to lock up, a dog to let out to pee, a kid to send to the bathroom and – oh look. You’ve only cut up one and half pork chops and the other cat is busy dragging yours out the door because you weren’t looking. But it’s fine because it’s cold and hard now and you can’t actually imagine risking more of that screeching noise to cut up another one anyway
And that is why I banned pork chops.
Tonight John made pork loin, which I am well aware is just a sneaky way of getting around the no pork chop rule. But tonight all the girls cut up their pork by themselves. They didn’t even ask for anything more than to pass the knife.
Pork chops are back on the menu!
I was gone for a few days last week.
The day I was returning home my Granny said to me “Your girls will be happy to see you.”
“Oh,” said I, “they might be, but they will hide it very well.”
After being gone for almost three days I walked up to Jane while she was playing with her friend. Jane’s friend happily called out, “Jane, your mom is here!” Jane glanced up and went back to playing without acknowledging my presence.
I didn’t see Ivy and Clara until the next morning. Ivy gave me a nice hug, told me she was ready for school and could she please now use the tablet that had accompanied me on my trip.
My reunion with Clara was not so much a reuniting but more of a spectacle as I watched her come into the room and flop face first into the couch while crying and yelling at everyone to go away. Clara and I are not morning people, I felt her pain.
At least John was very happy to see me. He said many adoring husband things and listened to my stories and held me close and then said. “I’m officially abdicating the running of the household, you’re in charge again.”
I’m not upset by these reactions, quite the opposite, I’m very happy to be able to leave my family without a soul crushing, guilt inducing, flood of tears. In fact, I’m happily leaving on vacation again this week, for much longer this time and it’s good to know they will all be just fine without me!
I have sweet, kind girls.
I also have kids and kids are by nature boundary pushers, button mashers and tiny manipulators.
My girls have discovered the wonders of youtube and all of the terrible trash that has been produced for kids that it contains.
I, like any good mother, use their smidgen of trash screen time to leverage as many chores out of them as possible before handing over a device.
They, like any kids worth their salt, do their best to wheedle and cajole and push for all their worth to see just how much extra time they can get.
Today my sweet girls found me in the kitchen and presented me with this:
For the record I’m pretty sure they intended to say that I am a person who draws rather than a drawer. However, I probably hold more of their stuff than I do draw things so maybe drawer is more accurate.
I, like any good mother, made admiring noises.
I, like any experienced mother, was touched and also suspicious.
And those sweet, kind, girls of mine, like any true, red blooded kids, waited no more than a half a heartbeat after I expressed my thanks before blurting out- “Can we watch more videos now?”
I have sweet, kind girls.
I also have kids and kids are by nature boundary pushers, button mashers and tiny manipulators.
Strange things happen when you become a mother.
Sometimes you start sounding exactly like your own mother. Sometimes you find yourself doing things you swore you’d never do (I mean other than sound exactly like your mother). And sometimes you find that you are the only person in your house that can find missing items.
This morning I was the only one that could find things in our house, specifically I was the only one who could find Jane’s jacket. It was, and I know this is weird, hanging in the closet where it was supposed to be. Jane couldn’t find it. After many rounds of the game called “Did you check?” ” Are you sure?” she finally looked in the closet again, and found her jacket.
Dramatic recreation for your benefit. As you can see her pink lined, leopard spotted jacket is quite visible. If she couldn’t have found her shoes in that avalanche waiting to happen on the bottom that would have been a different story…
Laughing she came over and explained the whole phenomenon to me.
“You know that thing that happens when you can’t find something and that blur thing gets in your eye so you can’t see the one thing you were looking for even though it’s right there? That’s what happened.”
I can’t help you out with why you may sound like your mother and the choices that you make once you have children, but there you have it straight from Jane the mystery of why only mothers can find things.
It’s a Blur Thing problem.
Today Jane said that the two of us should each make a wish.
She wished to be a fairy-princess-mermaid.
I wished for a nap.
She was quite disappointed in me.
I understood. I was too.
Unfortunately, I’ve found one of the great truths of motherhood to be that more sleep is actually your dearest wish.
And, sadly, neither one of our wishes came true today.
It’s okay though, Jane says we can wish again tomorrow.
When I am well and truly grumpy it is, unfortunately, obvious.
If the smoke coming out of my ears doesn’t clue you in, you can always listen for overly stomp-y footfalls or the slamming of cupboard doors. As if that’s not enough, I also turn into a yell-er. And not just any yell-er, oh no, I turn into my mother. I yell at people (and, yes, by “people” I mean my kids) with the same horridly ineffective, high pitched, squeaky voice that I always used to laugh at.
Even by sight I look grumpy, more disheveled than normal, (probably from the stomping and the slamming) and my arms have a tendency to wave and flail about when I talk (to further ineffectively accentuate the squeaks) and my face is not a welcoming one.
When Jane is well and truly grumpy she turns quiet, becomes fairly unapproachable and looks like this:
Maybe I need fairy wings?
Today I helped to a exhume a partially decomposed body* and then went on to rebury it in a proper grave.
And that’s why nobody is ever, really, prepared for motherhood.
Behind the Willows 